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Ryan Giggs Named as Premier League Star at Epicenter Of Twitter Privacy Debate Ryan Giggs, the longtime Manchester United star, has found himself at the center of a debate in English Parliament regarding violations of court-ordered privacy injunctions via Twitter, after he was outed as the English footballer named as having had an affair with former Big Brother cast member Imogen Thomas by a member of Parliament over the weekend. John Hemming, the MP for Birmingham Yardley, named Giggs in a question to attorney general Dominic Grieve, as part of a larger debate regarding privacy injunctions and Twitter. Giggs had been linked to Thomas by thousands of Twitter users earlier in the weekend, despite an injunction that forbid any media outlet from releasing his name to the public in relation to the scandal. Per the Telegraph's report: "With about 75,000 people having named Ryan Giggs on Twitter, it's obviously impractical to imprison them all," Hemming said. He also went on to declare that Giles Coren, the Times columnist, was the journalist supposedly threatened with contempt of court proceedings in relation to another privacy injunction – although Grieve had previously told MPs that he was not planning legal proceedings against a journalist in relation to this case.
While Giggs' alleged affair is certainly newsworthy, the larger story here regards Twitter as a means to disseminate news. The way things stand in Britain right now, if an injunction is placed on using a player's name in regards to something like an affair, newspapers are forbidden from reporting on it. But, social media users can proceed as normal with little fear of retribution, because they publish in such massive numbers at once, making prosecution difficult, if not impossible. This has the potential to turn into a fascinating debate about privacy issues and social media websites, as Giggs is hardly the first big-name athlete to have himself named in relation to an affair via Twitter. Obviously, it's impossible to stop people from posting about issues like this, so what sort of action can be taken? Could the injunctions be stopped, since the information will be disseminated no mater what? Giggs surely couldn't have envisioned his injunction turning into something like this, but it should be quite interesting to see where his affair with Imogen Thomas will lead us going forward.
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