Washington Courts Confront Twitter Appeal

A man convicted in 2010 of murdering Mark Stover, a “dog whisperer” with celebrity clients including Starbucks founder Howard Schultz, ballplayer Ichiro Suzuki and musician Eddie Vedder, has filed a motion for a new trial, citing the 20 tweets that one juror posted during the trial.

A Double Dose in Boston

A Massachusetts Court of Appeals decision regarding juror use of social media during trial led me to be interviewed by the Boston Globe for a story that was published yesterday (May 14) and by WGBH on today's Emily Rooney show.

No Libel in 140 Characters?

For a while now, I've been on the look-out for the first American defamation trial stemming from Twitter. And while some cases have been contenders, there hasn't been such a case that's gone to trial yet.

But now, an article in the new Berkeley Journal of Entertainment and Sports Law by attorney William L. Charron questions whether tweets can be the basis for a defamation claim at all.

Court Says "Like" Isn't Like Speech

FOR AN UPDATE OF THIS CASE, SEE THIS POST.

A federal judge has held -- in an opinion granting summary judgment in Bland v. Roberts, Civil No. 11-45 (E.D. Va.  Apr. 24, 2012) -- that "liking" a supervisor's political opponent on Facebook does not constitute speech that can be protected from political retaliation in a non-partisan government office.

"It is the Court's conclusion that merely 'liking' a Facebook page is insufficient speech to merit constitutional protection," District Judge Raymond A. Jackson held. Bland, slip op. at 6.

Me and MSNBC.com

I was quoted last week in the following msnbc.com article:

Students' racist tweets about Boston hockey game put schools in a bind