R.I. Federal Judge Allows Journos to Live-Tweet Sentencing Hearing; Court System Remains Intact

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United States District Court for the District of Rhode Island Chief Judge William E. Smith this week allowed journalists for the first time to use cellphones and other electronic devices to live-Tweet the sentencing of a criminal case, the Providence Journal reported today.

Judge Smith permitted social media coverage of the sentencing of Joseph A. Caramadre, a  politically connected philanthropist who received a six-year jail term and was ordered to pay millions in restitution for orchestrating an investment scheme that victimized terminally ill individuals.

The high-profile sentencing hearing became a one-time exception to the court's antiquated local rules that proscribe the use of such devices in court.

Myspace Gets Roomier--Slashes 5% of Workforce

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Myspace: new owner, same curse.

The social networking site focused on streaming music and discovering new artists, laid off five percent of its staff in what CEO Chris Vanderhook termed a consolidation aimed at moving the beleagured company toward operating in the black, according to an article last Friday in the Los Angeles Business Journal (www.labusinessjournal.com).

The 10-year-old Myspace was purchased for a song by Specific Media Group and singer/actor Justin Timberlake in June 2011, for roughly $35 million from Rupert Murdoch's News Corp., which shelled out $580 million to acquire the company in July 2005.  Although Myspace last month boasted gains to 36 million visitors, up from 24 million in June, ComScore paints a bleaker picture, citing an 81 percent decline in traffic to the site from June 2011, to August 2013, the LA Business Journal article reported.

The company did not specify the number of staffers pink-slipped, but the Journal article estimated that 14 workers were terminated based on the 290 employees Myspace lists on LinkedIn. Once the prettiest girl in the room until Facebook emerged, Myspace unveiled its made-over Web site in January.

Facebook's Privacy Policy Revisions Catch FTC's Attention

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Facebook, Inc.'s privacy policy revisions, unveiled August 29, have drawn interest from the Federal Trade Commission, which seeks to ensure the so-called Tag Suggest function doesn't run afoul of a 2011 agreement in which the social media colossus agreed to government oversight of its privacy practices, according to an article by Reuters.

How Facebook advertisers and third-party applications handle users' personal data was the subject of a Facebook post on August 29. Among the proposed changes was the introduction of a potential Tag Suggest feature that makes use of facial recognition technology to match faces in images with public profile features, Reuters reported.

Having just agreed to fork over $20 million to settle the Sponsored Stories controversy (See "TUOL" post 8/30/12 for background), Facebook doesn't need the FTC "poking" around, so to speak.

Free Speech Advocates on Edge Over Punitive Grenada Media Law

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The Parliament of Grenada, the Caribbean nation and largest island of the Grenadines, has passed a punitive social media measure that has drawn fire from free press proponents, The Guardian reported this week.

The new law carries one-year jail terms for violators who make "offensive" comments, or send tweets or emails on social media platforms and media Web sites, according to the Guardian article. Knowingly posting false information to cause "annoyance...insult...and ill will" also is prohibited by the new law.

A spokesperson for the International Press Institute voiced concern over the law's criminalizing matters that previously have been handled through civil remedies, and was fearful of the new law's impact on investigative journalism and freedom of speech.

State Appeals Court Nixes Law Barring Sex Offenders from Social Networking Sites

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In State of North Carolina v. Lester Gerard Packingham (Case No. 10CRS57148), the North Carolina Court of Appeals this week unanimously declared unconstitutional N.C. Gen. Stat. sec. 14-202.5, which made it a Class I felony for a registered sex offender to access commercial social networking Web sites that permit minors to become members.

Under N.C. Gen. Stat. sec. 14-208.7, persons convicted of sexually violent offenses or offenses against minors after 1996 must register as sex offenders and maintain that registration for a minimum 30 years. The appellate court overturned the social networking ban on First Amendment grounds because it "arbitrarily burdens" registered sex offenders from engaging in modes of communication and expressive activity without actually shielding children from sexual predators.

According to the Jurist Web site, a federal court earlier this year overturned an Indiana statute barring sex offenders from social networking sites, ruling the law did not survive strict scrutiny review mandated in free speech cases.

Tweet Cleaning

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Responding to an online petition supporting British activist Caroline Criado-Perez, the target of abusive posts that included rape threats, microblogger colossus Twitter this week said it will add a software-friendly button that will enable users to report offensive posts, the New York Times reported.

In the last month, Twitter already added such a button to its iPhone and iPad versions, and will expand the report abuse function to its Android and desktop Web versions, according to the Times article..  Del Harvey, the company's senior director for trust and safety, cedes that the company can't monitor the more than 400 million tweets posted daily, and notes that Twitter already has in place a complaint-reporting system, albeit one that involves completing a form.

