Tweet = Lawsuit?
I’m not sure if this is the first lawsuit resulting from a tweet on Twitter, however it’s the first tweet lawsuit I’ve heard of. The tweet certainly was offensive but did it cause anywhere near the $50,000 being asked for? The person sending the tweet (whose Twitter account is now deleted — not sure if by Twitter or the person’s choice) apparently only had around 20 followers at the time of the tweet.
This is something I think a lot of people aren’t aware of when using social networks — if you’re not employing the features they offer to protect the messages you write from being read by the public, you do stand a chance of offending someone and a lawsuit possibly resulting from that. Tweets such as “Who said sleeping in a moldy apartment was bad for you? Horizon realty thinks it’s okay”, are both pointless and asking for trouble. While this may be the first lawsuit resultant from an inappropriate tweet, I’m sure it won’t be the last. Ironically enough, the massive media exposure this story received has likely done far more damage than the initial tweet did.
![[Post to Twitter]](http://llll.com/wp-content/plugins/tweet-this/icons/tt-twitter-big4.png){kind=icon}
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July 28th, 2009 at 5:24 pm
I seriously doubt that this lawsuit will hold up in court.
July 28th, 2009 at 6:49 pm
“We’re a sue first, ask questions later kind of an organization”.
LOL…like that makes me really want to sign a contract with them. If you ask me, that’s 1000 times more damaging than a tweet about mold. Another company that has outgrown its usefulness.
Still, this does bring up an interesting aspect to the way social media makes your private life/comments public fodder. Instead of complaining over a beer with coworkers, people are publishing their gripes. That means they are liable for libel. This is another case where the laws are falling behind the times.
July 29th, 2009 at 10:15 am
@ Shaun: Yeah, I don’t think this will hold either. It will be interesting to see what happens when this repeats itself with someone who has 100,000+ followers — at that point I would imagine someone could reasonably claim that a tweet damaged their reputation.
@Bill: Completely agree — reminds me of everything we’ve seen over the past few years with the RIAA.
July 29th, 2009 at 2:13 pm
Horizon Realty Responds to Lawsuit Twitter Controversy:
http://mashable.com/2009/07/28/horizon-realty/
July 31st, 2009 at 1:16 pm
Thanks for the link Shaun
September 11th, 2009 at 5:18 am
A case like that is unthinkable in Europe. We do it all the time