Legal Research

140 Characters of Defamation

By Steven Matthews

[HT to Chicago Bar Tender] Anatomy of a Twitter lawsuit:

• One 140 character tweet, reading: “You should come anyway. Who said sleeping in a mouldy apartment was bad for you? Horizon realty thinks it’s okay”
• Side note: account in question was public, with twenty total followers.
• Realty Co. takes exception, and replies with a $50k defamation suit.
• And… the heavy-handed response goes viral (84 media stories & growing strong) causing more damage than ever imagined.

Chalk up another vote for the “do nothing” response.  :)

Full post as published by Slaw.ca on July 28, 2009 (boomark / email).