Twitter fans beware -- think before you tweet
Thursday November 12 2009
Before you hit the send button on that next salacious tweet, consider the following public service announcement: Beware what you share.
In the United Sates, a growing number of people are being challenged in court over seemingly innocuous tweets that have been taken the wrong way.
Author Alice Hoffman was forced to apologise recently after she called a Boston Globe book reviewer a "moron" in a tweet.
Singer Courtney Love was sued by a fashion designer after a series of defamatory tweets in which she harangued the designer as a liar and a thief.
In Chicago, an angry landlord slapped a $50,000 lawsuit on a tenant after she complained in a tweet about her mouldy apartment.
Mark Cuban, the owner of a basketball team in the national league, was recently fined $25,000 after he criticised a referee in a tweet.
Much of what appears on Twitter is just opinion (and in the US, at least, is protected as free speech) but with tweets limited to just 140 characters, the messages tend to be brief -- and extremely to the point.
In August a college student, Tyrone Schiff, created Twaxed.com -- a website devoted entirely to finding the most embarrassing tweets which Schiff then posts for all to see. "You never know how your words are being used, or used against you," he told the New York Times.
Irish Independent
