'Awarning - don't go there" was the advice given Twitter addicts, who can sometimes be careless as they gossip over their cyberspace back fence. It was issued by the U.K.'s Lord McAlpine as he collected $293,000 in damages from the BBC and a further $200,000 from the U.K.'s ITV network and prepared to sue others among the 1,000 people who had tweeted his name as a pedophile.
It all started on Nov. 2 when Newsnight, the BBC's flagship of excellence in journalism, broadcast a documentary on the abuse of children in North Wales care homes. A highly placed senior member of the British Conservative Party was named as one of the main abusers, and the world of Twitter became alive with speculation and accusation, with Lord McAlpine's name prominently featured.
The Daily Telegraph reported that a former care-home resident, Steve Messham, seemed to confirm the abuser's identity, but quickly withdrew his allegations after being shown a photograph of McAlpine. The Telegraph reported that on viewing the photograph, Messham "admitted he had made a mistake - and apologized."
The BBC was keen on flushing pedophiles into public view - had been since October 2011, when the first cool winds of autumn revealed that one of its own "personalities" had been a predatory pedophile for decades; and that those in charge at the BBC had probably known about their star's predilection for young impressionable girls, but had taken no action. Sir Jimmy Savile (he was doubly knighted with British and papal knighthoods, and was the holder of a prestigious OBE) had been untouchable in life, but not in death.
He was a few days short of his 85th birthday when he died on Oct. 29 and the sordid decades of his life were made known - and confirmed by the BBC and Scotland Yard, which holds a comprehensive file on the now dead and disgraced Savile. The BBC did a quick investigation, senior officials resigned and a major probe continues to try to ascertain who knew what and if any other staffers shared Savile's proclivities.
It was in late October, with the Savile shame unfolding, that Newsnight was offered the documentary alleging pedophile activity in care homes for children. On Nov. 2, the exposé was aired with the unnamed "senior member" of the governing Conservative Party cited as the care-home pedophile. One can only wonder if the BBC was trying to divert the shame of its own child-abuse scandal by shifting the focus of attention. Whatever, in the language of today, the Internet went viral as those who tweet decided to "out" the Tory villain.
A few days after the Newsnight broadcast, ITV aired its news-in-depth feature, This Morning. Prime Minister David Cameron was quizzed about the prominent Tory plying his pedophile evil in North Wales. Reporter Philip Schofield tried to hand Cameron a list of child abusers he said he had culled from the Internet. In the attempt, he "misjudged the camera angle" and flashed the names on screen. It was never his intention, he said, to make public the name of McAlpine, a former Conservative Party treasurer under Margaret Thatcher.
McAlpine, 70, launched immediate libel and defamation actions against BBC and ITV. Both apologized "unreservedly" as they handed over cheques for atrocious journalism and the fuel they had added to the Internet conflagration.
But McAlpine wasn't through. "One day," he told the Telegraph, "life is normal, then suddenly to find yourself a figure of public hatred - unjustifiably - is terrifying." He asked his lawyers to track down the Twitterers. In short order, they had a 1,000-name list of "original tweets" and a 9,000-name list of those who passed it on as titillation.
The Telegraph reports McAlpine will likely pursue a dozen or so better-known original Twitterers. High on the list is Sally Bercow, wife of the Speaker of the U.K. House of Commons, who says her tweet may have been "foolish" but wasn't libelous. At the time of this writing, her lawyers are talking settlement with McAlpine's lawyers.
Leader of McAlpine's legal team Andrew Reid ominously warned Twitter-ers and bloggers: "We know who you are. Twitter is not just a closed coffee shop among friends. It goes out to hundreds of thousands of people and you must take responsibility for it. It is not a place where you can gossip with impunity, and we are about to demonstrate that."
In other words, while we live in a wonderful world where we are free to tweet or blog with abandon, we should never forget that the Internet, like Lewis Carroll's Jabberwock, "has jaws that bite and claws that catch."
We should be careful when we gossip. As lawyer Reid told the Telegraph: "Let this be a lesson to everybody that trial by Twitter or trial by the Internet is a very nasty way of hurting people unnecessarily and it will cost people a lot of money."
So, tweet on if you must. But be careful. Free speech can be expensive.
