Abusing Power to Shut Down a Twitter Parody Account - Bruce Scheier Bl

[Guest LilBambi]

Abusing Power to Shut Down a Twitter Parody Account - Bruce Scheier Blog

 

This is a pretty horrible story of a small-town mayor abusing his authority -- warrants where there is no crime, police raids, incidental marijuana bust -- to identify and shut down a Twitter parody account. The ACLU is taking the case.

[Guest LilBambi]

Direct link to the arstechnica article:

 

How a mayor’s quest to unmask a foul-mouthed Twitter user blew up in his face

 

When news broke that the mayor of Peoria, Illinois, had called upon his town's police force to shut down a fake Twitter account opened in his name; that local police had responded with search warrants against Twitter, Comcast, and Google; that they had at last raided a local home and seized four iPhones, four computers, two Xbox game consoles, an iPad, and a "large gold gift bag with five sandwich bags containing a green leafy substance;" that the homeowner hadn't created the account but was ultimately suspended from his job as a result of that "green leafy substance;" that Peoria's next city council meeting descended into outright acrimony over the heavy-handedness of the entire episode; and that the entire episode turned out to be a colossal waste of time and resources in which no one but the pot owner was ever charged with a crime—well, that's the moment at which a curious reporter files a public records act request to get a glimpse of how such a trainwreck got underway.

 

So I filed one—and the backstory I found was fascinating.

[ross549]

Was it an abuse of power? It comes down to wether the account was in fact a parody or libel. The mayor's reputation was at stake, though anyone who knew him personally would know the account was false. Would someone who did not know him personally see it as fake?

 

I have a hard time thinking it is parody. It seems quite mean spirited.

 

Assuming the above, the city/state was well within their right to prosecute this action. Now, not knowing that there was an exception for online media is unclear from the Arstechnica article.

 

The article also did not cite the applicable Illinois law, so the picture is incomplete.

 

Adam

[ross549]

Really? I'd not heard that before.

 

Adam

[Guest LilBambi]

Yep. And they did abuse their power. Did you read the whole 3 page article?

 

Abused taxpayer funds as well.

[ross549]

I did. I am not convinced the mayor abused his power.

 

He started the ball rolling by asking if the guy with the account could be tracked down. It did not seem that he was overly concerned with the affair.

 

Adam

[Guest LilBambi]

There were only what 58 followers before they started their crusade ... then there were a ton more.

 

They doth protest too much...

 

Well, maybe it was the police that did the abusing then.

[ross549]

What abuse of power was committed? An investigation was initiated into a potential libel case. During that investigation, drug paraphernalia was discovered. The house was searched, and the creator of the twitter account and the user of the drugs was found.

 

I don't see the problem.

 

Adam

[Guest LilBambi]

Let's just agree to disagree on this one.

[Guest LilBambi]

BTW: I am not saying I agree or disagree with what they guy did. I don't think we have to do that in order to address this issue.

 

From the ACLU article on the topic:

 

Many elected officials, professional athletes, actors and celebrities are subjects of parody accounts on social media but this is the first instance, to our knowledge, in which a public official called on the power of the police to target those who author such accounts.

[ross549]

I think the twitter account was mean spirited, and therefore not a parody. Every definition of parody I could find points to the content being for amusement of the writer and his/her readers/audience. I'd argue that this is not the case here, and therefore defamatory. Admittedly, this is a very fine line here, and I'd be interested to see how the case progresses.

 

The ACLU page, however, does not address the legality of the Mayor being able to claim libel, only that they saw it as free speech under titling the account as parody.

 

What was the point of the account? What was teh user trying to accomplish? There are many mean spirited folks online, and it is not meant to be satirical, like sites such as the Onion and the Duffel Blog.

 

My $0.02 in this case. I will point out I take a very dim view of much of this type of thing.

 

Adam

[Guest LilBambi]

Read the text of all of Weird Al's songs. They are parody's and very funny and well done, but just read the words ... they sounds pretty mean spirited.

 

Libel for the Mayor would be a personal thing. Not paid for by taxpayers.

 

I understand what you are saying but the Mayor should have done this on his own.

[V.T. Eric Layton]

Libel/Defamation is not an easy thing to prove.

 

http://injury.findla...nd-slander.html

 

 

Disclaimer: I'm not a legal expert, nor do I play one on the Internet or TV.*

 

*4 out of 5 lawyers agree with this statement; the 5th one is an idiot.