So if someone writes something negative about you on Twitter how should you respond? Should you:
a) Ignore it
b) Contact the person directly and see if you can work something out
c) Sure them for $50,000
I your answer was c then you must work for Chicago’s Horizon Realty!
I came across a post on Podcasting News about how Horizon Realty, a property management company, filed a $50,000 libel lawsuit Monday against a former tenant, Amanda Bonnen, over one of her alleged Twitter posts.
Horizon argues that Bonnen libeled the company with her May 12th tweet, which read in part “Who said sleeping in a moldy apartment was bad for you? Horizon Realty thinks it’s okay.”
To compound things, Podcasting News has this quote from Jeffrey Michael of Horizon”
“The statements are obviously false, and it’s our intention to prove that… “We’re a sue first, ask questions later kind of an organization.” Michael added that the company has a “good reputation it wants to preserve.”
Horizon Realty is positioning itself as a a “sue first, ask questions later” kind of company. Wow!
The irony of the situation is that Amanda Bonnen had less than 25 twitter followers and practically nobody read her original tweet. But because of Horizon’s actions they show up first for the terms Twitter lawsuit.
I guess people can get sued for a lot of things so watch what you say/type on Twitter. Although Amanda Bonnen had less than 25 twittter followers, her comment might have been indexed to Yahoo or Google search so I’d say many more than 25 people could have seen it already.