Corrupt injunction, what’s your function?

I don’t tend to look at all the talk about the power of social networking as anything more than hyperbole. That said, every once in a while, a notable example like the recent Iranian election comes along and reminds us all that certain fundamental things have changed. If you spotted the word “Trafigura” in your list of trending topics on Twitter yesterday, then you were a part of another such example.

On Monday night, the Guardian posted an article announcing that they had been “prevented from reporting parliamentary proceedings on legal grounds which appear to call into question privileges guaranteeing free speech established under the 1688 Bill of Rights.” The matter at hand was a question scheduled to be addressed in parliament this week. But the Guardian was barred from identifying what the question was, who asked it, or who might answer it. They weren’t even allowed to specify why they had been prevented, “for the first time in memory,” from reporting on parliamentary proceedings.

“The only fact the Guardian can report,” the article states, “is that the case involves the London solicitors Carter-Ruck, who specialise in suing the media for clients, who include individuals or global corporations.”

Naturally, the Guardian vowed to go to court and fight to overturn the gag order. Meanwhile, details of the case began popping up on offshore political blogs, as well as in a notable article by Alex Massie of the Spectator, who identified “the question in, er, question” the following day:

“N Paul Farrelly (Newcastle-under-Lyme): To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what assessment he has made of the effectiveness of legislation to protect (a) whistleblowers and (b) press freedom following the injunctions obtained in the High Court by (i) Barclays and Freshfields solicitors on 19 March 2009 on the publication of internal Barclays reports documenting alleged tax avoidance schemes and (ii) Trafigura and Carter-Ruck solicitors on 11 September 2009 on the publication of the Minton report on the alleged dumping of toxic waste in the Ivory Coast, commissioned by Trafigura.”

“And this,” Massie added, “is a report [previously published in the Guardian] on how the oil company Trafigura tried to cover up pollution in Africa.”

So basically Trafigura, an oil company suspected of doing some pretty terrible things, hired Carter-Ruck to make them look good. When the alleged terrible things became a parliamentary matter, Carter-Ruck took steps to prevent an English newspaper from reporting on its own government. As a result, the Guardian couldn’t talk about the Trafigura question. Not only that, but they couldn’t talk about why they couldn’t talk about it.

But you know what? They were still allowed to tell people that something was going on in parliament that a bunch of corporate lawyers had forbidden them from covering. And that’s a much bigger, sexier, more intriguing story than some MP asking questions about an oil company that people like me had never even heard of before Carter-Ruck stepped in to protect their reputation.

Before the web, and Twitter in particular, this sort of thing might still have stayed pretty quiet. Columnists in magazines like the Spectator would have written a few hundred words about the sorry state of journalism, and that would have been the end of it. But Twitter gave people an instant global forum in which to spread the word like wildfire. Stephen Fry, for example, whose total number of followers is more than double the Guardian’s circulation, soon brought attention to the “grotesque and squalid” gag order.

Before long, the press was telling people to head to Twitter and Google for the goods. And by lunch, before the Guardian had even had an opportunity to officially challenge the gag order, Carter-Ruck backed off.

By then, of course, the damage had been done. In trying to keep the Trafigura issue quiet, Carter-Ruck ended up bringing it to the attention of a much wider audience.

Now, I’m not saying this happened because of Twitter, but it was obviously a prominent factor. The lesson for corporate polluters and their lawyers is that it’s not as easy as it used to be to sweep this sort of thing under the rug. But the more important lesson for everyday people like you and me is that it’s easier than it used to be to organize, ask some important questions, and make a genuine difference.

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