What You Can Learn From Prince Harry's Revealing Trip To Vegas

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http://www.forbes.com/sites/kashmirhill/2012/08/27/five-privacy-lessons-to-be-learned-from-prince-harrys-embarrassing-trip-to-vegas/

By Kashmir Hill
Forbes.com
8/27/2012

If you’ve been following the coverage of Prince Harry’s recent trip to 
Las Vegas, you’re likely very, very tired of hearing jokes about the 
“crown jewels.” The day after one reporter (ironically) recounted the 
British prince remarking to a security guard that he “had to be careful 
or else he’d be ‘up on Twitter or Facebook or YouTube thanks to 
somebody’s mobile phone camera,’” photos of the prince sans princely 
attire were published on TMZ, thanks to somebody’s mobile phone camera 
snapping away during a game of ‘strip billiards.’

The photos spread faster, farther and wider than the British Empire 
during its heyday, leading to some pity for a 27-year-old who seems to 
have difficulty steering clear of social media scandals.

News Corp titan Rupert Murdoch urged on Twitter to, “Give him a break. 
He may be on the public payroll one way or another, but the public loves 
him, even to enjoy Las Vegas.” Ironically, that was the day after the 
News Corp-owned Sun published the photos in its newspaper, despite 
warnings from the Royal Family’s lawyers that it would violate press and 
privacy laws. The Sun argued that the photos are already very much in 
the public domain, and that publishing them is thus no longer a privacy 
violation. (TMZ and the phone photographer took care of that.) It’s yet 
another example of Britain’s byzantine press privacy laws struggling to 
keep up with a world in which information is very difficult to contain, 
as when a Scottish newspaper flouted a “superinjunction” on the press 
not to reveal the identity of a soccer star involved in a sex scandal 
after his identity became widely known thanks to Twitter.

You are not Prince Harry. Naked photos of you and tales of your partying 
ways probably won’t fetch a pretty penny from gossip blogs, but we all 
do live in a world where our foibles can go public rather easily. The 
prince’s folly offers up some privacy lessons that could be relevant to 
you, even if you don’t have royal blood flowing through your veins.

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