Loreweaver: I liken Twitter to having your own live segment on a local community TV channel. Once it's been broadcast to the public (which you do when using Twitter), anything you said over the air is no longer private, and thus, you cannot claim a right to privacy about something you broadcast to the public.

But this situation is like the broadcast station having a tape of your live segment and the judge is ordering that the station turn over a copy of the tape.

This wasn't about keeping tweets private

The police were asking for like 6 months of twitter activity for a case that took place in a single day event in NYC. They weren't fighting about the tweets, they were fighting about the IP logs, the private conversation tweets, the location data etc etc

So framing this as they were just asking for tweets is BS. They wanted 6 months of data on everything this guy did, said, logged on, spoke to etc on twitter.

So when the police are investigating a potential "disturbing the peace" charge that took place on a single day or 2 in NYC they can have 6 months of location data, ip logs, private conversations etc etc

poisonpill: Isn't this slightly more complicated than shouting out a window?

It's not that he tweeted, it's that he deleted said tweet and now the judge wants Twitter to reproduce it. So it almost *is* like a private email that a judge wants revealed. Which is fine with a warrant.

I mean I totally agree a tweet is completely public. But how does that make it mandatory that Twitter overturns the tweets? Doesn't it still require a court order? Isn't the court ordering it?

I guess my beef is with the analogy, as with most, it oversimplifies things.


I disagree. If I shouted out the window a minute ago, it doesn't exist right now. You can't hear it any more than I can read this guy's deleted tweets. But if somebody recorded it, then the recording is evidence. Like Twitter's record of this guy's deleted tweet. Seems like a pretty apt analogy, since the issue the judge was primarily addressing the expectation of privacy of the recording.

Isn't this slightly more complicated than shouting out a window?

It's not that he tweeted, it's that he deleted said tweet and now the judge wants Twitter to reproduce it. So it almost *is* like a private email that a judge wants revealed. Which is fine with a warrant.

I mean I totally agree a tweet is completely public. But how does that make it mandatory that Twitter overturns the tweets? Doesn't it still require a court order? Isn't the court ordering it?

I guess my beef is with the analogy, as with most, it oversimplifies things.