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Real-World Consequences of Social Networking Posts
gbulmash sends in a classic Streisand Effect story of a Chicago landlord suing a tenant over a tweet complaining of mold in her apartment. The landlord claims that the tweet caused $50,000 damage to their reputation. If it didn't, then the fallout from their own ill-advised lawsuit surely will. The woman's Twitter account is now gone (possibly on advice of counsel), but the tweet that started it all lives on. And in a similar vein, reader levicivita notes a firing over a political comment on a Facebook page. "Lee Landor, who had been the deputy press secretary to Manhattan Borough President Scott M. Stringer since May, posted comments on her Facebook page criticizing Mr. Gates [Harvard scholar Henry Louis Gates Jr.] and the president, whom she referred to at one point as 'O-dumb-a.' ... The borough president has accepted Ms. Landor's resignation, effective immediately."
Only possible legit suit you could have is one for libel. Ok well libel requires three things:
1) That the respondent made a false statement. Truth is the ultimate defense against libel. If there was, in fact, mold in the apartment then the landlord is done right here. Doesn't matter how damaging the statement was, if it is true there is fuck all you can do.
2) That the respondent knew the statement was false. If you make a false statement, but can show you believed it to be true, that can get you off the hook for libel.
3) That the statement was made with the intent of causing harm. If you make a false statement as a joke, that's not libel, you have to intend to cause harm.
That's what it requires, has to be something false, you had to know it was false, and you had to say it anyway hoping to harm your target. If it was true, well tough shit.
Too bad there are no consequences for posting a story like this and linking to an opinion piece on some site nobody's ever heard of, when you could as easily link a real newspaper in the city it happened in, like the Chicago Tribune. Landlord sues Uptown tenant for Twitter post.
BAD submission. Bad bad bad. No cookie for you!
Free Martian Whores!
Legally, however, in the United States most states are "at will" employment, which basically means you have no rights whatsoever -- you can be fired for almost any reason, or none at all, without any recourse.
Not so. At will employment means you can be fired (or quit) without notice. It also means you can be fired without a reason. It most emphatically does not mean you can be fired for any reason, though -- for example, you can't fire someone because of race, sex, etc. even in an at-will state.
Coouple interesting things: (1) It's not an individual landlord doing this, it's a large real estate company. Hey, companies do stupid things. (2) Read the following proud quote and hope the die by their own sword:
"How much damage can a Tweet do? According to property management company Horizon Realty, $50,000 worth... Horizon's Jeffrey Michael is quoted in the Sun-Times as saying 'The statements are obviously false, and it's our intention to prove that', adding that Horizon has a good reputation to protect. Bonnen wasn't contacted before the suit was filed or asked to remove the Tweet, he said: 'We're a sue first, ask questions later kind of an organization'."
http://mashable.com/2009/07/28/woman-sued-tweet/
We know where leadership by an anti-intellectual "strongman" who scapegoats minorities and likes boisterous rallies goes
IF the mold wasn't known, I doubt anyone state could enforce penalties.
Generally, when you buy a house, you request a full and complete disclosure from the seller. This is where you list everything you know that could be considered wrong and effect any aspect of the sale. If you can prove they knew about it and failed to disclose it, then you can pretty much recoup damages because of their failure to disclose. However, some people don't know there is mold and therefore can't be held to it. This is where a competent inspector is a good idea.
And when checking out your inspector, find out what kind of insurance and so on they have. Often if the inspector misses something, they can be made to pay (their insurance) for their lack of thoroughness. This isn't screwing the inspector or being lawsuit happy as it may sound either. You paid them to disclose anything and everything about the house and used their professional findings as a basis for your decision for a major purchase.
2) That the respondent knew the statement was false. If you make a false statement, but can show you believed it to be true, that can get you off the hook for libel.
It only goes to the question of malice.
Your belief must be "reasonable." Which more or less boils down to the consensus opinion of the jury.
3) That the statement was made with the intent of causing harm. If you make a false statement as a joke, that's not libel, you have to intend to cause harm.
The law of torts isn't about what you intended to do. It's about accepting responsibility for the consequences of your actions.
You only have to prove "actual malice" if the plaintiff is a public figure -
and the courts seem increasingly willing to cast anyone in that role who is not directly participating in an open - heated - political debate.
If there was, in fact, mold in the apartment then the landlord is done right here.
Not if the mold was the product of her own poor housekeeping.
Not if she failed to notify your landlord of the problem. Not if she failed to give him time enough to solve the problem.
RTFA. "O-dumb-a" is not the racial slur. She goes on racist rants about how blacks deserve to be profiled because our prison population is mostly black. Which aside from being racist is the classical circular logic displayed by people too stupid to think for themselves.
The only change I can believe in is what I find in my couch cushions.
"All insults directed at a member of a protected class shall be interpreted as resulting from bias against that protected class"
From the PC Handbook, as referenced in both the Trial Lawyers Business Development Guide and 15 Minutes: How YOU Can Get the Fame You Deserve!
"As God is my witness, I thought turkeys could fly." A. Carlson
That part wasn't really, but the overall comments include:
"And racial profiling does exist, but for good reason. Take a look at this countryâ(TM)s jails: who makes up the majority of inmates? Exactly."
I think what y'all are missing is the comment that followed where she said "racial profile does exist and for good reason, just look at the prison population," or something to that effect. Implying racial profiling is ok because blacks are obviously the majority of criminals because they make up the majority of inmates.
Blessed be he who reads this post, Cursed be he who tells my boss.
I learned this in 1995.
There are a few drunken-rambling-type posts I made to a some mailing lists back then that still haunt me to this day (although, the archives are actually becoming much more rare, thank God for irrelevance.)
It is the reason I tend to stay away from social networks. I don't have a facebook account, never have and probably never will, and I only ever made a myspace account so I could at some of the inappropriate pictures posted by slightly-too-young-and-not-slightly-stupid girls over the years. I hate the thought of personal information about myself being out there for the world to see. It can at the least be embarrassing, and at the worst turn into a nightmare when a smart identify thief comes along.
A little common sense (and understanding of why basic personal privacy matters) goes a long way.
as quoted in the the Sun-Times article Jeffrey Michael, one of the owners of Horizon, as saying, "We're a sue first, ask questions later kind of an organization."
"You can kill the revolutionary, but you can't kill the revolution."-- Fred Hampton
I once lived in an apartment complex that was sold to new management, and shortly after, one of the laundry rooms' dryers stopped working. After my complaints to management went nowhere, I did my own sleuthing and found:
- The gas meter to said laundry room was shut off and had a City seal on it.
- I called the City utility company, which said it had been shut off for nonpayment.
I took this information to the landlord, and the dryers were working soon after. It's apparently common for landlords to buy apartments, yet have no clue as to the infrastructure in their own buildings.