A Lawsuit for an Opinionated Tweet

Recently, a Chicago based realty group sued a Twitter user for $50,000 for a single tweet, a tweet about her opinion about their apartments. Now to me, I think this kind of action is pretty serious yet the Twitter user, @abonnen (who’s account is no longer up) only had 20 followers. The message probably didn’t go too far. With this whole lawsuit emerging, the company now has an even more damaging reputation – being a company who are a “sue first, ask questions later kind of an organization. (as quoted by Jeffrey Michael from Horizon Realty Group in the Chicago Sun Times)

The tweet read as follows –


This whole situation had gotten me thinking about the countless tweets I’ve made complaining about companies. I’ve seen other people do it, and gotten responses from the company personally asking if there was something they could help them with to make their experience with the company better. Horizon could have simply told the Twitter user to remove the tweet before going off and suing her, but they didn’t.

I’m all about good reputation management, but I think this situation has gone a bit too far. When it comes to apartments there is always going to be someone saying something bad, so I think the only thing that could be done is to handle the situation on a one on one basis.