2 Hockey Players And Elisha Cuthbert Want Cash From A TV Station For Airing A Joke Tweet

from the streisand-shoots-and-she-scores! dept

I'm a little surprised to say that we have yet another Streisand Effect story involving NHL hockey players. The previous post had to do with a rookie hockey player who tried to trademark a nickname with some negative connotations to it in order to control how that nickname was being used. This one is a little bit different and, honestly, it sounds like the start to really bad joke: two hockey players and actress Elisha Cuthbert want an apology and cash from a sports station that aired a joke tweet about a love triangle between the three of them during the trade deadline coverage.

That's the joke tweet. It was part of a rolling tweet embed that sports stations do all the time, instructing viewers to use a particular hashtag and then pulling those tweets and putting them on the air. This particular tweet, concerning the Toronto Mapleleafs' Joffrey Lupul, Dion Phaneuf, and Phaneuf's wife, who happens to be Elisha Cuthbert, probably would have made it past any automated filters the station, TSN, had set up. After all, there's no obvious vulgar words or anything like that. So, whether such filters exist or not, the tweet pops up on air.

And the three subjects of the joke are pissed.

"On behalf of our clients Dion Phaneuf, his wife Elisha Cuthbert and Joffrey Lupul, we have sent a letter to TSN demanding that TSN issue a formal apology and pay a significant amount of damages to each of our clients for broadcasting a false and defamatory tweet during their trade deadline show yesterday. We are sending a similar letter to the author of the tweet, Mr. Anthony Adragna.

It is bad enough that there are people who spend their time using social media to publish such false and malicious stories, but it is made much worse when a reputable media outlet like TSN gives broad circulation and credibility to these false stories by republishing them as TSN did. If TSN and Mr. Adragna do not immediately comply with the demands set out in our letters, we have instructions from our clients to immediately commence a lawsuit against them. Our clients will not be discussing this matter with the media. Any questions should be directed to the undersigned."

So, a couple of things here. First, it's questionable how much validity a lawsuit against either party would be. The tweet itself is obviously a joke to anyone who bothers to read the wording of it, which makes a defamation case problematic. TSN has alreay issued an apology to the three of them and they clearly had no intention of defaming anyone at all.

But, finally, and most importantly, what the hell, you three? It was a flash of a joke tweet that was on a Toronto TV station for, like, a couple of seconds. But because you three freaked out about it and got the lawyers involved, there's been national media attention on the very thing you wanted to erase from our collective consciousness to begin with. Talk about Streisanding your way towards the opposite goal.

Filed Under: dion phaneuf, elisha cuthbert, hockey, joffrey lupul, jokes, lawsuits, streisand effect, threats, tv, tweets
Companies: toronto mapleleafs, tsn

Twitter Bot 'Issues' Death Threat, Police Investigate

from the am-I-my-bot's-keeper? dept

We've seen a partial answer to the question: "what happens if my Silk Road shopping bot buys illegal drugs?" In that case, the local police shut down the art exhibit featuring the bot and seize the purchased drugs. What's still unanswered is who -- if anyone -- is liable for the bot's actions.

These questions are surfacing again thanks to a Twitter bot that somehow managed to tweet out a bomb threat.

This week, police in the Netherlands are dealing with a robot miscreant. Amsterdam-based developer Jeffry van der Goot reports on Twitter that he was questioned by police because a Twitter bot he owned made a death threat.

As van der Goot explained is his tweets (all of which can be viewed at the above link), he was contacted by an "internet detective" who had somehow managed to come across this bot's tweet in his investigative work. (As opposed to being contacted by a concerned individual who had spotted the tweet.)

So, van der Goot had to explain how his bot worked. The bot (which was actually created by another person but "owned" by van der Goot) reassembles chunks of his past tweets, hopefully into something approaching coherence. On this occasion, it not only managed to put together a legitimate sentence, but also one threatening enough to attract the interest of local law enforcement.