Besides the button, Twitter also recommends that users unfollow offensive accounts, block abusive tweeters and report threatening messages to police.

Thomson Reuters Twitter Feed Hacked by Pro-Assad Group

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Hacking is the great equalizer for "armies" that might not fare so well on the battlefield, as financial data and news giant Thomson Reuters learned yesterday.

The Web site Allthingsd.com reported that the Syrian Electronic Army ("SEA"), which backs President Bashar al-Assad in the Middle East nation's bloody, nearly two-and-a-half-year-old civil war, briefly co-opted @ThomsonReuters to spew seven tweet links to images that included pro-Assad cartoons that BuzzFeed captured.

The Thomson Reuters account was temporarily suspended until the company regained control of it. The SEA last April and May took credit for hacking into Twitter accounts of CBS, The Guardian and Financial Times, according to the Allthingsd article.

Turns out you can't believe everything you read in social media world, a shocking revelation to no one.

NY Judge: Google Must ID Anonymous Blogger

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New York Supreme Court Justice Debra A. James has ordered Google, Inc. to disclose the identity of an anonymous blogger whose two Web sites allegedly defame a Manhattan-based consumer lawyer.

As reported by the Wall St. Journal Law Blog (blogs.wsj.com), in a Stipulated Order in Fredrick Schulman v. Google, Inc. et al. (Case No. 155629/2013), Justice James ruled the plaintiff had demonstrated a potential cause of action against the creator of the sites fredrickschulmancrookedattorney.com and stopfredrickschulman.blogspot.com and was entitled to pre-action discovery identifying the blogger under CPLR sec. 3012(c).

Schulman alleges he has suffered harm to his reputation and pecuniary loss because of the "malicious" online campaign against him.  Google was ordered to notify the unnamed blogger and alert him/her that he/she may challenge the efforts to disclose his/her identity.  The court discontinued the plaintiff's action as to Google.

Are Turkish Leaders Anti-Social?

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Free speech advocates and social media proponents are on edge concerning comments by Turkish leaders hinting at new measures that would restrict use of Twitter and other social media platforms, according to a recent article by World Bulletin.net.

Two weeks ago, Turkey's Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan condemned microblogger Twitter as a provocateur spreading misinformation, suggesting the platform and "market speculators" were culprits behind recent riots in the country. Meanwhile, Ali Sahin, Deputy Chair of the AK Party, was quoted as saying: "A false tweet is more dangerous than a bomb. Social Media regulation is a must."

Though other government officials have said the country is only considering legislation to bolster security against cyberterrorism, academics and analysts are among those pushing back against stricter social media regulation, according to the World Bulletin article.

Savas Bozbel, law school dean at International Antalya University, argued that Turkey's Criminal Code already can handle social media defamation, and warns that any ham-fisted government attempts to regulate microbloggers will backfire and increase citizens' social media usage.

Yahoo! Takes a Tumblr

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As part of CEO Marissa Mayer's strategy to bolster her Internet company's appeal to the 18- to 24-year-old demographic group, Yahoo! today is expected to announce the $1.1 billion cash purchase of New York-based social blogger Tumblr, according to a report by All Things Digital (www.allthingsd.com), which initially broke the story last week.

Tumblr CEO David Karp reportedly scored a cash windfall from the acquisition and will commit to staying at Yahoo! for four years and remain a force overseeing Tumblr. The original desktop-based platform that has expanded to mobile boasts 107.8 million blogs on its Web site. According to com.score, Tumblr attracted 117 million visitors last month.

The Allthingsd story said Yahoo! will bolster the advertising structure of Tumblr, which claims it garnered $13 million in ad revenue last year. Tumblr reportedly is valued at $800 million. There were no other competitive bidders for Tumblr.

You (Auto)Complete Me: Google Runs Afoul of German Court

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Search engine colossus Google has once again run afoul of a court because of its "Suggestion" or algorithmic autocomplete function.

Germany's Federal Court of Justice in Karisruhe this week ruled that the Mountain View, Calif.-based company is obligated to remove defamatory autocomplete content once it is notified, according to a post by the Jurist Web site (www.jurist.org). The founder of a company that produces nutritional supplements alleged he was defamed because when his or his company's name was entered in a search in Google's German-language site, suggested links to fraud and  the controversial religion Scientology were part of the autocomplete results.

The Federal Court said search engine operators needn't routinely verify that autocomplete search results are error-free, but once apprised that suggested results unlawfully violate an individual's rights, the operators are legally bound to remove the offending material.

