Gingrich Threatens EFCA Twitterer With Lawsuit, Doesn't Understand Twitter
"We are writing to demand that you immediately take down an illegal and fraudulent posting on Twitter...which falsely purports to be written by our clients and unlawfully uses the name of Messrs. [Newt] Gingrich and [Saul] Anuzis," reads a letter (PDF) from Stefan Passatino of the law firm McKenna Long & Aldridge.
The cease and desist notice comes in response to an online movement intended to convince Gingrich's Twitter followers (among others) to sign a petition in support of EFCA. Gingrich and his lawyer takes issue with the campaign, but that's possibly because the finer points of Twitter have eluded both of them.
We have recently learned that a pro-EFCA group calling itself "The Truth About EFCA.Org" and operating a website at that URL, has apparently publish the Posting on Twitter. The Posting falsely purports to have been written by Messrs. Gingrich and Anuzis and includes the Mark [ampersand] as well as the Twitter "handles" of the foregoing individuals.
By that, Gingrich's attorney means the group posted this.
Which could, I suppose, be interpreted both as a solicitation of Gingrich and Anuzis as well as a statement about them (though does anybody really think Gingrich would sign a pro-EFCA petition?) But anybody with even passing familiarity with Twitter knows that the message isn't purportedly written by the people named in it. It's directed at them. Hence the ampersand.
The website for The Truth About EFCA can be seen here. And the Twitterer who's being threatened with the lawsuit has a blog of his own where he's written a post about this ordeal. We've contacted him (by direct Twitter message!) and we'll let you know what, if anything, he has to say about his sudden brush with Twitter scandal.
Josh
Matt
Eric
Brian
That screen cap (is it a screen cap) is kinda misleading. I couldn't understand this post for a couple of minutes. Checking out other screen caps on the linked pages made things clearer, but this one here is just plain weird.
May 19, 2009 11:29 AM | Reply | Permalink
It looks like this screen cap is the post that pissed them off, and the author has updated it to clarify, presumably after receiving the threatening letter. The original does indeed sound like Newt is signing the petition; the updated tweet looks like a call for them to sign.
May 19, 2009 2:48 PM | Reply | Permalink
@ is an "at sign", not an ampersand. & is an ampersand.
May 19, 2009 11:43 AM | Reply | Permalink
Actually, when the letter refers to "the Mark" it isn't referring to any punctuation mark, it's referring to the firms Service Mark (see the heading of the linked PDF), the phrase "FREEDOM NOT FEAR."
Here is the actual tweet http://twitter.com/EFCANOW/status/1689563771
BTW, other names for the "@" are "the snail" and "the amphora" but email has pretty much enshrined it as "the at symbol"
May 19, 2009 12:06 PM | Reply | Permalink
Back in the good ol' days, it was known as the "commercial at" sign.
May 19, 2009 2:24 PM | Reply | Permalink
Thank you! &&&&&&&
May 19, 2009 5:03 PM | Reply | Permalink
Maybe I'm old, but I believe Twitter is just silly.
May 19, 2009 12:19 PM | Reply | Permalink
Twitter is a tool, it may have silly uses, but it can also be used for serious business. Consider that Twitter is to email as Sprint's push-to-talk functionality is to making an actual phone call.
You could say that push-to-talk was just a suped-up walkie-talkie, or you could see that it could be a useful business tool.
I see it as analogous to telegrams in the era of handwritten letters. The medium forces the sender to be brief and to the point.
May 19, 2009 12:27 PM | Reply | Permalink
I agreed in the beginning -- Twitter's heaviest users (aside from Ashton Kutcher) seemed to be twentynothings keeping track of their friends' social engagements. But try using the search feature -- something Facebook doesn't have -- and you'll see the power that's developed in that application. Last week for example I was wondering if the Celtics game was available online. I searched twitter for "celtics" and a few of the most recent posts were links to the game on Justin.tv (which are of questionable legality so aren't announced on the site itself.) Twitter's becoming a way to tap into the world's collective experience in an immediate way; it's not deep but it's endlessly broad. The possibilities are interesting.
May 19, 2009 4:36 PM | Reply | Permalink
I have no idea as to your agedness--if you're online at all, there's pretty good chance I'm actually older than you are, and I like Twitter. If you think it's silly, don't sign up. I probably hate the bands you like; that doesn't mean they're silly, it just means our tastes differ.
(Am I sick of people hating on Twitter? Why, yes, I am. Try not to be a jerk just because people are having fun doing things you think are silly, eh?)
May 19, 2009 7:13 PM | Reply | Permalink
OK, I am one of the greatest victims of technology's anthrophobia -- technology's fear and hatred of human beings. I can't turn my wife's iPod on or off, or understand why it's so great to have scores of artists that I've never heard of pre-programmed on the thing, with practically no artists I have heard of. I finally had to upgrade from Windows ME to Windows XP ... and I'm finding it even slower and more difficult to deal with.
So could someopne explain to me, in very simple language, how it advances the pro-EFCA cause to be asking people to sign on to Newt Gingrinch's petition ???
And yes, the IBM Selectric II typewriter remains a far better method for one person to get words onto one piece of paper than any computer system that Bill Gates and his twits can devise. At just $7. per hour wasted in foul-ups, breakdowns and failures to perform as advertised, Microsoft owes me at least $7000 over the last ten years.
May 19, 2009 12:32 PM | Reply | Permalink
I never thought I needed one, but I might start a Twitter feed just to needle Newt Gingrich by including @newtgingrich in every one. My Tweets would probably have to do a lot with serial adultery and getting fired as House Speaker for ethics lapses.
May 19, 2009 12:54 PM | Reply | Permalink
You fools, the issue is not using newt's name in a tweet, its about fraud.
Look clearly at the EFCANow post which is screenshot above: Saying to sign "the freedom not fear petition", which is a petition Newt started, then providing a link which is not a link to that same petition, but indeed a petition advocating the exact opposite, is fraud. Yes its juvenile, but its fraud nonetheless.
Goes to show why you can't trust unions, if they commit fraud to get you sign a petition then they'll commit fraud to get you sign a card for "card check" to join a union.
May 19, 2009 5:11 PM | Reply | Permalink