Chicago woman sued over tweet

Will lady justice turn a blind eye to one woman's tweet?

A Chicago woman is being sued for defamation (to the tune of $50,000) for tweeting a complaint about her apartment.

Re-read that again.

When I first read about this lawsuit, I had to admit that I thought it was a joke. The idea that a company would sue someone for complaining that her apartment had mold just seemed absurd.

Then, I started to worry.

I use Twitter for venting about bad experiences with all sorts of companies - restaurants, utilities, the phone company, Microsoft - the list goes on, and on. Is there even a slight chance that those tweets could come back to haunt me one day? Is it even possible that a court of law would consider this seemingly innocuous, casual mention on a social network worthy of such a fine? 

And what would a legal victory for Horizon Realty do to Twitter? Would people start to protect their updates? Would they self-censor themselves as to not raise the ire of any corporation (or even personal user) who might be out to make a score on a defamation lawsuit? If someone with only 20 followers could be sued for $50,000, what about a person like me who has 900?

In this day and age, sites like Twitter or Facebook provide ways to instantly comment on virtually everything, from wherever you might be. From my cellphone I can create a full start to finish Yelp review of any business, complete with photos, and get that review onto the screens of over 1,000 people instantly.

You know, it was only a matter of time before someone sued over negative comments through Twitter. It is actually surprising that it didn't happen sooner. For the longest time, companies have been using Twitter and Facebook to reach out to customers and woo them. In some cases, companies run their own online reputation management campaigns in order to track down negative comments and proactively address them. Are we soon going to see a day where companies begin to say to themselves, "lets go after people who talk badly about us instead of handling their complaints." Will it be more lucrative to take the RIAA nuclear option of going after individuals online?

What I can say is this - if this case moves forward and this woman ultimately suffers a fine for expressing herself on Twitter, you can say goodbye to that as a tool or open, uncensored communication.