Rules in place to protect victims of crimes and, in many cases, minors are being inadvertently undermined by bloggers and social media site users. The concept of publication bans by the courts has been around for years, at least here in Canada, and have kept journalists from publishing details of certain cases that the court deems necessary in order to protect some or all of the parties involved. While journalists are well aware of the consequences of reporting on these details, it appears as though the general public is ill informed, ignorant, or oblivious to the concept of publication bans. Case in point, a judge in the case of a man involved in a recent abduction case in Moncton New Brunswick has placed details of the incident under a publication ban. Yet the writings of a social media user clearly ties the victim of the case to the incident. It will be interesting to see how the court reacts to this regardless of whether or not the unfortunate remarks have since been removed.
Source: CBC
