Twitter ordered to hand over occupy protester's tweets

[Yugl]

Why would it even matter? Twitter has access to the tweets. If a court says they have to give them up, they have to, regardless of what the owner says. You can't give something to a friend to stop a subpoena.

That's what I meant by "back at twitter's door." The contention of "ownership" seems meaningless if they have to go back to subpoenaing twitter anyways.

[Acevalefor]

I believe this tells us that the defense that places like The Pirate Bay are using are invalid. They own anything that is on their site. Sounds like the Judge in this case doesn't quite understand the internet.

I agree that Harris probably posted something incredibly incriminating, but that doesn't mean that our Government can walk all over him to set a precedence. It really looks like this whole thing has little to do with Harris and a lot to do with dissuading people from using social media to organize and execute protests.

[kuronosan]

Prr much.

[hey]

I believe this tells us that the defense that places like The Pirate Bay are using are invalid.

Not sure if serious. There is no illegal content hosted on the pirate bay. They don't even have direct links to illegal content.

[6souls]

At the start, critics often said, "Twitter is fun, but it's not useful." At one point @ev responded dryly with, "Neither is ice cream." Things have come a long way in a short time. We recognized potential early but users and platform developers would demonstrate how much more Twitter could be. Fostering an open and increasingly important network is not as easily dismissed as it once was—but it's still fun!

Now that we know more about how Twitter is being used, we've made changes to our Terms of Service—these are the basic rules that go along with using Twitter. The revisions more appropriately reflect the nature of Twitter and convey key issues such as ownership. For example, your tweets belong to you, not to Twitter. With these revisions, we expect some discussion so here are a few highlights from the updated page.

Advertising—In the Terms, we leave the door open for advertising. We'd like to keep our options open as we've said before.

Ownership—Twitter is allowed to "use, copy, reproduce, process, adapt, modify, publish, transmit, display and distribute" your tweets because that's what we do. However, they are your tweets and they belong to you.

APIs—The apps that have grown around the Twitter platform are flourishing and adding value to the ecosystem. You authorize us to make content available via our APIs. We're also working on guidelines for use of the API.

SPAM—Abusive behavior and spam is also outlined in these terms according to the rules we've been operating under for some time.

These updates complement the spirit of Twitter. If we've left something out, or the nature of the service changes, then we'll revisit the Terms—there's a feedback link on the page. We're in the process of sending an email about the revisions now. It's important that everyone who tweets, develops apps, or is simply interested in Twitter understands that it's not about the technology, it's about how we all use the service that matters most.

http://blog.twitter.com/2009/09/twit...f-service.html

That's their argument. Twitter doesn't "own" the user content, so they're not in charge of handing it over. There was a more recent update on this, but I'm having trouble finding the topic.

Twitter CEO, Dick Costolo, on the issue: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HRzs8...ilpage#t=1562s

[kuronosan]

I think he was more referring to when they were ordered to shut down.

[Acevalefor]

Not sure if serious. There is no illegal content hosted on the pirate bay. They don't even have direct links to illegal content.

More sarcasm there than serious reply. But the point was that prosecutors may try to use this ruling to support arguments for future attacks on web based content uploaded from and owned by the users instead of the websites. This ruling says that the content is indeed owned by the website.

[Serra]

I was under the impression that Twitter was viewable by everyone and once you post something, it's there forever (unless you're a celebrity and ask it to be deleted). Am I wrong, or could the prosecution just go back through his previous tweets to find what they want?

[Khajit]

I was under the impression that Twitter was viewable by everyone and once you post something, it's there forever (unless you're a celebrity and ask it to be deleted). Am I wrong, or could the prosecution just go back through his previous tweets to find what they want?

From what I gather you can set tweets to private/etc so they're not shown to the whole world. There's also a juristiction issue(Seems as if this is the root of the problem) as the tweets belong to the person making them. It's the real world equivalent of using a warrant on Apple computers in order to see what microsoft is up to because Steve Jobs visited Bill Gates a few times. The warrant should be against the tweeter and if the tweet isn't public then it also falls under the right to not self-incriminate.

[hey]

if the tweet isn't public then it also falls under the right to not self-incriminate.

No it doesn't. The fifth amendment only applies to testimony, you still have to produce any requested documents, unless just producing them would incriminate yourself (which is not the case here).

[dejet]

not citing sources for newspaper

I feel this is sorta the same. Somewhat, yes the person most likely has an idea of who gave them the info. But they are not forced to cite it. Why would this be any different if the person had things set to something other then public?