After being ordered to hand over information for Occupy Wall Street protester Malcolm Harris, Twitter has announced that it is appealing the decision. In a tweet, company legal counsel Ben Lee said that the request "doesn't strike the right balance between the rights of users and the interests of law enforcement," adding in a separate statement that "we are committed to fighting for our users."
Twitter appealing request for Occupy protester’s data: ‘it doesn’t strike the right balance’
Twitter has said it is appealing an order to hand over user information on an Occupy Wall Street protestor.
Twitter has said it is appealing an order to hand over user information on an Occupy Wall Street protestor.
is a senior tech and policy editor focused on online platforms and free expression. Adi has covered virtual and augmented reality, the history of computing, and more for The Verge since 2011.
We're appealing the Harris decision. It doesn't strike the right balance between the rights of users and the interests of law enforcement.
— Benjamin Lee (@BenL) July 19, 2012
Twitter first filed to quash the subpoena — which requested “any and all user information” related to Harris’s account during a window of time around his October arrest — back in May, but a judge ruled that the request did not constitute an unreasonable burden on the service. While we’ll have to wait to see if the ruling is upheld, the results of this appeal could affect not only Harris’s case but also help set a precedent for whether social media can reasonably expect to contest a request for user data.
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