As chronicled by this blog, Google has previously been taken to task for autocomplete mishaps, including a Japanese court that ordered Google to pay $3,000 to a person who was wrongly linked to a crime he didn't commit (see "TUOL" post 4/17/13) and by a French court that assessed  $6,000 in attorneys' fees against Google when the suggestions of rapist and Satanist were associated with the entry of an unidentified plaintiff's name in a search (see "TUOL" post 9/27/10).

The staff of "TUOL" in its brush with high school math learned long ago that nothing good can come from an algorithm.

BuzzFeed Foreign Matters

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BuzzFeed, the social media Web site that editorially tracks viral content, plans to expand foreign news coverage by adding an editor and a half-dozen reporters, the New York Times reported today.

BuzzFeed Editor Ben Smith said users' reliance on the platform during the Boston Marathon bombing coverage helped prompt the decision to expand its presence in Washington, D.C. and into Cairo and Mexico. BuzzFeed co-founder Jonah Peretti also co-founded The Huffington Post, which also has expanded foreign news coverage with bureaus in Canada and Europe and will also unveil an edition in Japan this year, according to the Times article.

Google Makes Nice to European Union

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Mountain View, Calif.-based Internet search engine behemoth Google, Inc., this week extended an olive branch to the European Union, offering a proposal to allay antitrust concerns, the Associated Press reported.

According to the AP article, Google proposed clearly labeling search results so that European users could differentiate between Google-sponsored search results and natural search results. The 27-nation EU Commission said Google also would display competitors' links alongside its own YouTube and Google Maps services.

The EU has been a thorn in Google's side for more than three years, investigating the company's potential abuse of its dominant market position in the Internet search field (see "TUOL" post 7/7/10).

A Yen for Autocomplete: Google Ordered to Pay Japanese Libel Plaintiff

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Multinational Internet services giant Google, Inc. has been ordered to pay a Tokyo plaintiff 300,000 yen ($3,057) in damages arising from his defamation and invasion of privacy claims, Agence France Presse ("AFP") and Cnet.com reported this week.

The culprit, according to the plaintiff's suit, is the Mountain View, Calif.-based Google's autocomplete function, which he alleged would link him to crimes he did not commit when Google users would begin typing his name in a search. The plaintiff, who was not identified, alleged he lost his job and has been unable to obtain employment since because of the negative autocomplete output.

Although Judge Hisaki Kobayashi did not conclude Google's autocomplete was to blame for the plaintiff losing his job, the judge did find a "situation has been created by which illegally submitted documents can easily be viewed."

It's doubtful whether Google will have to face the music because, as the AFP article noted, Google has no Japan-based data center, as it does in Taiwan, Singapore and Hong Kong, so the Japanese Court's ability to exert influence is in doubt. For its part, Google argues autocomplete results are automatically generated and beyond its control.

The suggest function, which offers options when search terms are entered, has previously gotten Google into trouble in defamation cases in France (see "TUOL" post 9/27/10).

Twitter Aiming High in Content Partnerships

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San Francisco-based social networker Twitter has blossomed from microblogging to serving as a multimedia platform, forging relationships with Weather Channel, LLC, ESPN and Turner Broadcasting Network, sharing ad revenues as it streams video content from those networks.

Now comes word from TechCrunch that Twitter has Viacom and Comcast's NBCUniversal in its sites, and may soon be a vehicle for sharing video clips from one or both of those media giants in return for a piece of the ad revenue action. TechCrunch reports that Twitter may have an agreement in place with one or both of Viacom and Comcast as early as next month.

Twitter continues to expand opportunities for its 140-character devotees to share content.

Timelines Trademark Suit Marches On Toward Trial

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Trial is slated for April 22 in Timelines, Inc. v. Facebook, Inc. (Case No. 11-cv-06867) as United States District Court for the Northern District of Illinois (Eastern Division) Judge John W. Darrah this week denied Facebook's summary judgment motion in the trademark and copyright infringement suit.

According to reports by Bloomberg News and PCWorld.com, Judge Darrah wrote: "At this stage in the proceedings, it is not unreasonable to conclude that as to this group of users, 'timeline(s)' had acquired a specific meaning associated with Plaintiff."

The six-year-old Chicago-based Timelines, Inc. unveiled Timelines.com in 2009 and registered trademarks Timelines.com and Timelines for its site that enables users to organize sporting events, historical occurrences and scientific advances, among other events, chronologically. The plaintiff sued Facebook in 2011 after the Menlo Park, Calif.-based social network created a profile redesign dubbed Timeline that chronologically organizes users' personal history.

