The term "super-injunction" has sometimes also been used imprecisely in the media to refer to any anonymised privacy injunction preventing publication of private information.
Critics of super-injunctions have argued that they stifle free speech; that they are ineffective as they can be breached using the Internet and social media; and that the taking out of an injunction can have the unintended consequence of publicising the information more widely, a phenomenon known as the Streisand effect.
The term "hyper-injunction" has been used to describe a type of super-injunction that also forbids a person from discussing the issue in question with journalists, lawyers or Members of Parliament.
Such injunctions have been criticised as anti-democratic and the former Liberal Democrat MP John Hemming used Parliamentary privilege to reveal the existence of a hyper-injunction surrounding an allegation that the type of paint used in water tanks on some passenger ships could break down and release toxic chemicals.
[16] Super-injunctions have also been criticised on feminist grounds with Maeve Mckeown arguing that "superinjunction allows rich men to legally protect their reputations at the expense of less-rich women".