Man Ordered To Tweet 100 Times For Defamation 57
durianwool writes "To avoid a defamation suit, a man in Malaysia has settled with lawyers saying he will tweet 100 times over the next 3 days that he's sorry for defaming a magazine company. Realizing the mistake in an original tweet, the man issued an apology tweet. That was not acceptable to the company, and the company (also his employer) pursued the matter with lawyers which demanded he place ads in newspapers. Not being able to afford newspaper advertisements, Fahmi Fadzil agreed to settle the matter with a series of apologies on Twitter instead."
ay caramba! (Score:1)
Chilling? (Score:2)
So if you post one comment, a lawyer can scare you into destroying your twitter account by spamming it with 100 retractions?
Re:Chilling? (Score:5, Insightful)
So if you post one comment, a lawyer can scare you into destroying your twitter account by spamming it with 100 retractions?
And nothing of value would be lost.
Re:Chilling? (Score:4, Insightful)
This would be easy: (Score:3)
Tweet #1: I'm sorry that BluInc is run by a bunch of petty self-serving asshats.
Tweet #2: I apologize for offending the sensibilities of a pack of hyper-sensitive shitheads like BluInc.
Tweet #3: I feel horrible that BluInc is run by a group of fucktards, so I'm sorry.
Tweet #4: [...]
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As with everything else, it's the thought that counts. Right, Capt. Sheridan?
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Timely Babylon 5 comments always make me wish I had mod points.
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I see you've mastered the non-apology apology.
Easier solution (Score:2)
for (( i = 0
do
twidge update "Sorry about defaming that magazine company"
sleep 2592
done
# Yes it's not as cheeky, BUT you can continue to defame the company and then just
a maze of twisty tweets, all the same (Score:1)
From TFA:
"At the time of writing, he had completed 19 of the tweets, which must say ...."
Seems like the wording has to be the same. Too bad that computers are not programmable, so there is no way to automate something like that.
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Timing the Tweets (Score:2)
If he just spams out 100 "I did something wrong" tweets, he's sure to lose all his followers. Of course, he could use a tool like SocialOomph.com to schedule his tweets. He could spew out 20 a night from the hours of 11pm and 2am (one about every 8 minutes). He could be done scheduling them in about an hour's time and could be done with the tweets in 5 days. I wonder if they set any other conditions like "no scheduled tweets", "has to be during the daytime" or "has to be all in a row."
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D'uh. Just noticed the "over the next 3 days" part. Still, he could schedule tweets once every 5 minutes from 10:30am - 3am and have the tweets done over the next 2 days.
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Not that unreasonable (Score:4, Interesting)
He didn't have a leg to stand on, if he libelled a company than essentially called bullshit on himself whilst leaving the offending libel visible on the internet (i.e. still being published).
And its not an unreasonable settlement. He didn't have to pay money by the sounds of it, and isn't facing criminal charges. He just has to tweet some stuff. And frankly, its refreshing to see a (apparently justified) retraction be more visible than a smear.
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Yes, but did he actually present false allegations, or did he only later realize the onerous legal burden of defending a valid allegation? Hell, pregnant workers are mistreated in western companies all the time; it's not a stretch to believe that this could happen in Malaysia as well -- doubly so if she's unwed.
Streisand Effect (Score:2)
This is streisand effect to the Nth degree. This is just begging for people to find the offending information, causes public backlash for requiring someone to spam, and for generally making themselves (plaintiffs) look like asses.
I look forward to reading this story months from now: In other news, lawyers find new way to have Twitter accounts shut down without a court order or asking Twitter. The method, known as "using crowd sourcing to get accounts flagged as spammers by forcing the account holder to sp
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Actually, it's judo. It takes the power of the streisand effect and uses it against itself. Masses will come to the twitter, and see the *apologies*.
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This sounds like an amazing publicity stunt (Score:1)
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shakespeare's "friends, romans, countrymen"... (Score:3)
"and they were all, _all_ honourable men..." just like shakespeare's famously-quoted speech from julius caesar: most people only know the first line, but our protagonist was barred in his speech from saying a single word against caesar. so the phrase "and they were all, all honourable men" is used repeatedly. in the same way, i can't help but think this will have the opposite effect...
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that's right. it's not done "sarcastically" - it's done with enthusiasm. i remember this scene from school. we were asked to cheer at the first mention of "honourable men", and as the number of mentions increased, we reverted to complete silence at the end of the speech....
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I will follow the rules of Ms. Deambrose's class.
I will follow the rules of Ms. Deambrose's class.
I will follow the rules of Ms. Deambrose's class.
I will follow the rules of Ms. Deambrose's class.
I will follow the rules of Ms. Deambrose's class.
I will follow the rules of Ms. Deambrose's class.
Didn't do shit for me.
Perhpas it wasn't supposed to do anything for YOU.
Clapping Erasers (Score:2)
Cruel and unusual (Score:2)
This just take the concept of 'cruel and unusual' punishment to a whole new level. I don't know what I would do if I was forced by a court to do something with twuter, would I live through that without horrific mental trauma? Unlikely.
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Considering the original offense was done over twitter, I am not sure you have much of a point.
Other than showing your maturity by purposely misspelling "twitter".
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Yes, my maturity must be calculated based on the way I spell the name of a business I personally find a waste of bandwidth. As to the rest of it - I am sorry, I failed with you, I tried make a joke, it didn't work, hope you do not begrudge me this failure for too long, are we square?
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Yes, my maturity must be calculated based on the way I spell the name of a business I personally find a waste of bandwidth. As to the rest of it - I am sorry, I failed with you, I tried make a joke, it didn't work, hope you do not begrudge me this failure for too long, are we square?
Take it easy Gramps, it's just an Internet troll trying to getting your goat... It's best just to ignore them, I hear they turn into line-noise in the sun.
Wait... was he seriously trying to imply your disdain for twitter implied less maturity?
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No, he implied that spelling something incorrectly deliberately is immature, and I would agree - it's easy to get your point across without resorting to that level of pettiness.
It's like all the "witty" commenters who spell Microsoft as "M$", as if they're providing insight by pointing out companies are legally bound to make a profit.
Interesting forms of punishment (Score:1)
Could we please pass a bill so that all sorts of prisoners maintain Facebook redemption pages, tweet Gospel verses every day and recite the books of the Bible on YouTube?
I am confident that the thoughtful, kind, compassionate and caring comments of several thousand (if not million) followers would be much more beneficial to them than the lame standard rehabilitation activities. (It goes without saying that the convicts would be required to read all comments and reply to each and every one individually).
The
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Could we please pass a bill so that all sorts of prisoners maintain Facebook redemption pages, tweet Gospel verses every day and recite the books of the Bible on YouTube?
I am confident that the thoughtful, kind, compassionate and caring comments of several thousand (if not million) followers would be much more beneficial to them than the lame standard rehabilitation activities.
Uh... As if forcing a Atheist like me to participate in anyone's religious campaign is not the very essence of cruel and unusual . I get your gist, but the method needs to be refined, there's that whole freedom of religion thing that gets in your way -- even if (esp. if) one takes such freedom to renounce all religions.
If you want me to respect your right to practice a religion, you'll have to respect other's rights to not do so.
Additionally -- I would simply quote the ugly parts of your scripture:
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Nice insights, but you got only the minor part of my 'gist".
My main point was that 'social networks' are the punishment for all of us, guilty and non-guilty, prisoners and "free" citizens. The lines are irrevocably blurred. For a recent example, just google 'Weinergate'.