Last month I wrote about someone who lost their job due to poor use of GPS. Now, a woman is being sued over her tweet, which criticized Horizon and the mold in her apartment. The offensive part of the tweet read as follows; "Who said sleeping in a moldy apartment was bad for you? Horizon really thinks it's ok."
This is the first lawsuit based solely on a tweet. A lot of people consider Twitter more of a public forum then a publishing method, and public chatter is usually not grounds for defamation lawsuits. But Twitter is still a developing service, and a lot of Tweeters are still not sure what it is. Because it's multifunctional, and so easy to use, it has continued to be loosely defined since it's creation. But in this age of lawsuits, Twitter may end up being defined by an outside source.
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Horizon actually responded to this lawsuit with the comment "We're a sue first, ask questions later kind of organization." http://mashable.com/2009/07/28/horizon-realty/
ReplyDeleteWhat strikes me as the funniest is that they accused her of broadcasting the untruth to the world when she only had 20 followers. NOW it is known around the world, but not because of her tweet but because of the lawsuit.
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