[Updated] No Tweeting Allowed During Royal Wedding?
If you were hoping someone would live-tweet the wedding, your hopes have been dashed.
With less than a day left before the royal wedding takes place, London is busy preparing for the thousands of people that will descend upon the city for tomorrow’s celebrations. However, while Vodafone and O2 have beefed up their networks to facilitate the people’s need to share photos and information from the streets of London, Westminster Abbey has apparently installed signal blocking technology to prevent guests from sharing information about the wedding.
It seems the guest list includes quite a few celebrities, and, as we all know, celebrities love to tweet. Some of these guests will be arriving as much as two hours early so, in a bid to stop some 1,900 guests from tweeting (or just leaking in general) information about the wedding or Abbey ahead of the main event, they’ve supposedly installed signal blockers.
According to Yahoo! News, the idea was suggested by senior members of the royal family and approved by police and security personnel over the last few days. Also in agreement are television broadcasters eager to avoid catching guests on their phones. Police told Yahoo! the signal blocker will be switched on on Friday morning and remain on throughout the service.
[Update] Well, isn't this interesting. The Register reports that the use of jamming equipment is against UK law (only a hazy exception to this law exists for locations inside the walls of Her Majesty's prisons, because they belong to the crown). However, while the Reg says it has confirmed with police that they have no intention of breaking this law, Yahoo! cites its own police official that says the jamming equipment would be in place for the duration of the ceremony. Whether this is just plain rumour, or a case of a misinformed police official getting things a bit mixed up, no one knows. We'll keep you posted on this one. Still, if it's illegal, there's a good chance it's not going to happen. You can add #royalwedding to your bookmarks, now.
Hat tip to collinsl for pointing us in the direction of the Register story!
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This story is based on rumour and is totally inaccurate. Jamming of this nature is illegal under UK law and a statement has been issued refuting this baseless claim. See here for more information: http://www.theregister.co.uk/2011/ [...] g_jamming/
Please remove this rumour-based story immediately.
This story is based on rumour and is totally inaccurate. Jamming of this nature is illegal under UK law and a statement has been issued refuting this baseless claim. See here for more information: http://www.theregister.co.uk/2011/ [...] g_jamming/Please remove this rumour-based story immediately.
Thanks for the link, collinsl. We've updated the story accordingly.
Worth pointing out that Her Brittanic Majesty is, in fact, the Law (and the Wireless Telegraphy Act 2006 is her Act). So if she wants jammers installed then it's a done deal. And in the same way that GPS went offline as both of the Gulf Wars started the Law will allow the Head of State to be protected by whatever means necessary.