A RULING by the Press Complaints Commission that messages sent on Twitter cannot be regarded as private is a vitally important one for all who use this social media tool.

The ruling follows a case in which a government civil servant complained that messages about her work were private, even though they were intended for her 700 "followers", and should not have been published in a national newspaper.

The PCC ruling is absolutely correct. No one can expect that a message sent on the airwaves to 700 people can be regarded as private.

There is already too much abuse of privacy in this country, with international footballers getting super injunctions to prevent the public from learning about their different sexual infidelities.

All who use Twitter do so at their own risk and young people especially should be made aware that whatever they put on to social networking sites can be accessed by a much wider audience, with all that this entails.