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When Sued Don't Tweet

jacquesmattheij.com

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Re: When Sued Don't Tweet

#81

Post by apalmer »

wpietri wrote: post #76
cgshaw wrote: post #37

(another attorney here) Tweets aren't under oath or anything, but it opens up Carmack to lots of questions and possibly affects his credibility. Often times cases come down to "he said / she said" types of claims and how a jury views them. If ZeniMax mentions the tweets in court, it will likely be to try and make Carmack look like he acted out of hand, and that he rushed to make claims that arne't true (i.e. the IP /…

The basic advice of "Don't just do something; stand there!" is sound, but I'm curious if you (or other people) have practical suggestions on how to do that. In practice, it can be quite difficult to do nothing when it feels like that action is desperately necessary.

When sued the appropriate action is to immediately higher a qualified lawyer with expertise in the specific area. Then follow his advice. Until you do that... do not do ANYTHING.

Re: When Sued Don't Tweet

#82

Post by wpietri »

personZ wrote: post #62
zavulon wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Did you read the article? The point is you're making it worse by tweeting and making other public statements. You may win in court of public opinion, but you're making it easier for your opponent to beat you in actual court.

The blog post is pure speculation by what appears to be a layman. It has no more weight than any random comment on HN. It's worth stating that because people are treating it as if a famed IP lawyer has made a pronouncement of fact, when in actuality it's just someone giving, like, an opinion, man.

It's someone who has been involved in the business of technology for a long time, so I'd give his opinion substantially more weight than the average HN comment. It's also bog-standard legal advice, so I'd say it doesn't need a lot of footnoting.

Re: When Sued Don't Tweet

#83

Post by wpietri »

ilamont wrote: post #29

An interesting counterpoint to this is Julie Ann Horvath, who leveraged Twitter to expose a toxic culture at Github (1) and eventually forced the CEO and his wife to leave the company (2), and has kept Github and certain employees on the defensive (3). She may have to deal with legal repercussions because of her actions on Twitter, but I can't help but think that nothing would have changed had she kept silent or quie…

Sure, but it's a tradeoff. The Preston-Werners have made legally threatening noises. Julie Ann Horvath's public comments have made an impressive difference in the court of public opinion, but if she gets sued in the court of actual court, they provide a lot of attack surface to a plaintiff's attorney.

I think it's great when people speak up about bad conditions: it's a big way that exploitative and oppressive behavior gets remedied. It seemed like Horvath knew the risks she was running, and I admire her bravery. But I wouldn't want people speaking up to be heedless about the risk they're taking.

Re: When Sued Don't Tweet

#84

Post by wpietri »

cookiecaper wrote: post #59
ceejayoz wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> most of her complaints were found to have no basis in fact Enough of them had a basis in fact to get a founder fired.

While I'm not sufficiently informed on the daily operations at GitHub, "basis in fact" has nothing to do with whether a C-level remains employed or not. Companies these days are hypersensitive about their reputations and you'll be considered a liability for a single misconstrued statement despite years of stellar (and most importantly, completely politically sanitary) work. You may even get owned for politically inco…

Eich's public behavior was absolutely material to his work. You can't work to break apart gay families and undermine gay people's constitutional rights and then expect gay people to be be perfectly comfortable working for you. And Mozilla's board reasonably felt that material to him being the CEO of a company. Well, that or his demonstrated inability to handle a corporate crisis with a big press element.

Re: When Sued Don't Tweet

#85

Post by capex »

apalmer wrote: post #81
wpietri wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The basic advice of "Don't just do something; stand there!" is sound, but I'm curious if you (or other people) have practical suggestions on how to do that. In practice, it can be quite difficult to do nothing when it feels like that action is desperately necessary.

When sued the appropriate action is to immediately higher a qualified lawyer with expertise in the specific area. Then follow his advice. Until you do that... do not do ANYTHING.

You probably meant 'hire', not 'higher'

Re: When Sued Don't Tweet

#86

Post by wpietri »

peterwwillis wrote: post #69

What to do when people make you angry online: 1. GET OFF SOCIAL MEDIA. Everything you say and do will make you a target. The only things you can say that might help you would be contrition, so if you're not willing to do that, get the hell off social media. This is also good because it removes you from having to read things about yourself that people are saying. People's talk will not harm you; your reaction to peopl…

Yes, yes, yes. Excellent advice.

The only thing I'd add is that it can be worth being visible about this. If you can make a polite and neutral statement before disappearing, that can help. E.g., "I wasn't expecting such a strong reaction; I obviously need to take some time to think this over and talk with friends before saying more in public."

Re: When Sued Don't Tweet

#87

Post by personZ »

wpietri wrote: post #82
personZ wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The blog post is pure speculation by what appears to be a layman. It has no more weight than any random comment on HN. It's worth stating that because people are treating it as if a famed IP lawyer has made a pronouncement of fact, when in actuality it's just someone giving, like, an opinion, man.

It's someone who has been involved in the business of technology for a long time, so I'd give his opinion substantially more weight than the average HN comment. It's also bog-standard legal advice, so I'd say it doesn't need a lot of footnoting.

Years in technology means exactly nothing relating to IP/Copyright/Contract lawsuits, and I find that claim extraordinary: It is the sort of thing that builds false confidence and pseudo expertise.

It's also a bit ironic given that in this case it's someone telling John Carmack -- guy who was a founder and partner at a number of businesses to great success and for many years -- what he should do. John clearly made his own analysis and decisions, and he is hardly a green entrant to the industry. And maybe Carmack is making the wrong calls, because again years in technology mean exactly nothing.

Is it bog standard advice to shut up until a trial? Hardly. Many facing such a suit will make statements such as vigorously denies, etc. There is absolutely nothing abnormal or unexpected about that.

Re: When Sued Don't Tweet

#88

Post by pimlottc »

peterwwillis wrote: post #69

What to do when people make you angry online: 1. GET OFF SOCIAL MEDIA. Everything you say and do will make you a target. The only things you can say that might help you would be contrition, so if you're not willing to do that, get the hell off social media. This is also good because it removes you from having to read things about yourself that people are saying. People's talk will not harm you; your reaction to peopl…

> 1. GET OFF SOCIAL MEDIA. Everything you say and do will make you a target. The only things you can say that might help you would be contrition

IANAL, but this seems like bad advice. If there's litigation involved, any sort of apology could be taken as an admission of guilt.

Re: When Sued Don't Tweet

#89

Post by wisty »

ilamont wrote: post #29

An interesting counterpoint to this is Julie Ann Horvath, who leveraged Twitter to expose a toxic culture at Github (1) and eventually forced the CEO and his wife to leave the company (2), and has kept Github and certain employees on the defensive (3). She may have to deal with legal repercussions because of her actions on Twitter, but I can't help but think that nothing would have changed had she kept silent or quie…

If you want to hurt someone, then tweeting can be effective. So can setting fire to their dog. Neither is likely to help you win a court case though.

Re: When Sued Don't Tweet

#90

Post by Tyrannosaurs »

motters wrote: post #21

If someone makes a spurious allegation against you then I think you should defend yourself as much as possible, including via tweets or any other communication channels. Refuse to go quietly into the night.

Depends who they're defending you against - the court of law or the court of public opinion.

As a very highly paid barrister once said to my father "your mistake is that you think because you're right, you're going to win. You won't."

In a court of law being right may not be enough.

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