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First Twitter Libel Suit Filed in Los Angeles
In what is believed to be the first lawsuit filed for statements made on Twitter, singer and actress Courtney Love has been sued in Los Angeles Superior Court by her former fashion designer, Dawn Simorangkir. The claim relates to “tweets” posted by Love on Twitter accusing Simorangkir of being a “nasty, lying, hosebag thief”, having “a history of dealing cocaine” and being guilty of “assault and burglary”, among other things. Simorangkir is seeking punitive damages on the basis that the comments have destroyed her reputation and business. Simorangkir claims that Love’s attack was sparked when Simorangkir stopped working for her after Love failed to pay her bill. Apparently, Love is well known for sounding off online, and had also posted similar comments on a fashion site where Simorangkir sells her clothes.
Twitter is a free social networking service that enables its users to send text-based posts of up to 140 bytes in length (called “tweets”) which are displayed on the user’s profile page and delivered to other users who have subscribed to them. Users can send and receive tweets via the Twitter website, short message service (SMS) or applications such as Tweetie, Twitterrific, Twitterfon, TweetDeck and feedalizr.
For additional information, visit:
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/media/online/loves-online-spat-sparks-first-twitter-libel-suit-1656621.html