Daily Mail group boss spoof tweeter fights to protect anonymity An anonymous wag who lampooned a Daily Mail group boss using a spoof Twitter account has six days to prevent his unmasking. The publishing giant launched legal action in California to compel the social network to reveal the identity of whoever's behind the @UnSteveDorkland handle. The account sends up Steve Auckland, the …
I think the problem is that the fake account was referring to real events almost as they were happening, and was disparaging of both Dorkland and other staff members. It's the latter I have sympathy with; very few of them are public figures so being made fun of in an open and public forum is, IMHO, not nice. Celebs or other high-profile figures, on the other hand, I'm much more relaxed about ripping the piss out of.
The fact that a co-worker is doing this is easily interpretable as harassment or even bullying, neither of which are really acceptable. I'd certainly hate to be working in an environment like that, not knowing who's next to be made a laughing stock at the whim of a mystery colleague.
Jeez, defening the actions of the Daily Mail. I may need to shower for a week before I feel clean again.
Why the hell should any company have any right at all to find out the personal details of an individual poster on a social networking, or any other, site? If the broke the law the police should investigate, otherwise the Mail Group should be told to fuck off.
As for the Dorkland account upsetting his colleagues -- there's an old saying that starts "You lay with dogs...".
There are (at least) two branches of the Law: Civil and Criminal. The police ONLY handle breaches of the latter. The "wronged" party has to do their own digging in the former. There has already been far too much migration of Civil law into Criminal law.
On what grounds should private messages to that account from third parties be handed over to the Mail's muckrakers?
It's got nothing to do with their 'complaint' and could be extremely damaging to those third parties if the Mail finds something they can fake a scandal over.
The law is the same for everyone in this sort of case. The companies such as facebook, google blogs, yahoo, twitter, etc, etc, etc... the only time they will disclose the details of an account is when they get a court order asking them to do so. The court order is issued when a judge agrees a law has been broken by the holder of the account and so the information must be revealed in order to prosecute. I was not aware that the owner of the account then had 6 days to defend themselves against the order but it makes sense. The decision to give the order for them to release the information could be based on shite so important that there is a chance to answer the case.
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