Twitter and Trolls and Squatters... Oh My!
Recently, St. Louis Cardinals manager Tony La Russa sued Twitter for the misappropriation of his name by an anonymous account holder (the now vacant @TonyLaRussa) who had a whopping four followers.
One issue that the incident brings to mind is Web anonymity and the plethora of online trolls, squatters, and the like that reside on social sites such as Twitter and Digg. They look to defame and have "fun" at someone else's expense—anonymously.
But when does this issue become the responsibility of the platform itself? It's obvious that Twitter felt the pressure, succumbing to La Russa's suit and settling a few days after the suit was widely publicized.
Certainly Twitter understood that a long legal process would've probably cost much more than settling. More important, though, is whether it (and other platforms) realize the need to police such accounts and keep a closer eye on them.
For a platform as large as Twitter, it's definitely a huge task, but it's one that such online entities need to take a closer look at.
The landscape of this industry is changing, as celebrities (with big pockets) join the social-media fray. Twitter hopes to keep these celebrities happy, because they have helped bump it into mainstream stardom. At the same time, Twitter now has a much larger and perhaps unfortunate task of keeping an even closer eye on the rest of the community and what is being said or created for or on behalf of these star names.
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Comments
I think it is the responsibility of companies and individuals to monitor their own brands and reputations and in doing so, must deal with their own trolls. However, squatters are a different story, as there is no way to protect against them. By the time they have appeared, it is too late.
In the case of squatters, the social media sites must take some level of responsibility. Clear cut policies and procedures for requesting mediation would go a long way to help with this. Taking something through the court system to prove trademark infringement is too long a process.
Perhaps social media sites need a third party organization that could be granted jurisdiction for mediation while all of this gets sorted out through case law.