Twitter fights for its users

Twitter will appeal the ruling of a New York Criminal Court, which ordered the social network to turn over the tweets of Malcolm Harris. He is an Occupy Wall Street protester charged along with several hundred others for allegedly marching onto the Brooklyn Bridge roadway on Oct. 1, 2011. The ruling came last month, after a series of legal back-and-forth actions.

Today, Twitter legal counsel Ben Lee declares that Twitter will fight back: "We're appealing the Harris decision. It doesn't strike the right balance between the rights of users and the interests of law enforcement". The case, and more significantly, the appeal is a loaded gun, pitting free speech against the state's right to prosecute and searing emotions about Occupy's crusade against the so-called 1 percent, whom some will accuse the ruling benefits. Twitter does the right thing, by protecting its users. But considering the statements Judge Matthew Sciarrino made in his ruling, do they have a chance to win the appeal?

The prosecutors want Harris' tweets, and Twitter informed him about the subpoena it was served on January 26. Twitter sought to quash the subpoena, which the court denied on April 20, ironically for the reason “that the tweets the defendant posted were not his” according to Twitter’s privacy policy and the terms of mandate.

Judge Sciarrino oversaw the trial on New York v. Harris ruling on June 30 that the deleted public tweets of Harris must be turned over by Twitter, and according to the court public tweets do not have the same character as email, private direct message or private chat, thus negating the need for a warrant.

Judge Sciarrino declared that "If you post a tweet, just like if you scream it out the window, there is no reasonable expectation of privacy," furthermore adding that "there is no proprietary interest in your tweets, which you have now gifted to the world". Keep in mind that his statements are based on the fact that Harris' tweets were public, while they now are deleted. The defendant clearly had the right to delete the tweets and it’s in his best interest to keep them deleted, but it makes for a difficult defense considering they didn’t address a limited number of parties.

Twitter says it does have a chance to win the appeal and they’re now taking the case to the Appellate Term of the Supreme Court for the First Judicial Department of New York, according to a court document. They’ve got Twitter’s Terms of Service to fight the ruling with, which according to the company, gives its users ownership rights to their content, hence their reason for a “steadfast commitment to our users and their rights".

The problem: the government doesn’t acknowledge Twitter’s Terms of Service and dismisses the ownership rights, which are stated clearly in section 5, titled “Your Rights”: “You retain your rights to any Content you submit, post or display on or through the Services”.

There's a problem here.

Photo Credit: Nicholas Piccillo/Shutterstock

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