St. Louis Cardinals manager Tony LaRussa apparently does not consider imitation to be the sincerest form of flattery. He has filed a lawsuit against the social networking site Twitter over a fake account. Although the fake “Tony LaRussa” had only four followers, LaRussa was upset about the tweets that were being sent using his name. The offensive tweets included comments about the deaths of two Cardinals pitchers and drunk driving.
In his complaint, LaRussa asserted claims for trademark infringement/false designation of origin, cybersquatting, and emotional/privacy torts. LaRussa alleges that the page, Twitter.com/TonyLaRussa, which has since been taken offline, has caused him “significant emotional distress and damage to his reputation.” In his lawsuit, filed in California state court in San Francisco (and later moved by Twitter to federal court), LaRussa argues that Twitter is liable because it owns the page and has profited from the use of his name and image. “The site states in large lettering: ‘Tony LaRussa is using Twitter,’ and encourages users to ‘Join today to start receiving Tony LaRussa’s updates,’” the complaint states.
Legal experts see several issues with LaRussa’s claims. First, there is the argument that the fake account was clearly a parody. Second, the fact that the fake LaRussa only had four followers will likely hurt the real LaRussa’s damages claims. Another potential stumbling block for LaRussa is the fact that the Communications Decency Act creates a safe harbor from civil liability, including for defamation claims, for providers and users of “interactive computer services.”
Early reports indicated that Twitter had agreed to settle the case; however, Twitter’s co-founder posted a statement that the company would not settle.
Why it matters: Although Twitter has fielded complaints about impersonation on its site before, this marks the first time that someone has taken the company to court over it. As the number of people using social networking sites continues to grow, policing how these users interact with the sites becomes more difficult. Already there are signs that sites are taking impersonation complaints more seriously. Shortly after the LaRussa complaint, Twitter announced that it will start testing a “verified accounts” service to authenticate the identity of certain site users, such as public officials and famous artists and athletes. Facebook already has policies in place for verifying accounts when it is informed about a potential impersonator.