Doin’ it Wrong on Twitter (updated)
My friend “Gideon” (of A Public Defender fame) asked an intriguing question on Twitter:
@tbuhl’s twitter profile proclaims “no tweets are publishable”. What does that mean?
By “not publishable,” I suspected that “investigative journalist” Teri Buhl (you’ll see the reason for the doubt quotes in a moment) meant “not worth publishing,” which is ironic and funny because posting on Twitter is publication.
But no. Buhl responded to Gideon’s inquiry (read from bottom to top):
So not “ironic and funny,” but “ironic and inaccurate.” Because, as any journalist knows, posting on Twitter is publication, and “I don’t want my tweets in a story or on a blog” is not the same as “you may not republish what I have published.”
Strike that. Gideon replied, “ok thanks. I don’t know how you prevent that, though. I could write a post quoting you”:
and Buhl showed her true colors, threatening to sue Gideon for doing so:
I have had enough people sue me, grieve me, threaten to sue me, and try to sue me over things I’ve posted here that I have come to see defending such cases as part of my duty to uphold our unalienable right to free speech.
Teri Buhl, by contrast, cares so little for free speech that she, in all seriousness, threatens to sue an anonymous public defender if he writes a blog post quoting words that she publishes on Twitter.
Shame on you, Ms. Buhl. Is “investigative journalist” code for “ignorant bully”?
Update:
Clearly Ms. Buhl thinks that she’s entitled to answers that are none of her business, and can’t take “we’ve got nothing to discuss” for an answer. This, then, is not a shock.
I guess you could see this as “investigative journalism”…if it were dark and you’d had a few beers and you turned your head just right and squinted.
Here’s the court docket.
And here’s her lawyer, Frank DiScala. I hope he’s advancing a free-speech defense, because clearly the journal of a teenage girl is “publishable” in a way that public tweets are not.
[See also this followup post.]
About The Author
Here was my tweet to gideon:
ttlms ?@ttlms
@gideonstrumpet Let me know if Teri Bull sues you and you need a defense to a frivolous suit.
Does that mean that you’ll also get sued for writing a story about her threatening to sue Gideon?
That would be funny. Apparently Buhl is hanging her hat on the patently false claim that the quoted tweets (which she later deleted before locking down her account) were not published in her account.
You sure did find a winner here.
So much for rules 1, 3, and 5, huh? I guess you just can’t help yourself. Good luck!
This really shows teribuhl judgment.
I was going to offer my advice, but Mark Draughn beat me to it.
http://blog.bennettandbennett.com/2010/07/10-practical-rules-for-dealing-with-the-borderline-personality.html