30 Jan Courtney Love Wins Twitter Defamation Case

In what appears to be the first case of someone suing for defamation of character based on a Twitter post, singer Courtney Love Cobain successfully fought off a claim by an attorney that she intentionally spread falsehoods over the social media site. According to the ABA Journal, it took a California jury three hours to determine that Cobain was not liable.

Apparently she was upset that the lawyer didn’t pursue fraud claims concerning the estate of her late husband, famed rocker Kurt Cobain of Nirvana. The singer said the tweet, which claimed the lawyer was “bought off” of pursuing the fraud claim, was meant as a direct private message but accidentally sent out publicly, then almost immediately deleted. The jury found that while the information in the tweet was untrue, Love didn’t know it to be untrue, and therefore she was not liable for defamation.

The obvious lesson here: we are responsible for what we do and say online and in social media, whether on Twitter, Facebook, or the like. While this case was dismissed, it seems to set the stage for others where it can be proven that someone intentionally lied about another person. So watch your feeds! And make sure your private messages stay that way!