Activists sue over ownership of Twitter account used in Occupy Wall Street protests
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A group of activists who spearheaded the Occupy Wall Street movement has sued one of its own members, contending that he has wrongfully locked them out of a jointly operated Twitter account with 177,000 followers.
Filed Wednesday by OWS Media Group in Manhattan Supreme Court, the suit seeks a court order prohibiting defendant Justin Wedes from continuing to post on @OccupyWallStNYC and requiring him to turn over the account to OWS, the New York Times (reg. req.) reports.
The suit also seeks $500,000 in damages, contending that “Each and every day that goes by while Wedes remains in control of the Twitter account is another day of plaintiff’s lost opportunity to speak to the Twitter audience that they worked to cultivate and rightly should control.”
The Times could not reach Wedes for comment. However, the New York Post says Wedes explained his position last month in a “Why I Closed the Tweetboat” post on his personal website.
In it, Wedes says he built the Twitter account up since it was turned over to him with some 1,300 followers and crafted the majority of the posts. A powerful but fragile consensus prevailed for years, but has disintegrated because of “very toxic email threads,” and a desire for excessive control over what others say on the account, he writes.
Wedes says he has temporarily stopped all posting on the account while he reviews the more than 47,000 tweets already sent, and plans to “reopen it in the hands of responsible stewards.”
Gothamist also has a story.
