When Twitter Attacks

This summer, a Chicago woman used Twitter to complain about a mold problem in her previous apartment. When the property manager, Horizon Realty, came across the 140-character slam, it quickly filed a libel lawsuit, telling the Chicago Sun-Times, “We’re a sue first, ask questions later kind of an organization.”

Within hours of the news report going online, mold claims and other attacks against Horizon Realty were ricocheting across the Twitter-sphere in the woman’s defense.

“Many, many, many more magnitudes of people . . . now have negative information about Horizon Realty than ever saw the [original] tweet,” says University of Minnesota law professor William McGeveran. “You need to realize that an entire networked audience is going to be watching your reaction and making judgments.” That’s the new reality for companies trying to protect their brands from misuse and attacks online.

What’s more, the strength of a company’s legal case can no longer be considered in a vacuum, says John Pickerill, an attorney with Fredrikson & Byron in Minneapolis. He writes a lot of very polite cease-and-desist letters, he says. Form letters that used to scare recipients into compliance are more likely to be ignored or posted online today, and used to mock the company even further. He recommends bringing public relations representatives into the planning of a response because of the damage a perceived overreaction can do.

A company’s best first response is to reach out to an offender in the same venue where the attack or misuse took place. A reasonable and respectful request to take something down is sometimes all that’s needed. If a customer service problem gets resolved, it might even result in the person posting a positive follow-up.

If a request fails, companies can contact the operator of the Web site or social network to ask for help. Often, sites have policies against impersonation and copyright infringement. (Sorry, satire victims, you’re probably on your own.) Best Buy, for example, recently worked with Twitter to shut down impostors who posed as Best Buy employees.

Companies can and should monitor the conversation around a brand using Twitter Search, Google Alerts, or paid services such as Radian6. Still, trying to police comments about your brand on social networks is only slightly less futile than trying to police comments about your brand in bars and coffee shops.