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November 24, 2008 5:43 AM PST

Report: British juror axed for disclosures on Facebook

by Caroline McCarthy
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A British woman has reportedly been kicked off a jury for posting a "note" on Facebook asking her friends what they thought of the trial.

She was given the boot after the court received a tip about the posting.

The original source of the story is the U.K. tabloid The Sun, which is better known for trashy stories about Prince Harry's partying habits than for sound news about social networking.

Regardless, spilling court case details on the Web certainly sounds like pretty good grounds for getting the boot.

The Sun explains: "It was thought she did not use privacy settings, meaning the Facebook posts could be read by anyone." Well, not quite. You need to be logged into Facebook in order to read anything on the site, something that occasionally gets on the nerves of the "open Web" crowd. But if the juror had no friends-only settings in place, the note could still have been pretty public.

The woman's name has not been released, but the court appears to have been Burnley Crown Court in Lancastershire, and the case involved child abduction and sexual assault. According to The Sun, the woman posted details of the case on Facebook and added, "I don't know which way to go, so I'm holding a poll." Yeah, that's bad.

The trial is said to have continued with 11 jurors instead of 12.

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About The Social

CNET News' Caroline McCarthy is a downtown Manhattanite who believes that, despite popular opinion, the Web can actually help your social life. She's happily addicted to fun social-media tools from Twitter to Yelp to Facebook, sends an inordinate number of text messages, and has a tendency to waste time at the office reading restaurant blogs. Here, she explores all facets of the Web's gregarious side, as well as the unique tech culture in her home city of New York. (Don't call it Silicon Alley.)

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