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Tag: Twitter privacy policy

  • Judge Orders Twitter to Hand Over Protest Tweets

    A New York judge this week ordered Twitter to hand over months of tweets from an Occupy Wall St. protester. Malcolm Harris, the protester, was arrested while trying to cross the Brooklyn Bridge with hundreds of other protesters in October of last year. The Associated Press (AP) is reporting that the prosecution for his case want his tweets to prove that he and his fellow protesters knew that they were not allowed on the roadway of the bridge.

    Twitter has so far refused to hand over the tweets, which were originally public, but have since been pushed off Harris’ Twitter page by subsequent tweets. The crux of the conflict is over whether the tweets are Harris’ property or Twitter’s. Twitter maintains, as it does in its user agreement, that all content posted to its platform is owned by its creator, and therefore Harris has the right to challenge the subpoena of his tweets.

    The judge in the case decided that Harris did not have a “proprietary intrest” for the tweets and does not have standing to challenge the subpoena. Prosecutors also argued that, as the tweets were originally posted publicly, Harris could not now invoke privacy rights to them.

    Another worry for Twitter is that, if it is forced to supply the tweets in this case, it will have to comply with more requests in the future and have to go to court to defend more of its members. As its recent transparency report shows, Twitter has been receiving an increasing number of requests from governments for user data, and overwhelmingly so from the U.S.

    It is laudable and perhaps rare to see a company go to court for its members the way Twitter is in this case. Twitter, whether or not it is correct in this case, deserves praise for not simply rolling over for a prosecutor’s subpoena. According to the AP, the company is currently evaluating its next legal move regarding the case.

  • Censoring Tweets Effects More Than Just Oppressive Regimes

    You may have thought that Twitter’s new privacy policy would only be effecting oppressive regimes like Thailand, but now the UK may be using the policy to protect those who can afford it.

    UK law states that any high profile figure that is involved in a case can be blocked from mention in the media, legally. This law also includes Twitter and UK representatives say they are using the new privacy feature to help uphold privacy injunctions ordered by their courts.

    In the past celebreties and well known political figured could petition the court for an injunction to uphold their privacy which barred the media from specifically mentioning their name in connection with a case.

    Vanessa Perroncel, a women who was accused of having an affair with a prominent political figure, said“I think it’s getting out of hand, obviously it’s a very expensive thing to do. [Injunctions are] only there for the rich, really. I guess they can have this luxury.”

    So the privacy feature at Twitter would be utilized in cases of an injunction of this type by the UK court system. Twitter’s head of global public policy, Colin Crowell confirmed that the technology is designed for just this type of scenario.

    Crowell elaborated on the policy regarding the UK:

    ”Our policy is, now that we have the ability to cater things to a particular jurisdiction, is to work through that on a case-by-case basis.”

    If you are outside the UK, you will still see the tweets. Crowell explains further:

    “We will seek to notify the user promply that some authorised entity has requested that the tweet be witheld. We will also be transparent to other users in that jurisdiction, we won’t simply surreptitiously delete it.”

    While it may only be the wealthy who can afford such injunctions, the new Twitter privacy feature is making it easier for the government to censor certain news.