Lawsuits Put Twitter, Amazon in Spotlight

Policy Fugue by Kenneth Corbin (bio) Tracking the loveless marriage of technology and government

What a litigious week it’s been! Sure, people get sued all the time — in tech, real estate, every industry. But this week brought a pair of cases that seem especially bizarre, even for today’s standards.

Start in Chicago, where a real estate management firm has sued a tenant over what it claims was a libelous tweet. That’s right, a tweet!

Horizon Realty Group filed suit against resident Amanda Bonnen for her post to the microblogging service that read:

“You should just come anyway. Who said sleeping in a moldy apartment is bad for you? Horizon Realty thinks it’s okay.”

Bonnen posted the tweet in May, when she had all of 20 followers. (Her account has since been deleted.) But Horizon discovered the tweet some time later, and didn’t take kindly to her words (even if no one read them), and sued.

From the lawsuit, via the Chicago Tribune: Bonnen “maliciously and wrongfully published the false and defamatory tweet, thereby allowing the tweet to be spread throughout the world.”

A “defamatory tweet“? Indeed.

[Continue reading this blog post at Policy Fugue by Kenneth Corbin]