Tony La Russa Sues Twitter
June 5, 2009 by Stephen Kersey
Filed under Humor, News, Stats and Analysis
Twitter has been in the news a lot recently. The microblogging phenomenon apparently isn’t appreciated by Tony La Russa, the manager of the St. Louis Cardinals.
Multiple reports indicate that La Russa filed a lawsuit against Twitter in May. The lawsuit, which was filed in San Francisco, asks for unspecified damages due to emotional distress and damage to his reputation.
This whole issue seems to have arisen after someone registered the Twitter.com/TonyLaRussa page and posted comments that the lawsuit claims were demeaning and derogatory. La Russa’s suit contends that the page was unauthorized and infringed on his trademark rights.
A screenshot has emerged and it appears that the fake Tony La Russa used the manager’s picture and had multiple references to his documented struggles with alcohol.
Perhaps the funniest* part of this whole story is that the fake Tony La Russa had only four followers before Twitter shut down the page. To compare, Ashton Kutcher has 2,026,413 followers at the moment.
Tony La Russa looks shocked when he logs onto Twitter (Image: Zuma Press)
(*in case Tony La Russa reads this, by “funniest” I meant “saddest”)
As sad as it is that La Russa had his identity stolen on the Internet, Twitter is actually covered by The Communications Decency Act. Hopefully, he’ll find a way to land the IP address of the person that stole his identity.