New Legal Issues Arising Over Ownership of Social Media Accounts

If you open an account with Facebook, do you own it? Do you own the stuff you put on it, or does Facebook? In a similar vein, do you own your Twitter account, or the messages you send using it? These are not trivial questions as more and more people come to rely on social media sites to manage their lives, both personal, and professional. And now, according to the New York Times, it's all coming to a head because a company is suing a former employee over the ownership of a Twitter account.

In this case, what happened was, a man named Noah Kravitz used to work for a company called PhoneDog. As an employee, Kravitz ran a blog for the company and subsequently managed to amass over 17,000 followers. But then, Kravitz decided to quit working for PhoneDog to move to a different company. And he took his Twitter following with him. The problem is, while Kravitz was with PhoneDog, the name of the company was part of the account name, i.e. @Phonedog_Noah. After he left, he changed it to the more personalized name: @NoahKravtz. So, the question is, who actually owns the Twitter account, and subsequently the following behind it.

Thus far, the folks at Twitter have yet to weigh in, though that could come about when this case eventually goes to court. Though it appears unlikely, it seems like Twitter could claim that it actually owns the account, and thus any litigation between the two involved, is moot.

But that only gets to part of the story. If Twitter does own the account, does that mean it owns the following? Thus far, no court rulings have occurred on this issue, but most legal experts (again, according to the Times) believe it's only a matter of time.

At stake is an issue that could very well drive into the hearts of social media account holders the world over. If Facebook owns your account, as they appear to, because every Facebook user knows that if they abuse their account, Facebook can shut it down, then they can do with it what they choose. For example, if you break a rule and Facebook shuts down your account, does that mean they cannot use it later on for their own purposes, like say, if you somehow miraculously became famous one day? Could they scrape your account and get paid for all your old photo's and musings? Again, it will take a lawsuit and ruling to decide.

But even that won't completely clear up all the legal issues; like what happens if you and your spouse share a Twitter account, amass a ton of followers and then get divorced? In such cases, DiscoveryNews ponders the possibility of Twitter followers being designated as legal assets which means assigning dollar figures, to them. But, does that only go in one direction? What happens if a Twitter follower learns that they have been estimated to have a certain worth, are they entitled to any of that money?

All of these are questions without answers, but are issues worth paying attention to, because those that now believe they "own" their accounts or the stuff they have on them, or their followers, might find, they really don't if they wind up in court.