The explanation didn't manage to completely convince the police of the bot's non-nefariousness. They ordered van der Goot to shut down the account and remove the "threatening" tweet. But it was at least convincing enough that van der Goot isn't facing charges for "issuing" a threat composed of unrelated tweets. The investigator could have easily decided that van der Goot's explanation was nothing more than a cover story for tweets he composed and issued personally, using a bot account to disguise their origin.

The shutdown of the account was most likely for law enforcement's peace of mind -- preventing the very occasionally evil bot from cobbling together algorithmically-derived threats sometime in the future. It's the feeling of having "done something" about an incident that seems alarming at first, but decidely more banal and non-threatening by the end of the investigation.

The answer to the question of who is held responsible when algorithms "go bad" appears to be -- in this case -- the person who "owns" the bot. Van der Goot didn't create the bot, nor did he alter its algorithm, but he was ultimately ordered to kill it off. This order was presumably issued in the vague interest of public safety -- even though there's no way van der Goot could have stacked the deck in favor of bot-crafted threats without raising considerable suspicion in the Twitter account his bot drew from.

There will be more of this in the future and the answers will continue to be unsatisfactory. Criminal activity is usually tied to intent, but with algorithms sifting through data detritus and occasionally latching onto something illegal, that lynchpin of criminal justice seems likely to be the first consideration removed. That doesn't bode well for the bot crafters of the world, whose creations may occasionally return truly unpredictable results. Law enforcement officers seem to have problems wrapping their minds around lawlessness unmoored from the anchoring intent. In van der Goot's case, it resulted in only the largely symbolic sacrifice of his bot. For others, it could turn out much worse.

Filed Under: autonomous computing, bots, death threats, investigation, jeffry van der goot, police, tweets

Je Suis Disappoint: French Court Convicts Idiots For Homophobic Stupidity

from the all-mixed-up dept

We're going to have to repeat this until the point sinks in: advocates of free speech don't get to pick and choose what speech is free based on whether that speech is likable or not. It might seem cruel to continue hammering France in particular on this point, given their most recent experience with Islamic extremists using terror tactics to try to silence protected parody, but the point will be made, cruel or not. The wake of the attacks on a satirical magazine saw many in the world come to France's aid in solidarity behind the ability to speak freely and offensively, even as France also arrested a controversial comedian for his speech and Paris announced it would file suit against Fox News for their very-Fox-News-y claims about so-called "no-go Muslim" areas in the city. Those types of actions don't necessarily negate the solidarity the world showed our European neighbors, but it sure doesn't help.

And it gets more problematic with each new example of France's hypocrisy when it comes to free and open speech. The most recent example is a French court convicting three assholes for spewing homophobic crap on Twitter.

A French court has handed out convictions for anti-gay hate crimes on Twitter for the first time, after three people used the hashtag “let’s burn the gays”. In what a major French LGBT rights group called a “significant victory”, three people were convicted in a Paris court this week after they accompanied tweets with hashtags including “let’s burn the gays on...“ or "#brûlonslesgayssurdu).” During the same period in August 2013, “#Lesgaysdoiventdisparaîtrecar”, or “gays must die because...”, was also trending.

Here's where proponents of free speech get put to the test and too often fail on the merits. It's quite easy to pat ourselves on the back in the West by saying that a political magazine should enjoy the freedom to mock a world religion, because that lines up nicely with secular values. Far more challenging is saying that homophobic idiots who aren't actually inciting real-life violence should be allowed to spew bigotry, because that doesn't line up with most of our values. It's more difficult. Too bad, do it anyway. Because if we're really going to claim that a stupid hashtag is grounds for conviction, someone had damned well better be scouring Twitter in the days following the terrorist attack and arresting anyone who called for violence against Muslims. Who wants to actually bet that such sentiments weren't expressed? Either speech is free, or it isn't. There's no middle ground.

And that's a lesson that my friends in French LGBT organizations probably want to learn pretty quickly, because while acceptance is more in vogue now than ever before, that can change over time.

