Another example of the dangers of Twitter

He ought to be able to sue somebody over this. It's bullshit that there are losers out there who are impostors on twitter. I mean what the fuck? These are the same losers posting anonymous comments terrorizing newspaper Websites.

 

Twitter ought to monitor accounts and should have people verify that people are who they say they are. I don't think La Russa's suit will get anywhere, but hopefully it will make the Twitter people more aware that they have to be proactive about this stuff.

 

It's pretty clearly parody in my view.

 

Also, this isn't really Bigfoot:

http://twitter.com/hellobigfoot

 

Creating a screen name like "hellobigfoot" is entirely different than posing as an actual person I'm afraid. And before all you Sasquatch believers attack me, until he physically introduces himself to the world and gets his picture taken for a driver's license, he doesn't have an official identity to steal or parody.

Back to LaRussa and Pennington and others, that parody defense will be ripped apart by a judge. Down here there is something LeBetard does on his radio show where he takes calls from the likes of "Fake Tim Hardaway" or "Fake Mike Tyson," and in that case, the "fake" designation makes it abundantly clear to everyone that this is not the real person. Clearly, whoever started the account under the name "Tony LaRussa" did not make it clear that he indeed was not who he said he was.

 

Problem is, it's often the dinosaurs in management who are pushing these tools without understanding how they can best be used. As a result, it's the dinosaurs who are often getting fooled in their desperate attempts to show "We're hip!"

They're the ones who should know better, I would think.

 

I'm pretty sure the legal standard is just "what would a reasonable person believe." If the judge finds that a reasonable person would not think it was really Tony LaRussa, he's in the clear.

 

The sad part is that some in newspapers don't understand how Twitter can increase hits. I know that when I click on a link off a tweet that, many times, I look around on the site.

A good example is a Twitter feed of somebody who I know is a poster here: tsnmike. Since I started following him, I've gone to The Sporting News site much more often. When I've clicked on the link off of DeCourcy's tweet, many times I'll look around the site and clicked on other stories.

Many newspaper people assume that it is way too much work. To the contrary, you can set it to automatically feed tweets by using twitterfeed and RSS feeds. It's not ideal, but it generates tweets that can generate clicks.

 

Yeah, but twitterfeeds suck. I hate it when the newspapers I subscribe to use that (I'm looking at you, U-T!) Then my page fills up with a dozen headline tweets every hour from that source. That's fucking annoying.

 

That's why we're in the pickle we're in: Everybody wants to write, nobody wants to read. Everybody wants to opine, nobody gives a damn what the other guy thinks. Everybody's take is just as good as the next person's, even when it really isn't.

Giving all those kids trophies so they all can feel really special means that nobody is special, turns out.

Have a newfound appreciation for the concept of "barriers to entry" into an industry. Having to buy presses, trucks, huge rolls of newsprint and vast drums of ink was way too much for the little people, so only a few folks controlled the media. But now, the barriers have been brought down, everyone is the media and nobody is the audience. It has become karaoke, where only the singer has any fun, though his/her song is really crap.

 

Please, for the love of God, say that you actually clicked on an ad while you were poking around TSN's site. Ad ad salesperson's job might hang on it.

Otherwise, it's like trying to monetize termites rooting around behind your basement wall.

 

Rick, if the legal standard was that simple and vague, I doubt LaRussa's lawyers would have pushed forward with the suit. No, I think this might be one of those precedent setters.