But can it be enforced?
It's starting to look like six anonymous tweets sent at the start of this week have catalysed a wholesale review by the legal establishment of its treatment of social media.
The Telegraph reported this morning on an injunction issued by the Court of Protection that specifically bans the publication of information on Facebook and Twitter. This sets a legal precedent as the first injunction to specify social networking services.
The case in question concerns a 43 year old woman who has been in a ‘minimally conscious state' since being admitted to hospital with acute swelling of the brain in 2003. Her mother has asked for life sustaining treatment to be discontinued, and for her to be cared-for ‘until such a time as her life comes to an end.'
There has clearly been some media interest in the case as the injunction also bars reporters from going within 50 metres of the woman's care home without permission. The injunction bars the publication of any information identifying the woman in: ‘any newspaper, magazine, public computer network, internet site, social network or media including Twitter or Facebook, sound or television broadcast or cable or satellite programme service.'
This case stands in stark contrast to reports of who a celebrity may or may not have slept with. This is clearly a very sensitive matter and if reporters are choosing not to respect the privacy of the people in question, there's a strong argument for using the law to protect them.
Whether or not it can, however, is another matter. The law remains unclear on whether social media services are themselves culpable if the law is broken by the publication of information on their services. Even if it was found that they are, it's hard to see what they could do to prevent such messages being published. Furthermore, in the case of Twitter, it doesn't look like the UK has any legal jurisdiction over it anyway.
