Oh Be Careful Little Fingers What You Tweet

Oh Be Careful Little Fingers What You Tweet
28 posted on July 28, 2009
POSTED IN: Blog Posts, Culture, Technology

Be careful what you Tweet. It could cost you.

That’s something Amanda Bonnen is discovering the hard way. In May, the Chicago resident did what many of Twitter’s millions of users do – she tweeted a complaint. Specifically, she tweeted THIS complaint:

Today, Horizon Group Management filed a $50,000 lawsuit against her, alleging that her statement damaged the company’s business reputation. According to the complaint filed today, Bonnen “maliciously and wrongfully published the false and defamatory Tweet on Twitter, thereby allowing the Tweet to be distributed throughout the world.” Bonnen had 20 followers on Twitter at the time (her account is now shut down)

First of all, the legal wording they used is priceless, “false and defamatory Tweet on Twitter.” I wonder how long it took them to come up with that wording (defamatory Twittering? Tweeting a defamatory Twitter?).

Second and more importantly, the precedent this court case will set represents the new age we’re in. While some companies like Comcast are resolving their customer’s complaints through Twitter, others like Horizon Group seem to think it’s better to sue them.

What do you think? Should people be held liable for defamation because of what they say in 140 characters?

TWEET THIS

This entry was posted on Tuesday, July 28th, 2009 at 11:53 am and is filed under Blog Posts, Culture, Technology. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

19 Comments

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  1. Visit My Website

    July 28, 2009

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    1 Nick said:

    I don’t think they will get very far with that one. They are a public company and therefore they are open to public opinion and scrutiny of their services.

    If she could be held liable for her opinion, then so could millions of people who have ever published an opinion article in a local newspaper about a local company. I think this move actually makes them look worst.



  2. Visit My Website

    July 28, 2009

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    2 Amanda walker/ @lilypadphoto said:

    this is an extreme overkill. She only had 20 followers? This reminds me a little too much of how we truly do not have the freedom of speech. People can say much worse about th USA, and our President and don’t get sued. Who does this Horizon company think they are? What a bunch of losers….



  3. Visit My Website

    July 28, 2009

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    3 Ramon said:

    I wish I could sue for every nasty thing somebody said about me online. :)



  4. Visit My Website

    July 28, 2009

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    4 John Richard said:

    Weird Al’s sage lyrics are ringing in my ears:

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LfO9JUNXN7U



  5. Visit My Website

    July 28, 2009

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    5 Brian Ayers said:

    this company should sue themselves for defamation. This law suit only draws more attention to a complaint that likely only one or two people ever read. lame.



  6. Visit My Website

    July 28, 2009

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    6 Brad Ruggles said:

    @John – Ha ha, nice. Weird Al is so wise.



  7. Visit My Website

    July 28, 2009

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    7 Amy said:

    i’m not sure the lawsuit will get very far, but what i’m really wondering is if her allegation was true or not? and how much money is that company wasting by suing her when most likely she doesn’t have the money to give. seems like their reputation would have been more positively impacted if they had actually tried to look into her complaint and resolved the issue.



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    July 28, 2009

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    8 Evan said:

    What I’m wondering is how they even found this tweet in the first place. It’s not even a regular tweet, it’s in reply to someone else. Do they pay someone to just regularly search for the keyword “Horizon” on twitter?



  9. Visit My Website

    July 28, 2009

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    9 Sean said:

    http://www.horizonrealtygroup.com/contact.aspx

    Let the company know your thoughts



  10. Visit My Website

    July 28, 2009

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    10 Matt @ The Church of No People said:

    Typical faceless company cannibalizing their own customers. It’s like they have the same PR advisors as the music industry (Napster era).



  11. Visit My Website

    July 28, 2009

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    11 sTim said:

    Um, Matt@The Church of No People – are you implying that the music industry has changed? They just went back to trial against single mother Jammie Thomas and got the jury to award them $1.92 million, or $80,000 per song she allegedly shared. And now they’re pushing for legislation in many countries that will have your Internet cut off if you’re even *accused* of sharing files. They’re still living in that era. And, shockingly, their sales numbers keep going down.



  12. Visit My Website

    July 28, 2009

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    12 BJ said:

    The Freedom of Speech Act should protect her and if there is any truth to the moldy appartment, etc… she should counter sue for the company’s lack of health code compliance. I know what you are all thinking, I should have been an attorney….booyah



  13. Visit My Website

    July 28, 2009

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    13 joseph said:

    I personally think what she did is fine and what grounds does Horizon have to sue?

    We are such a sue happy society.

    Take out the frivolous lawsuits in America and we would have affordable health care, cheaper prices etc.

    although…we would end up with a ton of really educated janitors!



  14. Visit My Website

    July 29, 2009

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    14 RantBombBoy said:

    Well, if I were horizon, I would have contacted Bonnen and apologized if there was mold. And if horizon had in fact been defamed at all by the tweet, then they should have issued a statement through the press that was honest, saying that they will fix the problem.

    People have the right to express their opinions about companies, public or not. Especially if it was true, which I believe it was. Why else would Horizon get on the defensive so fast?

    Horizon looks even worse by the way they are handling all this.



  15. Visit My Website

    July 29, 2009

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    15 Mark E said:

    Isn’t the job of a company to get more customers? Not less?
    The way to get more customers is to be attractive, some companies are making themselves look very ugly.



  16. Visit My Website

    July 30, 2009

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    16 sTim said:

    Best/worst part about this story? This quote from their lawyer in the story: “We’re a sue first, ask questions later kind of an organization”

    Who says something like that? And who would ever do business with them again if he’s serious?



  17. Visit My Website

    July 30, 2009

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    17 Brad Ruggles said:

    Wow, he said that?



  18. Visit My Website

    July 30, 2009

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    18 Terrace Crawford said:

    @Nick I agree.

    Won’t be the first time someone would be held accountable for their sarcasm though.

    –Terrace Crawford
    http://www.terracecrawford.com
    http://www.twitter.com/terracecrawford



  19. Visit My Website

    August 2, 2009

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    19 pete wilson said:

    Holy cow. Hadn’t seen this!



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