Lawyers for the multi-national firm Trafigura have gagged the BBC from reporting about the dumping of Toxic waste in the West African state of Ivory Coast. The problem for the firm is that once things are out on the Internet they are very difficult to control and in response to the ban many people are posting about this issue and posting links to the video. Here is a BBC Newsnight report on Trafigura's attempts to suppress media reporting of their Toxic Waste dumping;
And here is the original Newsnight report on the Toxic Dumping Affair
As you will see on the first report the firm even went so far as to try to gag Members of parliament from asking questions about the matter. Trafigura now appears to have been successfull in imposing injunctions on the media to prevent reporting of an investigation into the toxic dumping affair.
It's important that we all resist attempts by companies or governments to control the reporting of public interest stories such as this. This is a real strength of the Internet - it's use by ordinary citizens to keep watch on those who have power over us.
"A Man's a Man for all that!" - Rabbie Burns
Dec 17, 2009
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3 comments:
They can't gag the net can they? Because of the gag orders, they have got more adverse publicity than they would have had they just allowed the process to run its course.
I first read about this some months ago in the London Independent. An absolutely disgraceful business. How typical that Trafigura, like numerous other big businesses with something to hide, does everything it can to keep other people from finding out the squalid truth. But as Ramana said, the internet is a fabulous vehicle for exposing dirty laundry.
I also think that a company that acts like this probably ends up with a worse reputation than if they had simply accepted responsibility and acted accordingly.
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