Can we get the ability to flag profiles?

I should point out a correction, Mike. This isn’t a superinjunction, it’s an injunction. A superinjunction is when you can’t even mention the injunction exists without being in contempt of court, which is illiberal because it essentially means secret courts. Though a regular injunction you can say that the injunction exists, which is why papers are allowed to talk about the injunction in England and Wales without actually mentioning the names, and they have done so. See the Daily Mail’s “The Law Is An Ass!”

Here in Scotland I could probably name the names without legal trouble. However if I were to step across the border only a couple hundred miles away I probably could not. And I’m not sure if it counts if a copy of my message would be read in HTML in England despite me posting from Scotland to an American server.

I do have some sympathy with my opponents here. If some poor woman were photographed nude without her permission and that image went viral across multiple sites globally, she’d be pretty pissed, and she would be a bit disgusted at folk who try to mock her resisting it as creating a “Streisand Effect”, as if she were to blame for everybody else’s violation of her privacy, which is what “fighting it makes it stronger” can only mean in this case. The thing about the Streisand Effect is that it only gets you so far morally. It can lead to victim blaming.

And my opponents could also say that it is possible to beat the Streisand Effect by citing the example of the naming of the identities of the killers of James Bulger. This had gone a bit “viral”, but then the names had indeed still been removed at every instance in the end.

Though I fear the above example was only due to luck and the example above that no doubt due to the ignorance of porn viewers when determining if each and every nude image is consensual or not. There was more interest here in the UK about the James Bulger killers’ identities than say in the US because it was a UK story at its origin, and not as many were spreading the identities because many others objected to it, which may have made it easier for the police to stop.

It’s a bit scary to think that law has lost its competency here, and that no amount of law can stop memetic information if it’s up against millions willing to resist it. If the law does appear to succeed in putting it down, is that because the law’s force was strong, or because the people simply chose not to make the content viral? That’s a critical question, because if law is all in the mind anyway and authority is an illusion just like free will is, it would make sense that the latter bit of the answer would be right. We all, in the end, decide if laws should be followed or not, and papers called “laws” are inanimate objects that only mean something if we choose to act in favour of them. Law comes from Order, not the other way around.

That’s pretty disturbing, so it is possible that memes can’t be stopped by law online – and I really do mean meme in the Dawkins sense of the word: natural selection of expressions. So how do we deal with the nasty stuff?

I think we need to start considering focusing all the justice of civil compensation and prosecutions etc, if there is a case of course, on the “point of the leak”, not on folk who simply echo the leak. So if Hulk Hogan wants compensation for an act of revenge porn (I don’t know the full details but I assume it must have been revenge porn, I don’t think he would have won if he himself published it), he’d have to take it to Gawker or even the person who sent it to Gawker, not everyone else reporting on the story. Otherwise you get farces where because of international servers anyone can find out the UK injunction names but cannot talk about it between them in certain regional parts of the Union. And I’m sure you can still find the Hulk Hogan sex tape somewhere. If you worked hard enough, the killers of James Bulger too.

One exception to this might be child rape images, where those who echo them must also be punished. Though I think that works because the “Is it consensual? How am I meant to know?” line of thinking doesn’t hold up since a child cannot consent whatsoever. And the presumption must be made that those who possess such images must also have knowledge of and history with child rape criminal gangs who profit from the slavery, so it is easily justified to say why law must fight against it. And it succeeds very well because the majority will report and fight against child rapists, not spread evil images.

…so again, law only “works” because the masses follow it.

Therefore, in regards to the stuff where you’ve got to stop the point of the leaks, we may have to simply face the fact that we’re in an age where you can’t just walk up to printing-press bottlenecks anymore and put a hold on them. You’re up against a massive ball of rubberbands the moment something leaks, and even if you get 99% of them that 1% still lingers waiting to instantly turn into the big ball again (I’m sure there’s a better metaphor… probably the ProtoPets from Ratchet and Clank 2). So in this day and age, it makes more sense to focus all your justice on those who take something out of your private sphere initially into the public sphere without permission. Because chasing the echoes is only going to be horrible and ugly.

Super Injunction Injunction, what’s your function?
Trying to limit freedom of the press
which is pointless with the Internet.

Super injunction junction, what’s your function?
To protect British celebrities
from their own indiscretions.
Like hookers and blow, your place or mine, cock and tease!
Hey don’t publish that, please.

Super injunction junction, what’s your function?
I’m going to steal your freedoms if you’re not very careful.

So elton john was with a john so what ??