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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."
before all these social networking rantings came through to haunt/hurt us in real life....folks dont seem to understand that the internet is a serious place with actions having far reaching effects
I dont blame the lady for complaining. Mold is dangerous stuff and a lot of landlords dont care. My sister bought a house with undisclosed mold (illegal here in maryland) and it looks like the realitor is going to get away with it because shes a teacher who just invested her money into a house so she can not afford legal fees.These are sketchy people and deserve to be put in a bad light.
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.
Any time you post something to any social networking site, you should imagine yourself on a podium in giving a presentation in front of millions of people. If you would be embarrassed to say it on stage, don't post it, because they are effectively the same thing now.
Programmer and account manager for a small consultancy firm.
Went on to twitter and said that I got a user-error and for the program I was administering to unfuck itself.
Apparently the parent company didnt have a twitter presence but was having people search / spy. It got back to my company and viola - collecting unemployment.
Since then I have locked down my online profile to a MUCH greater degree - and as such im posting this anon ;)
When will people learn that putting something on the web is not the same as writing it down in your own personal diary?
Really, it's not that hard.
Slagborr
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!
Actually - the Sun-Times article has a quote that I'd say is way more damaging than the accusation: Tweet about apartment mold draws lawsuit:
He said that while she moved out recently, the company never had a conversation about the post and never asked her to take it down.
"We're a sue first, ask questions later kind of an organization," [italics mine] he said, noting that the company manages 1,500 apartments in Chicago and has a good reputation it wants to preserve.