Yohann Roszewitch, president of SOS Homophobie, an LGBT association which also reports on homophobic tweets, told the website: "We’re positive that this will send out the message that the internet is not a place with no rules where you can do whatever you want."

Yohann, the thought experiment you want to be doing right now is to ask yourself why those words can't be expressed against your group should those that don't like you find themselves in power in the future. "We've arrested several homosexuals for espousing their dangerous thoughts on Twitter in order to send a message to other homosexuals that they aren't allowed to speak freely." It's a statement that probably couldn't be made in France today, but progress isn't made with nary a step backwards. The best defense of a group's freedom to speak openly is the defense of everyone's freedom to do so. Please learn this lesson already, France.

Filed Under: charlie hebdo, france, free speech, hate speech, homophobia, lgbt, tweets

Baltimore Ravens Meet Streisand Effect After Trying To Play 'Hide The Tweet'

from the blaming-the-victim dept

If you're not a sports fan, you probably have no idea who the hell Ray Rice is. If you are a sports fan, you may know that he was recently banned from playing in the NFL. The background on this is quick. Months ago, TMZ released a video from an Atlantic City casino showing Rice dragging his then-fiance out of an elevator. It was clear she was out cold. It was also acknowledged by Rice that they had had an altercation, though specifics weren't discussed. All the public knew was what they saw in the video and that Rice had agreed to enter into a treatment program to avoid prosecution, since his then-fiance refused to press charges, and indeed married Rice weeks later.

Once the public got wind of all this, Rice and his wife held a press conference. The Baltimore Ravens, the NFL team for whom Rice plays football, for reasons unfathomable to this writer, decided to live-tweet the press conference, including retweeting statements by Rice's wife that made many people sick to their stomach.

It's important to understand the context in which the Ravens were putting these tweets out. In the wake of the video of Rice dragging his fiance out of an elevator, and in conjunction with live-tweeting this press conference, the team, its executives, and its head coach were all rushing to the defense of Ray Rice. Even after the NFL suspended Rice a laughably lenient two games out of the season for the incident, the Ravens' website was full of glowing reports about their running back, their head coach was talking about how Rice is a "heck of a guy" and the lenient suspension was a good lesson for children, and NFL broadcast partners were asking Rice what his wife's words of encouragement were for him in a pre-season game. It's in that context that the tweet above was put out, appearing to confirm that the woman who was knocked out cold had it coming to her. Then this video was released earlier this week.

That's Ray Rice one-shot knocking his then-fiance out from inside the elevator. And just like that, the Baltimore Ravens decided it was time to delete many of their tweets supporting Rice, including the one above that referenced Janay Rice doing what way too many women do in domestic violence incidents: blame themselves. For some reason, whoever is running social media and/or PR for the Ravens apparently doesn't understand the Streisand Effect, because deleting those tweets now has those same tweets back in the news today, now that the NFL has upped Rice's suspension to indefinite. Instead of admitting any mistakes, or acknowledging any regrets, the team attempted to erase their misdeeds from the internet.

Sorry, guys, the internet doesn't work like that. Enjoy all that terrible publicity you generated for yourselves! Next time maybe just don't be so quick to try to blame the victim of a violent crime.

Filed Under: domestic abuse, domestic violence, ray rice, tweets
Companies: baltimore ravens

Katherine Heigl Drops Her Lawsuit Against Duane Reade

from the dropping-spree dept

Back in April, I wrote to inform you of the crazy-pants lawsuit filed by Katherine Heigl after Duane Reade, a drug store chain, tweeted out a photo of Heigl shopping at one of its stores. Under the auspices of publicity rights and the corollary idea that celebrities are simply better people with more legal privileges than the rest of us, Heigl wanted six-million dollars for the following tweet.

At the time, we noted that despite New York publicity rights laws being among the most tyrannical, it seemed strange for a lawsuit to be filed against a company simply for showing, you know, a thing that happened. While Heigl also claimed that this was a form of advertising, it's still just the accurate representation of something that occurred, which makes the whole advertising claim sort of silly.

