Well. the UK courts think they can control Twitter. Well, at least defamatory speech. From the Auckland Pravda
Tweeters have been warned to be much more cautious about what they send into cyberspace after Chris Cairns’ precedent-setting victory.
And despite a media law expert saying he was always going to win, Cairns has expressed his relief that the verdict came out in his favour.
Cairns’ case against Indian businessman Lalit Modi – who accused the cricketer of match-fixing on Twitter in 2010 – was the first defamation trial that stemmed from the global social networking phenomenon.
In the meantime, two grumpy sons are looking at their timetables. They have a three day week: yesterday was a teacher only day. Son two has rehearsals for the school play all week, and doctors appointments. The usual week, compressed into three days.
Onto todays reading.
1Are we beginning to commend ourselves again? Surely we do not need, as some do, letters of recommendation to you or from you, do we? 2You yourselves are our letter, written on our hearts, to be known and read by all; 3and you show that you are a letter of Christ, prepared by us, written not with ink but with the Spirit of the living God, not on tablets of stone but on tablets of human hearts.
4Such is the confidence that we have through Christ toward God. 5Not that we are competent of ourselves to claim anything as coming from us; our competence is from God, 6who has made us competent to be ministers of a new covenant,
In the end, the social media is a form of speech. And in all forms of speech we have to show some forms of care. It is fairly easy to blog badly (I have done enough of this over time) or comment unwisely. It is even easier to tweet sarcastically — brevity is a tool for sarcasm.
Paul argues that his reference, his letter of introduction, his social media reputation — is the lives of the people he has influenced, not the words he has written. And this is correct.
About seven or so years ago the minister who ran the church I grew up in died. He had been a missionary in the Sudan for twenty years and then served in the Presbyterian church until he retired in the late 1970s and he then lived to see the new century. At his funeral, the church overflowed. People talked about a lifetime of witnessing and service in many roles and functions, paid and unpaid. He demonstrated that his life was written in people.
He wrote no books that I know of. Instead, he served, and he now has his reward. The words we write have power and consequences, as Chris Cairns has just demonstrated. However, the lives we influence are a witness to our ministry and calling.