Attorney General Warning on Social Media Court Case Comments

Dec 04, 2013

Written By Jos Weale, Managing Editor, All About Law

The Attorney General will issue guidance on Twitter to help prevent users from committing a contempt of court through their tweets on court cases.

Dominic Grieve QC said that inappropriate comments on court cases published on social media networks “could put a court case at risk”.

Social media is subject to the same laws and obligations as the traditional media. As such, publishing comments about a case and those involved in a way that could been seen to sway opinion and prejudice a trial could result in a conviction for contempt, and possible imprisonment.

The Attorney General is reaching out with guidelines on Twitter to prevent this. The advisories have up until now only been issued to the media. The aim is not to silence, rather to help tweeters to publish lawful comments.

Mr Grieve said: "Blogs and social media sites like Twitter and Facebook mean that individuals can now reach thousands of people with a single tweet or post.

"This is an exciting prospect, but it can pose certain challenges to the criminal justice system.

"In days gone by, it was only the mainstream media that had the opportunity to bring information relating to a court case to such a large group of people that it could put a court case at risk.

"That is no longer the case and is why I have decided to publish the advisories that I have previously only issued to the media."

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