Well, the lawsuit has now been voluntarily dropped with prejudice, along with news that Duane Reade has reached some sort of super-secret agreement with Heigl.

Papers to dismiss the lawsuit were submitted in New York federal court on Tuesday. The dismissal comes with prejudice, meaning that Heigl can't later sue again over Duane Reade's tweet and Facebook post. No terms were revealed in court papers, but Heigl's attorney provides at least some detail.

"Katherine Heigl and Duane Reade have worked out a mutually beneficial agreement," says Peter Haviland at Ballard Spahr. "Ms. Heigl has voluntarily dismissed her lawsuit, and Duane Reade has made a contribution to benefit the Jason Debus Heigl Foundation. The parties have agreed to keep the terms of the agreement confidential."

There's no way to be sure that Duane Reade didn't drop six million off at Heigl's charity, but I doubt it. Either way, it's sort of a shame to see the company run away from challenging the insanity of the claims in the original lawsuit. Publicity rights are beginning to result in ever-more ramped-up legal cases that anyone with a modicum of common sense will recognize as silly. It was a picture of Heigl shopping at a store. Somehow that resulted in the store having to settle and contribute to a celebrity's charity of choice? Come on now.

Filed Under: advertising, katherine heigl, publicity rights, settlement, tweets
Companies: duane reade

Emails Show Peoria Police Knew There Was No Legal Basis To Pursue Twitter User Who Parodied Mayor Jim Ardis [Updated]

from the but,-you-know,-whatever-it-takes-to-keep-the-mayor-happy dept

Thanks to FOIA requests, more information has been uncovered about Peoria, IL mayor Jim Ardis' quest to shut down a parody Twitter account. Shawn Musgrave at Muckrock has secured copies of the warrants and police reports related to the Peoria Police Dept.'s raid of Jon Daniel, the person behind the not-even-illegal @peoriamayor Twitter account. Matt Buedel at the Peoria Journal-Star has obtained email correspondence between the mayor and the police department.

Justin Glawe at Vice has more details, including the fact that Mayor Ardis and his office pushed hard to prosecute the owner of this Twitter account despite there being no evidence that any laws had been broken.

Ardis and others learned of the account on March 11 and sent dozens of emails over the next few days, apparently panicked by the idea that someone with a few dozen Twitter followers was making fun of the mayor. On March 12, Ardis himself asked City Manager Patrick Urich, “Any chance we can put a sense of urgency on this?” Urich passed that request on to Settingsgaard, saying, “Quickly please.”

Ardis (and his office) pursued this vigorously, telling the Chief of Police (Steve Settingsgaard) that he definitely wanted to prosecute. The first of three search warrants went out March 13th, at which point the Twitter account had already been marked as a parody. Twitter informed the city of this fact, but the push went on regardless. Twitter yanked the account on March 20th, but that still didn't stop Ardis from pushing a very compliant police department into raiding Daniel's home on April 15th.

Glawe points out that, according to obtained emails, the police were initially reluctant to pursue this as they could see no evidence of any laws being broken, at least according to an email sent by Chief Settingsgaard to Mayor Ardis on March 11th.

Mayor/Manager, I reviewed this matter with Detective Feehan. He is in the process of shutting down the account as you saw from my last email. This phony Twitter account does not constitute a criminal violation in that no threats are made. I'm not sure if it would support a civil suit for defamation of character. I'm not an expert in the civil arena but my recollection is that public officials have very limited protection from defamation. I asked (Feehan) about identity theft and he advised it did not qualify because the statute requires the use of personal identifying information such as a social security number, DOB, etc., and a financial gain form (sic) the use of that information. Twitter does not require identifying information other than an email address and name, and there appears to be no financial gain.

Detective Feehan followed this up with his own email, again confirming that Daniel appeared to have broken no laws with his parody account, as well as pointing out he had asked for Twitter to remove the account.

