Twitter may allow you to share anything and everything from anywhere, but that doesn’t mean that it’s always right to do so.
Spectators at a Georgia state coatroom have been banned from sending tweets during the course of a criminal trial.
District Judge Clay Land said that Rule 53 of the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure, which prohibits the “broadcasting of judicial proceedings from the courtroom”, can be extended to include the use of Twitter.
Both logically and ethically, that makes a lot of sense.
Many criminal trials are extremely sensitive, and judges have an obligation to control how both media and public are allowed to disseminate information.
What’s possibly harder is to enforce such a ruling. Short of confiscating mobile phones and other communication devices upon entering a courtroom, it could be quite hard to ensure that such a rule isn’t breached.
What do you think? Was the judge right to ban Twitter?
3 thoughts on “Twitter banned from courtroom, as it should be”
I don’t think the judge had the right to do that .It is very important for trials to be held in public.so it should be a transperent thing coz it ensures the right of a person.
Thing is, the media is often restricted in what it can report during a trial, and simply tweeting bits of a trial doesn’t provide a fair reflection of what’s going on. Public is one thing but universally available is quite another.
No, I don’t think the judge was right. But then again, I think broadcasting should also be allowed. What do you mean by “trials are extremely sensitive?” It is important for trials to be held in public. It’s one of those details that ensures peoples’ rights aren’t abused by the government.
Comments are closed.