Facebook filed a summary judgment motion, offering a fair use defense to the infringement claims and contending that the plaintiff's registered marks were generic and not descriptive enough to warrant federal protection. Judge Darrah noted that the plaintiff had more than 1,000 users and had invested millions of dollars in its Web site in ruling that Facebook "has failed to demonstrate, as a matter of law, that the marks are generic."

All Atwitter Over Social Platform's Meteoric Growth

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Buoyed in the U.S. by increased use by the over-55 set and a stronger mobile Internet presence, social media platform Twitter is now being used monthly by 21 percent of the world's Internet population, according to GlobalWebIndex ("GWI") cited in an online Forbes article.

Fourth Quarter 2012 figures revealed a staggering 40 percent increase among active Twitter users, which translates to 288 million tweeters. The GWI measures usage in 31 markets that comprise roughly 90 percent of the global Internet population between ages 16 and 65, the Forbes piece noted. Dating back to July 2009, active tweeters have increased by 714 percent.

Active usage of Twitter grew 94 percent in the U.S., second only to Hong Kong. The over-55 demographic is the fastest-growing group among tweeters, the GWI survey noted, and Americans last year increased their mobile Internet usage of Twitter to 43 percent from 37 percent the previous year.

Bet there are some folks in the respective boardrooms of Google and Facebook who wish their companies had acquired the San Francisco-based microblogger before it learned how to spin gold in 140-character segments.

Social Media Gains as Political Content Source

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Social media platforms, such as Facebook and Twitter, are just as trusted--and mistrusted-- by voters as traditional media outlets when it comes to providing political information, according to a study reported by the Politico Web site.

The George Washington University Graduate School of Political Management/ORI online survey of 806 Internet users, which has a plus or minus 3.45 percent margin of error, concluded that voters found political information on social media of higher quality, or at least as good as, political data provided via traditional media, such as television and newspapers. Age was a factor among respondents, as 36 percent of older voters polled were skeptical of social media political content, while among voters age 26 and under, 71 percent believed social media platforms outshone traditional media regarding trustworthiness.

Seventy-seven percent of survey participants said they made political contributions via Email or through campaign Web sites, while 19 percent did so via Facebook. The 2012 election was first in which the Federal Election Commission permitted texted contributions, and 18 percent of respondents availed themselves of the text message option to contribute to their chosen candidates, according to the Politico post.

Federal Judge Backs Photog in Social Media Copyright Claim

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United States District Court for the Southern District of New York Judge Alison Nathan this week in Agence France Presse v. Morel (Case No. 10-cv-02730) granted, in part, a summary judgment motion brought by a photographer who claims news organizations infringed on copyrighted images he posted on Twitter.

According to a report by the wire service Reuters, photographer Daniel Morel tweeted photos he took of the destruction caused by an earthquake in Haiti in January 2010. Defendant Agence France Presse (AFP) transmitted Morel's photos to defendant Getty Images, four of which were published on the Web site of defendant Washington Post , which subscribes to Getty, according to the court ruling.

AFP contended the photos in question were available for re-use once they were posted on Twitter, but Judge Nathan found AFP and the Washington Post infringed on Morel's copyright because the social media platform's terms of service did not grant a license to the defendants to reproduce the images without Morel's permission. The court imposed a ceiling on the amount of damages Morel could recover, did not rule on the infringement claim as to Getty Images, and left unresolved other issues for trial, a date for which has not yet been set.

The Reuters article reported that Morel countersued the defendants after AFP initially filed suit against Morel in March 2010, seeking a determination that it had not infringed on Morel's copyright. Twitter, which is not a party to the suit, takes the view that users of the service own their photographs that are posted on Twitter.

EU & U.S. Social Media Cos. Clash Over Personal Data Use

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Facebook and Google are fighting efforts by the European Union to restrict social media companies' efforts to sell users' personal data to advertising companies, according to a report by Reuters news service.

The growth of mining Internet users' data, such as browsing habits, by social media platforms, including Facebook and Google, has grown exponentially. The Reuters article estimates that Facebook could reap $10 annually from each user's clicking on ads, not exactly small change for a company that boasts 1 billion users.

EU lawmakers, concerned that its citizens have not given permission to have their personal data used in such a manner, are lining up behind European Parliament Member Jan Philipp Albrecht, who produced a report based on the European Commission last year calling for stricter data protection. Albrecht is expected to reveal his plan this week and the EU will vote on his final report in April, Reuters reported.

The plan may include provisions enabling authorities to levy fines against customer data violaters.