But Detective Feehan, being the detective he is, dug around in Illinois law until he found the state's "false personification" statute and used this to pursue the owner of the account. The Peoria Police were able to push this past local judges with a very expansive warrant, which also contained claims that the occupants of the house were likely involved in some very nasty criminal activity.

In his search warrant affidavit, detective Stevie Hughes wrote that there was “probable cause to believe” that the seized data would contain “evidence, fruits, contraband, and instrumentalities of the dissemination and possession of child pornography.”

This, along with a claim that the house would be full of drug paraphernalia related to "cocaine and heroin" use, was used to justify the seizure of nearly every electronic device in the house.

Post-backlash, the district attorney (whose office played a big part in crafting the three warrants used in this case) announced that no charges would be filed in relation to the Twitter account. That doesn't do much to help Daniel's friend, who is still facing drug charges for possession of marijuana thanks to the Peoria police's willingness to help Mayor Ardis violate others' First Amendment rights.

Glawe's personal blog contains even more information about this debacle, including an email interview with Chief Settingsgaard (where he claims -- using some doublespeak -- that Mayor Ardis was "not aware" of the search warrants in advance), and more details about the city council meeting that followed the story becoming national news.

April Clemons, who was one of several to speak in the public comments portion of a meeting that stretched nearly to 11 p.m., told Mayor Jim Ardis she is the “proud owner of a new Jim Ardis parody account."

Clemons then told Ardis he “screwed up.” Near the end of her comments, Clemons turned to Chief of Police Steve Settingsgaard and told him the same.

For his part, Chief Settingsgaard defended his actions, along with the actions of his officers, saying he was not a "jack-booted thug" and that he was "pleasantly surprised" that only four officers served the warrant at Daniel's residence (contrary to earlier reports of seven officers being involved). "Normally, there's more."

Mayor Ardis, after defending his actions by claiming that a.) the existence of a parody Twitter account took away his free speech rights, and b.) that it was the media's fault that he looked like a thin-skinned, power-abusing ass, has remained completely silent about the incident. Perhaps this has been prompted by the city's lawyers, who realize they may soon be on the receiving end of civil rights lawsuits because of the police department's actions.

Update: the ACLU of Illinois has announced that it will be representing Jon Daniel in a civil rights lawsuit against the city officials.

The ACLU of Illinois now represents Mr. Daniel, the creator of the Twitter parody. Mr. Daniel, like other parodists, has a First Amendment right to post these tweets. He was engaging in a time-honored tradition of poking fun at public officials — even when the public official doesn’t like it. Because Mr. Daniel’s activities were protected, they should never have led to a warrant and search of his home. The police activity in this case was unnecessary and contrary to both the First and Fourth Amendment protections to which he was entitled.

In the coming weeks, the ACLU of Illinois anticipates bringing legal action in support of Mr. Daniel against those officials who are responsible for the violations of his rights. We hope this action will send a strong signal to all that wrongful use of the police power to suppress protected speech, even when it is critical or makes fun of public officials is an abuse of power and is not acceptable.

Filed Under: censorship, free speech, illinois, jim ardis, parody, peoria, tweets

NBC Insists Twitter Is Useless Because Not Enough People Tweeted During The Olympics... Which NBC Made Difficult To Watch Online

from the maybe-rethink-your-position dept

People are jumping on a story in the Financial Times, in which NBC Universal's research chief, Alan Wurtzel totally trashes Twitter for not being particularly important to television viewing. The basic claim about the relationship between Twitter and television may, in fact, be true, but the reasoning that Wurtzel presents for his conclusions makes no sense at all. In fact, it raises questions about what kind of "research" NBC Universal actually does.

NBCU had expected social media to have a dominating effect on viewership for the Games. However, during the 18-day period of coverage, just 19 per cent of Olympic viewers posted about the games on social media, the broadcaster found.

