A Greek court sentenced television presenter Stathis Panagiotopoulos the day before yesterday to three years’ imprisonment, suspended, for publishing intimate personal moments (his own) online with a former partner. The court found his intent was to cause harm—repeatedly. An offence prosecuted as a felony, though the judges decided to downgrade it to a misdemeanour, ruling there was no malicious intent, whilst his lawyers delivered his defence.
These past days we’ve been living through the publication of private written exchanges between two men. It doesn’t fall into the revenge porn category like the case above, but the damage it inflicts is identical. It’s the exposure of a human being, their demolition, their humiliation. Two people spend time very close to one another, and when the relationship falls apart—for whatever bloody reason—one of them drags out the messages they once exchanged. Selectively. Cherry-picked. However he fancies. He throws him to the lions in the arena. And the spectators lap up the show, with no one stepping in to stop it. (The new Data Protection Commissioner is nowhere to be seen—we haven’t heard a peep from her since the day she was appointed.)
In this case—Andreas Hasapopoulos versus Odysseas Michaelides—someone might invoke the public interest. But that’s not really what this is about. This is private conversation between two people who were (at the time) connected by friendship. And when one of them felt he’d been wronged, he decided to put out the messages they’d exchanged. He didn’t do it at some neutral moment when you could trot out “public interest” as cover. He did it when he felt wronged: when he reckoned he’d stood by Odysseas Michaelides whilst he was being attacked from all sides, but now that he’d formed a party, Michaelides had “dropped” him, choosing others at his side instead (and on his ballot).
The protection of private communication is a fundamental pillar of trust. In journalism we have—or had, I don’t know anymore—the term “off the record”. Someone can speak to a journalist trusting they won’t use what’s been said. God help us if that stops being true, and especially if it stops being true in personal conversations. God help us if we’re frightened to trust one another. Right now we’re watching this whole saga between these two men playing the fool, or picking sides, or shrugging it off as if it’s got nothing to do with us. But with that attitude, we’re allowing the normalisation of leaking private conversations—or even private moments with audio and video. And above all, no authority is stepping in to protect the principles that ought to govern public life.
