Tweet and Be Damned

All present and correct after the Rapture? Obviously we're all sinners as we weren't amongst the 'chosen' who ascended to heaven at six o'clock on Saturday. I can't deny that I'm quite glad that I wasn't one of the chosen - I would have missed the latest episode of Dr Who if I'd have floated off at six. I daresay that one person who wishes that they'd been whisked away on Saturday evening is Ryan Giggs - who I can apparently mention now in connection with that superinjunction, as he's been 'outed' now in parliament - having been the subject of a whispering campaign on Twitter, then a front page headline in Scotland, (where the injunction didn't apply), concerning his private life. Of course, we still don't actually know that he is the footballer who obtained the injunction to prevent reporting of his alleged affair with a former reality TV micro-celebrity. I think it safe to assume that he is the footballer who was trying to get Twitter to give up the details of people tweeting his name in conjunction with the injunction. Which doesn't mean the tweeters were right. After all, it seems more likely that he'd be trying to take action against Twitter users if he had been wrongly identified by them.

Think about it, if he was the anonymous injunction-seeker, taking such action would surely only serve to confirm that the Tweeters were right. Which is what leaves me uneasy about this whole business - the fact that people were bandying about someone's name in public, basically saying that he'd had an extra-marital affair, without actually knowing for sure that it was true. What if they'd got it wrong, and it turned out that they'd been busily defaming an innocent man? Would the moralising bastards behind the campaign have felt any remorse? I somehow doubt it. The fact is that exercises of this nature have less to do with principles than with self-importance on the part of those participating. Cyber-mobs deluding themselves into thinking that they're doing something radical and important by Tweeting someone's name is one of the things about the web which are increasingly pissing me off. It's a pity the Rapture didn't take all these holier-than-thou bastards who are apparently so without sin themselves they're able to throw stones (via twitter) at others.