Frankly, that seems somewhat high to me. Part of the issue is that Wurtzel seems to think that everyone watching the Olympics and using social media would or should then express that fact to the public. That's bizarre. Plenty of people use social media not to speak out directly, but to pay attention to what their friends and family are doing. This is the same sort of debate that internet-native folks have had for years about participants in online communities vs "lurkers." But lurkers have tremendous value as well, even if they don't participate. Frankly, a 19% participation rate in an online community is massive. It's amazing that NBC Universal seems to think this is a bad thing.

“I am saying the emperor wears no clothes. It is what it is. These are the numbers.”

There are three totally empty statements there, none of which have anything to say.

But, you know, something else that might have had a big impact on this? The fact that NBC Universal has a very long history of making it extraordinarily difficult to actually watch the Olympics that people want to see online (you know, at the time when they're most likely to be connected to social media). Combined with its continued demented decision to make it nearly impossible to watch any of the hot events live and you've basically wiped out many of the big reasons why people might be on social media talking about things. The whole thing was constructed around a typical TV "broadcast" mentality. Is it any wonder that it didn't really resonate with people on social media?

Filed Under: alan wurtzel, lurkers, olympics, social media, tweets
Companies: comcast, nbc universal, twitter

Katherine Heigl Wants Six Mil-Do After Drugstore Tweets Picture Of Her Shopping There

from the publicity-bytes dept

When I become king of America, I can assure you that anything resembling publicity rights will be stricken from the legal record. We've seen entirely too much craziness recently over these laws that appear to create something of a VIP class citizenry. But while even the typical ownership culture insanity usually has an inkling of logic to it, Katherine Heigl suing a drugstore for six million dollars simply for tweeting a photo of the actress shopping there is a whole new level of protectionism.

It's a form of publicity rights gone insane yet again, after Duane Reade tweeted and Facebook-ed a paparazzi photo of Heigl walking out of a Duane Reade, carrying some bags of whatever she had just purchased.

Heigl, the star of the films "The Ugly Truth" and "Life as We Know It" and a best supporting actress Emmy winner for "Grey's Anatomy," filed the lawsuit on Wednesday in New York federal court. The complaint said she was photographed in March near a Duane Reade store in New York while filming a new television series. Duane Reade posted the photo on its Twitter and Facebook account with captions advertising the store without her approval, the complaint said.

The 15-page lawsuit cited a tweet that Heigl claimed Duane Reade posted last month. "Love a quick #DuaneReade run? Even @KatieHeigl can't resist shopping #NYC's favorite drugstore," it said.

Now, we should all know by now that New York's publicity rights laws resemble something a dictator might have put together, strictly governing what the little people can do with images of the important folks. That said, Duane Reade may have a pretty strong defense in that the photo was an accurate representation of a thing that happened. A picture is worth a thousand words, as they say, and all this picture is saying is "Heigl shopped at our drugstore and, hey, here's some photo evidence to prove it."

In fact, Duane Reade seems confident enough in its position that, as of writing this, the tweet is still up.

This is unlike some other publicity cases we've seen, such as when local grocery stores in Chicago congratulated Michael Jordan with an ad campaign, or the misinterpreted representation of celebrities in video games. This is a picture of something that happened represented over social media. At some point, it has to raise certain First Amendment issues about the broadness of various state publicity rights laws, when such laws can be used to prevent someone from accurately describing factual information. Yes, the point of publicity rights laws is to prevent companies from creating a false endorsement of a product, but is accurately describing the fact that someone shops at a store really a false endorsement?

On top of the publicity rights claim, Heigl claims that this is a form of "false advertising," but one could reasonably argue that (a) it's not false and (b) it's not advertising. The latter claim may be a little trickier, but where is the line between an advertisement, and some social media jockey at Duane Reade just tweeting out a photo. That line may become... very important to the outcome of this particular lawsuit.

