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Post of the week - Strubbles vs jamelia

Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
Just two nominations this week so chose carefully who gets your vote and don't forget to hit nominate when you spot something that strikes a chord with you :)

Annaarrr nominated Strubbles in the coming out thread:
StrubbleS wrote: »
"Hi mom, what's for dinner tonight? Chicken? Oh great I love cock. No seriously I am gay, I'll be in my room."

frankipanda nominated jamelia in the superinjunctions thread:
jamelia wrote: »
I don't think this is the issue at all. And I think one of the biggest errors people make with respect to these questions is thinking that this is the issue, when actually, it's completely irrelevant.

I don't give a shit what Ryan Giggs has been up to either. And I think the media printing lurid stories about which footballer is shagging which model is tacky and tasteless, and there is no public interest in knowing it.

However - and this is a very big however - in a free, democratic society we should absolutely not censor the press or restrict freedom of expression on grounds of taste and decency. Of course it's a tacky and lurid story, and people have no interest in knowing about it, and reasonable people are not interested in knowing about it. But this is no justification whatsoever for banning the media reporting it - we should never, ever censor the press or the publication of any materials on the ground that the information it contains is in bad taste, or somehow below the lofty, elevated ambitions we have for our citizenry.

So if they are going to ban the publication of something, it should be because there will be harm to some specific individuals by allowing publication to go ahead, and further, that this harm is significant enough to outweigh the harm that is caused by censoring expression.

In this case, you might think that the harm to Ryan Giggs of reporting his affair gives us a reason to censor the press. However, there is also the matter of Imogen Thomas's right to freedom of expression. She has a right to tell her story if she so chooses, regardless of whether or not the public have an interest in hearing about it. And she is harmed if we stop her talking about it. So this superinjunction not only censored the press; it also restricted Imogen Thomas's right to freedom of expression, and I believe she has an interest in telling her story if she wants to, even if the story itself is not in the public interest.

The right of the press and the right of Imogen Thomas to freedom of expression, in my opinion, outweigh Ryan Giggs's right to privacy in this case. I disagree with those who say that celebrities don't have the same right to privacy as other people - I believe they do. But that has to be balanced against other people's rights, and Imogen Thomas has a right to free speech. Furthermore, the harm to Ryan Giggs is not directly caused by her telling her story. The harm to Ryan Giggs, and his family, was caused by him shagging her in the first place. And just because he's rich and can afford access to some powerful lawyers, does not mean he should be able to silence her.

The rest of the world is not immune to people gossiping about our extra-marital affairs, and no matter how much they might like to be, very rich men can't be either. The whole Twitter debacle proved that.

Of course, this all overlooks the suggestion that she may have tried to bribe him, but I think that is kind of irrelevant actually. She's a bad person if she tried to blackmail him. But that isn't enough of a reason to censor the story either

Two very different nominations but there can only be one winner :chin:

Post of the week - Strubbles vs jamelia 25 votes

Strubbles
52% 13 votes
jamelia
48% 12 votes
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