• The Guardian, Tuesday, October 13, 2009 3:45 PM

The Guardian reports on an interesting case of journalistic censorship in the age of Twitter, and one in which it is intimately involved. After the newspaper was banned from reporting the contents of a parliamentary question regarding a toxic dumping scandal yesterday -- apparently legal in the UK -- the topic was widely picked up and aired on Twitter.

Indeed, Trafigura, a London-based oil trader connected with the dumping, was the most used word on the micro-blogging platform this morning. The Guardian editor-in-chief, Alan Rusbridger, tweeted the gagging order with the question "Did John Wilkes live in vain?"

"Instead of suppressing the story the attempt backfired," the paper writes. "It might be a bit too exaggerated to call it a historic moment, but surely the real-time web passed its test today."

Read the whole story at The Guardian »