It looks like the folks over at UCT, along with those over at the Western Cape High Court, don’t quite understand how Twitter works, first underestimating the power of social media to galvanise a cause and now attempting to and potentially succeeding in making it illegal to use the hashtag #feesmustfall.

This one contains some serious legal technicalities so over to HTXT to flesh this one out:

…events took a rather ugly turn when the management at UCT announced that it had applied for and been granted an interdict from the Western Cape High Court, which effectively banned protesting and disrupting campus activity…

The interdict, which is otherwise standard legal fare, contains a list of respondents who are forbidden from protesting at UCT unless they make representation at the High Court for permission to do so. It’s aimed largely at organisations, and includes Sasco UCT, Pasma UCT and UCT Left Movement Students. It also, rather more bizarrely, includes the hashtag students have been using on social media networks to make their concerns and posts searchable: #FEESMUSTFALL.

If you’re thinking this sounds a bit silly you’re not alone, although some legal experts are worried about the implications this will have for free speech:

Jane Duncan, Professor of Journalism at the University of Johannesburg, says the inclusion of the hashtag demonstrates a clear misunderstanding of how the internet works, and in its ill-defined breadth could make criminals of anyone who uses it.

“Largely the interdict is focussed on preventing the students from engaging in certain actions, but the inclusion of the hashtag means that it also covers speech too,” says Duncan. “The forms of behaviour that the interdict covers include disrupting or interfering with the normal activities of the university, intimidating, threatening, harassing or harming people on campus, incitement to unlawfully occupy UCT premises and preventing particular individuals from returning to work.”

“This means that anyone using the hashtag and engaging in such speech would be guilty of a crime,” Duncan adds. “If [students] continue to use this hashtag, tweeters could be arrested for violating the interdict, in much the same way that students associated with the interdicted organisations are being at the moment”…

In other words, if a student uses the hashtag #FEESMUSTFALL in a tweet and a member of UCT’s management feels (or says they feel) threatened or harassed, the tweeter could find themselves in hot water.

No one is quite sure how the High Court intends to enforce this decision and Duncan believes they are the ones who will end up with egg on their faces:

“There is something ludicrous about interdicting a hashtag,” says Duncan. “It would appear that the court really doesn’t understand how Twitter works, and the futility of interdicting a hashtag.”

I guess we can only wait and see how this one plays out, although I doubt it will stop an uprising the likes of which has not been seen for many a year.

[source:htxt]