Do you own your tweets or does Twitter? This is the question at the center of a controversy being played out in the Manhattan District Attorney's Office. The
Huffington Post reported that prosecutors want access to the deleted tweets of Malcolm Harris, who is being charged with disorderly conduct for his role in an Occupy Wall Street protest. Harris and Twitter are engaged in a hot potato battle-royale regarding who actually owns the rights to the tweets with a subpoena going to the loser. The prosecution maintains that Harris' tweets are the property of Twitter. Twitter's stance is that it's terms of service "unequivocally state that it's user's 'retain [their] rights to any content."
If Twitter's stance is held up, then this is a nonissue. Only you own the rights to your tweets and once you delete them, they're gone. If the terms of service argument is ignored and requests for Twitter to hand over the tweets persist, then it will become a much scarier debate. Is in naive to believe that what you tweet and delete is really gone?
The ultimate question is - should you be able to erase the past by keeping deleted tweets as confidential as the information that passes between you and your attorney?
Great thought provoking post, Nicole. I could totally go either way. On the one hand if someone is breaking the law, what if their tweets could help convict them? This could potentially put a rapist behind bars. But on the other hand too much government involvement and a fear of big brother looking over your shoulder may stifle some of the best things about Twitter. People were able to raise awareness about the Presidential protesting in Iran and Egypt and get support because of Twitter.
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