You better mind your tweets!

A judge has recently ruled that a twitterati be publicly lashed and jailed, because of a libel against Shams, the Kuwaiti singer.
The singer was “bold” enough to file a lawsuit against the person who defamed her at Twitter. The ruling by a Saudi judge is significant, as it puts an end to a controversial issue about the extent of personal expression and privacy on Twitter and other interactive social media platforms.
The ruling says that all people, including singers and entertainers, whose rights have been neglected by the judicial system, have equal rights before the law.
What’s more important, however, is the impact this ruling will have on people’s perception of expression, freedoms and rights. Now people can be held accountable for their tweets, whether that person is common folk or a public figure.
It’s getting more complicated now, since courts in various countries are willing to hear cases in this regard. Various courts in the United States and the United Kingdom have taken actions in similar cases.
This, in effect, will close the door to free expression, in its various forms, which is an attack on the very “raison d’être” of Twitter, Facebook and the rest of the social media. Now a personal comment or observation can be found as much incriminating as the written expression, if that expression bordered on the unlawful.
The general perception among the public is that social media is an open platform for personal communication, and that it is not bound by the restraining legal and political rules to which the traditional media is subjected.
But since they are mere personal opinions, why it is seen as traditional media? People express these opinions at home and among friends, so why are they being singled out?
The reason is that these new interactive social media platforms have proved to be very powerful opinion-makers and in general drive the political and social markets and their impact far exceeds that of the traditional media.
Because of that people started to count their losses and those who feel they are wronged are seeking the harshest of penalties.
In western courts, the damage caused by the media is measured by its size. A paper that sells a million copies each day is held more accountable than the one that sells a thousand. So we expect that the same reasoning will be applied to the social media. The more “followers” you have, the more serious is your offense, and the higher the penalty.
Sometimes judges, like police officers, tend to make very harsh judgments because they think the situation requires immediate intervention to stop “the large number of aggregate offenders,” or trends.
If you try to count the offenders on Twitter for one day only, you may find that they number in the thousands, and, according to the law, may deserve to be lashed or jailed.
Among them you will find the peddlers of false information. Another will outright slander a woman. Some will unjustly accuse others. Some will tend to be violent. Still some others will use tricks to raise money and some deliberately try to mislead the market.
Only a few will go all the way to the court. Through these few, the judge tries to drive his point home very forcefully.
These social media platforms are not private family gatherings. You should expect to be held accountable for anything you say on these platforms.
After the ruling in favor of Shams, we expect that many people will now refrain from openly speaking their minds against female entertainers, if their opinions happen to land them on the wrong side of the law.
Shams is indeed a brave person. She went to a Saudi court knowing that it does not welcome cases of people of the entertainment sector.
The judge, who did not want to be misunderstood, said that his injunction is against slander and libel, not mere criticism. You can criticize her performance or her voice or picture or opinion for as much as you want. But when someone accuses a woman of promiscuity then that becomes an issue.

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