Slashdot Mirror
Man Ordered To Tweet 100 Times For Defamation
durianwool writes "To avoid a defamation suit, a man in Malaysia has settled with lawyers saying he will tweet 100 times over the next 3 days that he's sorry for defaming a magazine company. Realizing the mistake in an original tweet, the man issued an apology tweet. That was not acceptable to the company, and the company (also his employer) pursued the matter with lawyers which demanded he place ads in newspapers. Not being able to afford newspaper advertisements, Fahmi Fadzil agreed to settle the matter with a series of apologies on Twitter instead."
eat my shorts!
So if you post one comment, a lawyer can scare you into destroying your twitter account by spamming it with 100 retractions?
My first Journal Entry ever, in 8 years! http://slashdot.org/journal/365947/aphelion-scifi-fantasy-horror-poetry-webzine
From TFA:
"At the time of writing, he had completed 19 of the tweets, which must say ...."
Seems like the wording has to be the same. Too bad that computers are not programmable, so there is no way to automate something like that.
If he just spams out 100 "I did something wrong" tweets, he's sure to lose all his followers. Of course, he could use a tool like SocialOomph.com to schedule his tweets. He could spew out 20 a night from the hours of 11pm and 2am (one about every 8 minutes). He could be done scheduling them in about an hour's time and could be done with the tweets in 5 days. I wonder if they set any other conditions like "no scheduled tweets", "has to be during the daytime" or "has to be all in a row."
My sci-fi novel, Ghost Thief, is now available from Amazon.com.
He didn't have a leg to stand on, if he libelled a company than essentially called bullshit on himself whilst leaving the offending libel visible on the internet (i.e. still being published).
And its not an unreasonable settlement. He didn't have to pay money by the sounds of it, and isn't facing criminal charges. He just has to tweet some stuff. And frankly, its refreshing to see a (apparently justified) retraction be more visible than a smear.
If we can put a man on the moon, why can't we shoot people for Apollo-related non-sequiturs?
This is streisand effect to the Nth degree. This is just begging for people to find the offending information, causes public backlash for requiring someone to spam, and for generally making themselves (plaintiffs) look like asses.
I look forward to reading this story months from now: In other news, lawyers find new way to have Twitter accounts shut down without a court order or asking Twitter. The method, known as "using crowd sourcing to get accounts flagged as spammers by forcing the account holder to spam" may have other applications, such as email defamation cases whereby the email account holder will lose their account with their ISP and will possibly be prosecution by CAN-SPAM style laws making spamming illegal.
I8-D
Only in Malaysia would you get something like this
I'm guessing it was not contrived, but if it was, kudos to this man and whatever marketing company he's working with!
Tweet #1: I'm sorry that BluInc is run by a bunch of petty self-serving asshats.
Tweet #2: I apologize for offending the sensibilities of a pack of hyper-sensitive shitheads like BluInc.
Tweet #3: I feel horrible that BluInc is run by a group of fucktards, so I'm sorry.
Tweet #4: [...]
Quo usque tandem abutere, Nimbus, patientia nostra?
"and they were all, _all_ honourable men..." just like shakespeare's famously-quoted speech from julius caesar: most people only know the first line, but our protagonist was barred in his speech from saying a single word against caesar. so the phrase "and they were all, all honourable men" is used repeatedly. in the same way, i can't help but think this will have the opposite effect...
I will follow the rules of Ms. Deambrose's class.
I will follow the rules of Ms. Deambrose's class.
I will follow the rules of Ms. Deambrose's class.
I will follow the rules of Ms. Deambrose's class.
I will follow the rules of Ms. Deambrose's class.
I will follow the rules of Ms. Deambrose's class.
Didn't do shit for me.
Does he have to spend recess clearing Twitter's old server logs and clap the hard drives together afterward?
i can do ctrl+v a hundred times in seconds.
...should tweet "Malaysia sucks!" 100 times.
This just take the concept of 'cruel and unusual' punishment to a whole new level. I don't know what I would do if I was forced by a court to do something with twuter, would I live through that without horrific mental trauma? Unlikely.
You can't handle the truth.
Anonymous
In the Chicago area Saturday detentions are called a breakfast club.
Could we please pass a bill so that all sorts of prisoners maintain Facebook redemption pages, tweet Gospel verses every day and recite the books of the Bible on YouTube?
I am confident that the thoughtful, kind, compassionate and caring comments of several thousand (if not million) followers would be much more beneficial to them than the lame standard rehabilitation activities. (It goes without saying that the convicts would be required to read all comments and reply to each and every one individually).
The difference between outsiders and insiders is that outsiders are doing it voluntarily and with great enthousiasm.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Comment removed based on user account deletion
So my thought is, who the hell cares?
Sounds like mom washing your mouth out with soap, or making you say sorry.
Ridiculous.
#! /bin/sh
; i <= 100; i++ ))
./apologize& each time you get taken to court.
for (( i = 0
do
twidge update "Sorry about defaming that magazine company"
sleep 2592
done
# Yes it's not as cheeky, BUT you can continue to defame the company and then just
"When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel