The Athletic keeps growing .......

Exactly. It wouldn't matter then if he was gifted 1 follower and built it up to 27,000.

 

I never said that. I was just answering the question about how many followers he had when he took over the account.

 

The lawsuit is silly and petty. I don't care where the account started -- to try to retrieve it is dumb.

If I'm this guy, I (a) create a new account and spend the next week or so tweeting about the situation and pushing my followers to move to the new account, and then (b) spend the next few weeks aggressively tweeting out tentacle porn and retweeting MAGA trolls on the old account. Want the account back? Here you go.

 

Punitive damages, anyone?

 

I doubt there was a written agreement. This just seems petty on the part of the paper. If he has to give back the account, he can certainly appeal to his followers to join him on a new account. And ask his followers to unfollow the other account. Give the paper back a gutted twitter handle.

 

Didn't read this when I posted on the other thread, but posted pretty much the same thing. If most of those people really want to read tweets,
why wouldn't he just create a new twitter handle and have them follow him and not follow his replacement at the paper.

 

This whole ordeal perfectly illustrates how overblown and absurd the value of Twitter followers are to certain publications. We already knew that you could get hired solely for being engaging on Twitter but taking an account with you/suing a former employee over one is ridiculous.

 

Probably because most college football fans don't care who the person is, they just want someone close to the program to feed them info. I'd be shocked if fans of a particular team were so loyal to one beat writer that they'd not follow another simply because he/she asked them to do so.

 

So a couple things from the Washington Post story about this.

As far as a written agreement, the employee handbook says employees who have been issued “Company-owned information assets, keys or other access items must return them to the Company upon termination of employment.” Like most of us have done at one point or another, Bitter signed a statement acknowledging he received the handbook and would abide by its rules. The lawsuit says the handbook makes clear that all social media “accounts and communications on those accounts” are the property of BH Media.

Also, "appealing to his followers to join him on his new account" is part of the issue. He has been and apparently is continuing to promote his stuff for the Athletic -- a direct competitor -- on the account BH claims it owns. The lawsuit is seeking a temporary restraining order to stop Bitter from doing that, citing (according to the Roanoke Times story) state and federal laws prohibiting, among other things, "theft of trade secrets and unfair competition."

 

I don't think it's much different than a popular columnist, reporter, or even chef. You build a brand for the employer, that doesn't mean you get to take the paper or the kitchen with you when you leave.
Bitter did a solid job with Va. Tech coverage, but I don't see how he has a leg to stand on. Guess, that's why it's going to court.

 

In 2012, Bitter's name was on the account and it had around 7,300 followers.