Malaysian Man Required To 'Retract' Defamatory Tweet 100 Times On Twitter; Streisanding The Whole Thing

from the twitter-is-the-new-blackboard dept

The folks over at OnTheMedia point us to a bizarre story in Malaysia where a man was accused of defaming a publishing company on Twitter. The guy, Fahmi Fadzil, had tweeted back in January that a friend of his, who was pregnant at the time, was being mistreated by her employer, Female Magazine (owned by Blu Inc. Media). To atone for the "defamation," as part of the settlement he worked out, he's required to tweet an apology 100 times, like a child writing punishment on a chalkboard. You can see the first such tweet here: If you can't see that image, the text reads:

1/100 I've DEFAMED Blu Inc Media & Female Magazine. My tweets on their HR Policies are untrue. I retract those words & hereby apologize

Of course, the end result isn't too surprising to anyone who understands the internet. The Twitter retraction barrage has, of course, attracted all sorts of additional attention, leading to the creation of a specific hashtag for the situation, #defahmi, and lots of additional Twitter conversation, much of it critical of Blu Inc. and Family Magazine -- including at least one tweet telling people to call the company to complain. It kind of makes you wonder if Fadzil agreed to this "settlement" knowing that it would backfire in a big bad way on Blu.

Filed Under: defahmi, defamation, fahmi fadzil, family magazine, malaysia, streisand effect, twitter
Companies: blu inc, twitter