"TO TWEET OR NOT TO TWEET; THAT IS THE QUESTION!"

I thought I'd break with tradition and make an observation on a current affair.

What is our obssession with free speech and "the public has a right to know / it's in the public interest" lobby? A lobby incidently that's almost certainly motivated by money. Whether or not a footballer had an affair is not my business nor anyone else's other than all those private individuals who are actually directly involved in some way and most of those will already be suffering and in pain without the salt of public humiliation being poured liberally into their wounds. It certainly doesn't come under the heading of being in the public interest in the genuine sense for which that term was intended. It comes under the heading of 'gossip'; the lurid fascination with the intimate details of other peoples' lives.

It's in the interests of newspapers and magazines and other forms of communicative media, all of which are financially driven. I wonder just who the individuals were who tweeted in defiance of a law designed to help protect someone's private life; I wonder how many of them had connections with the media? "A rose by any other name?" And what are 'Lords' playing at and what is motivating them? Exposure of someone else's weaknesses for public delectation is just one more sad indictment on the increasing decline of once valued traits of a truly civilized society: honour, respect, discretion and an identification with our common human frailty which should lead us to cover 'Noah's' nakedness, not expose it and laugh at it.

Don't get me wrong, I value free speech very highly, but in a world where the media 'governs' (in a very real sense; think it through people) we have to be extremely careful that we fiercely defend the other equally valuable rights; like the right to a private life, even if you're a 'celebrity.'