But Heigl wants you to know she's not some kind of greedy monster:

The complaint said Heigl intends to donate all proceeds from the lawsuit to The Jason Debus Heigl Foundation, which was established in 2008 after her brother was killed in a car accident.

You're not fooling anyone. This is an ego-driven abuse of the legal system. Or, it would be, if publicity rights weren't opening the door to a whole new level of ownership culture insanity, where merely tweeting a picture of a thing that happened suddenly became actionable.

Filed Under: false advertising, first amendment, katherine heigl, publicity rights, tweets
Companies: duane reade

DailyDirt: Publishing Digitally (For Free!)

from the urls-we-dig-up dept

Publishing content digitally is a topic that comes up around here fairly regularly. If you're a longtime Techdirt reader, you'll know that we generally think digital publishing drives down the price of content to free (but that doesn't mean your work is worthless!) and giving away content is often a very effective promotional tactic for selling other things that can't be freely copied. Here are just a few interesting examples of free content you can peruse at your leisure.

• Novelist Teju Cole surprised some folks by releasing a new short story of his on Twitter, using retweets only. The story, titled 'Hafiz', is now available (for free), and it poses some interesting questions over who owns the work. [url]
• If you have a Kindle, here's a link to a list of public domain books, sorted by author last name. This list is compiled from an ebook index of Project Gutenberg books, and there's also an EPUB version available (for non-Kindle users). [url]
• All sorts of people post answers to questions on Quora, so wouldn't it be nice to read a compilation of some of the best responses in one huge book? Quora released a free pdf of over a hundred answers from 2010-2012, covering 18 different question categories and including answers from anonymous users as well as Jimmy Wales. [url]

If you'd like to read more awesome and interesting stuff, check out this unrelated (but not entirely random!) Techdirt post via StumbleUpon.

Filed Under: books, ebooks, free, kindle, media, public domain, publishing, quora, sir, teju cole, tweets
Companies: quora

Tweeted 'Terroristic Threat' Lands Another Teen In Trouble

from the it's-like-the-word-'threat'-has-lost-all-meaning dept

Here we go again. Another teen fires off a post on social media platform and ends up being portrayed by school administrators as "terroristic." This particular incident somehow finds the teen in question unharassed by law enforcement and unthreatened with a lengthy prison sentence, but it still contains lots of baffling details.

Tyson Leon, 16, was indefinitely suspended from school sports in late August after sending a tweet that school officials said constituted a terroristic threat.

He denies threatening anyone, and in U.S. District Court in St. Paul on Tuesday, attorney Meg Kane argued that the suspension is a violation of her client’s constitutional rights.

Leon wrestles and plays football for a Shakopee, MN high school. Over a weekend before the football season kicked off, he sent the following tweet.

“Im boutta drill my ‘teammates’ on Monday.”

Even those with only a passing familiarity with full contact sports will recognize that "drilling" means tackling someone hard. Even those with no sports experience would probably fail to see this as any sort of threat. However, those with vivid imaginations and panicky hands to wring saw Leon's tweet as something much more serious. Leon was hauled off the bus on the way to football practice and taken to the administrator's office for questioning.

Head coach Jody Stone and [athletic director] Janke met the boy in a conference room, closed the door and began interrogating him, according to Kane and Leon’s family.

“Neither … Janke nor Stone informed T.L.’s parents of their intent to interrogate T.L.,” the lawsuit said. “T.L. did not feel free to leave because of … Janke and Stone’s position as school officials.”

During this informal chat that Leon was compelled to attend, the two school officials raised allegations about the student's possible "chemical use" during a football retreat, along with confronting him about the tweet.

A later meeting involving Leon's parents dealt only with the tweet.

On Aug. 26, during a meeting with Leon and his parents, Stone and Janke produced a printed copy of Leon’s tweet about drilling his teammates, the lawsuit said. They said nothing more about the allegations of chemical use. A letter to the family dated Aug. 29 didn’t mention the chemical use either, but said Leon’s behavior violated school and league rules and that he was indefinitely suspended.

