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Writer's pictureScott Ellis

Why Twitter Lawsuits Will Kill Your Company

So there has been a lot of buzz around Social Media in companies being unhealthy.  Not for the obvious reason of Lost Productivity, but because of lawsuits stemming for many different angles.

This is like a digital gossip board(defamation of character), a way for folks to tweet there mind…ouch(HR Suits), to talk about there job(trade secrets)…and on and on.

So I thought I would point out just 4 main lawsuits that should get your Organizations Legal team a buzz…

4 Twitter Related Lawsuits

“Library of Congress to Archive Twitter” (news site) – ANNOUNCED TODAY!

Thursday, 15 April 2010

“Twitter Lawsuits: 4 Reasons Your Tweets Might Be Trouble” (blog – legal)

“Legal Consequences of Social Media” (legal site)

“Twitter Lawsuits – a ton of them!” (blog – legal)

And, here are two more great resources that you can use on your projects for references/samples to support the development of a Governance Plan/Model for Social Media Governance (by type of client):

“Social Media and Web 2.0 in Government” (.gov site)

“Web 2.0 Governance Policies and Best Practices” (social media governance site)


Translation of this legal jargon:

Many folks have an inability to shut off the anger or venting of there thoughts real time…so Twitter is a tempting proposition: the National Law Journal has warned that those 140 characters could land you in a courtroom.

The greatest risk factors, they claim:

1. Exposure of company secrets2. Invasion of privacy and defamation3. Trademark violations (claiming a relationship with a company when no such relationship exists) 4. Wrongful termination claims (where employees claim to have been wrongfully fired based on Tweets about their employer)

The bottom line

Think before you Tweet. We all know that Tweets can’t be undone once they’ve been blasted to your thousands of friends, and even deleting them doesn’t remove them from Twitter search. If it doubt, don’t Tweet.

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