Last updated at 8:57 AM on 9th May 2011
A single user, who quickly attracted a following of 20,000, set up an account claiming to ‘out’ those behind the legal gagging orders – but riddled with errors.
So many Twitter users began exchanging messages supposedly naming high-profile figures who have hidden their secrets that part of the site crashed.
Jemima Khan (left) and Gabby Logan have both been at the centre of intense speculation over injunctions
Today Liberal Democrat MP John Hemming, who is compiling a report on super-injunctions, said: ‘It shows the utter absurdity of what is being done in the courts. It ignores the way that modern communication works.
‘Normally these things are kept so that only a few people in North London know what is going on. But more recently people have been coming to my constituency surgery and telling me that they know who these people are.’
The move also made plain how the practice of creating injunctions has spawned its own global rumour mill – much of it untrue.
The socialite immediately struck back, denying the claims. On Twitter, she wrote: ‘This is not true. I have no super injunction.’
The user may be some ‘students having a laugh’, she said, but added: ‘Not v funny if you are someone’s wife.’
This page censored the names of celebrities, but Twitter was not responsible - we can't show pictures of the site that 'outed' the gagging law stars for legal reasons
Twitter said it was not responsible for adding the word 'redacted' to the tweets.
Privacy law written on the hoof has had consequences unforeseen by judges, who developed it on the back of human rights legislation designed to protect an individual’s private life.
No judge has given any indication that they realised giving a gagging order to cover up the sexual misbehaviour of one celebrity could damage the reputations of the innocent.
At the weekend, TV presenter Gabby Logan issued a fresh denial over false rumours that she has had an affair with BBC colleague Alan Shearer. She was again trying to damp down internet speculation sparked by a privacy injunction granted by a judge to a different TV star.
The mother of two said the gossip was ‘unfair’ and declared of the allegation that she is having an affair: ‘I am not and never have.’
There is growing concern that the use of unregulated and unmonitored privacy injunctions is spiralling out of control.
Conservative MP Louise Bagshawe, who recently had a joke about one injunction case censored on the BBC’s Have I Got News For You, labelled the Twitter messages a ‘grassroots protest’.
‘If you have one of these injunctions you will probably find you are exposed on the internet within hours and the press interest will last much longer,’ she said, adding:‘Another consequence is if anyone has a super injunction for a good or valid reason, they are tarred with the same brush. That is something judges ought to consider.’
Meanwhile, media lawyer Mark Stephens said: ‘Clearly the courts are coming second best here. The reality is if you go for one of these injunctions you paint a cross on your back as a target for every itinerant blogger and user of social media.
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