Our View – Be Careful What You Write

The hysteria on social media following the allegations that an unnamed BBC presenter had behaved improperly with a person apparently aged 17 saw the worst of some people reflected in their posts.

Immediately, there were a flood of ‘suggestions’ of who that person could be and suddenly BBC presenters including Ryland, Jeremy Vine, Nicky Campbell and Graham Norton were being wrongly ‘named and shamed’ by ignorant members of the public.

The word ignorant has several meanings but ill-informed and rude are probably those which are closest to the truth about those naming names

They were ignorant for two reasons, firstly because they were simply speculating and had no knowledge and secondly because they don’t understand the fact that they lay themselves open to civil lawsuits whereby they could end up bankrupt.

Once something is published (and this is true for social media and websites as well as in the press), any wrong and malicious statement could be argued in a court of law to be either libel or defamatory.

As the world changes, so more celebrities are turning to the law to sue those maligning them and some large sums have been won by those taking such action.

We at Euro Weekly News made sure that we didn’t join the ‘feeding frenzy’ and didn’t suggest any names until the wife of Huw Edwards confirmed it was him.

This is clearly responsible reporting and we ensure that any comments on our website are checked by a human being before being posted to ensure that no libel, profanity or even hurtful statement appears.

Be careful what comments you put on Facebook or similar because it’s now open war against the trolls.