Twitter sued by Melbourne man for defamation

By By Wenlei Ma | 17 February 2012
 

A Melbourne man, Joshua Meggitt, is suing social media giant Twitter in a defamation case that could set global legal precedents for new media.

Meggitt and his lawyer, Stuart Gibson, served legal papers to Twitter's Californian head offices this week after previous attempts to communicate with the company were ignored.

The saga started last year when writer Marieke Hardy wrongly identified Meggitt as the person responsible for a critical blog of Hardy. Hardy's tweet was retweeted repeatedly by her followers and the wider Twitter community.

Gibson told AdNews internet content hosts had legal protection from defamation claims if it took down defamatory material when given notice, however Twitter has ignored several requests from Meggitt.

He said: “They ignored two requests for a satisfactory response via his own means which is part of Twitter's obscure communication system.”

Hardy and Meggitt settled a lawsuit out of court, while a case against the ABC, which reported Hardy's accusation, is still ongoing.

While Twitter is based in the US, the case will be heard under federal Australian law. Gibson cited the precedent of the 2002 judgement in Gutnick v Dow Jones, with the Australian Federal Court ruling defamation cases can also be heard in the jurisdiction in which material is downloaded and read, not only where the material is published.

If Meggitt is successful in the case, it will set an international precedent, with Gibson stating he was not aware of any other cases brought against the publisher of social media platforms - such as Twitter, Facebook and Myspace - and third party comments.

Gibson said he and Meggitt had not considered whether to pursue people who had retweeted Hardy's original tweet.

Earlier this year, former Formula One boss Max Mosley successfully petitioned internet giant Google to remove hundreds of defamatory web pages from its search results.

Last year, rocker Courtney Love was sued for defamation after comments she posted on Twitter.

The hashtag #SuingTwitterBecause is the second highest trending topic on Twitter today.

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