Leon was indefinitely suspended from the football team (although this wasn't clear at the time). The school claimed this was a result of cumulative violations and not because of his tweet. Leon has had three previous suspensions from the team, for a verbal altercation, a fight that occurred off school grounds and "chemical use" at a party in January. His parents didn't fight any of these previous suspensions, feeling Leon needed to suffer the consequences of his actions. However, they did object to the latest one, which was seemingly tied solely to Leon's tweet.

The school's logic for Leon's latest suspension was laid out by the district's attorney, Carla White.

On Tuesday, White pointed out that the suspension resulted from Leon’s fourth violation and that he and his family received a letter after his third violation reminding them that violations are cumulative and could cost him his eligibility.

The fourth violation apparently being the "threatening" tweet that contained no threat. As is detailed above, the letter sent to Leon's parent made no mention of the more recent alleged "chemical use." But, just in case anyone feels compelled to argue the latest suspension had nothing to do with the tweet, White's further statements make that crystal clear.

“Every single school administrator who read [the tweet] believed that he was threatening harm,” White said.

That doesn't say much for the administrators. Even the judge hearing the preliminary arguments had trouble buying that claim.

The judge questioned why, if administrators truly believed that the tweet was a threat, police weren’t called to the school.

Good question, especially considering it takes very little for most schools to call in law enforcement, whether its non-threatening "threats" being posted on social media or rumors of a water balloon fight.

White countered the judge's question by reaffirming the administrators' collective terrible judgement.

“They did believe it was a threat,” White said. “They did believe it was going to happen on Monday. They took care of it.”

Leon's family sued the school for violating Leon's constitutional rights, but it appears to have been settled after a meeting by both parties with the judge. The school has reinstated Leon to the wrestling team (of some importance to the student -- reportedly he's being scouted by a local college) but held onto his suspension from the football team.

This is probably the best possible outcome (barring a striking of his fourth suspension over a non-threatening tweet) considering Leon's attorney's statements show she was relying on a couple of dubious legal arguments. First, she claims Leon's participation in extracurricular sports is a "property right," but most schools view these as purely optional parts of the educational experience, something that often requires participants to follow extra rules the rest of the non-participating school body is exempt from. In fact, schools are under no federal obligation to provide interscholastic sports programs due to the extra financial burden it can place on schools for uniforms, travel, salaries, etc. So, from both the student side and the administrative side, these sports programs are clearly optional and in no way resemble a "right." Leon may have been concerned about his future scholarship chances, but three previous incidents indicate his desire for future sports participation was often overridden by his questionable judgement.

Second, Meg Kane claims the school violated rights by accessing "private" social media accounts. This is a tough sell in most courts. Even IF Leon's accounts were set to "private," anyone receiving his tweets, posts, etc. could easily disseminate them further. A "private" social media account is pretty much a misnomer and attempting to claim the school violated his privacy by accessing public postings (even if these were limited or filtered in any way) is a non-starter. There's a better argument to be made that rights were violated by the school's response to his protected speech, but there's not much to be had going the privacy route.

But, given all this, the question still remains: why did the school treat this tweet the way it did? It took a hard line, claiming it was a "terroristic threat" and questioned Leon without informing his parents. It also never informed the police, meaning the administration didn't view this as an actual threat, no matter what its legal representation says.

And if it didn't consider it to be a true threat -- either at the point of interception or after hearing Leon's explanation of the tweet -- why did it insist on following through with the suspension? Was it a way to punish him for the alleged "chemical use" it couldn't nail down conclusively but still believed occurred given Leon's disciplinary track record?

No matter what the rationale, the entire incident makes the Shakopee administration look ridiculous and even slightly vindictive. It clearly had nothing to do with this "terroristic" tweet and yet it followed through with the disciplinary actions and didn't bother clearing up any misunderstandings until it was facing a lawsuit. That's no way to run a school.

Filed Under: schools, suspension, terroristic threat, tweets, tyson leon