[LINK] SMH: 'Man sues Twitter over hate blog'

[Jan Whitaker]

At 08:01 AM 17/02/2012, Roger Clarke wrote:

>''Twitter are a publisher, and at law anyone involved in the
>publication can be sued,'' Mr Gibson said. ''We're suing for the
>retweets and the original tweet.''
>
>While it is widely believed Twitter cannot be sued, Mr Gibson cited
>the landmark 2002 High Court case where Melbourne mining magnate
>Joseph Gutnick won the right to sue US business news publisher Dow
>Jones in Victoria under Australian law, rather than in the US.

What rubbish. That is an apples/oranges comparison. Twitter is no 
more a publisher than is Facebook or Google. Where do these idiot 
lawyers come from? As we saw in Australia years ago, as soon as a 
carriage provider starts censoring content from their own volition, 
they become a publisher and WILL be sued. As long as they are a 
non-involved carrier, they should not have any content 
responsibility. The only thing I can see even close is if their terms 
of service include some sort of content restrictions. That is a grey 
area as the company is then being editorial in their relationship 
with people providing the content.

Jan


Melbourne, Victoria, Australia
jwhit at janwhitaker.com
blog: http://janwhitaker.com/jansblog/
business: http://www.janwhitaker.com

Our truest response to the irrationality of the world is to paint or 
sing or write, for only in such response do we find truth.
~Madeline L'Engle, writer

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