If you say it in public, it's quotable

If I tweet that my butt hurts, and some company thinks that helps them sell their product, they can say "Dave Winer says his butt hurts," and on what grounds could I object?

If someone says something, and someone else says they said it, I'm sorry but you don't have any recourse, if you're the Pope, the President or nobody in particular.

I think we cross a line on Facebook however, when they imply that someone likes a product because they clicked on Like in relation to it. We all know, including the people at Facebook, that there are many other reasons to click Like even if "Like!" isn't what you had in mind. They're being hypocritical and expedient by equating the two, and earning negative goodwill, that may well haunt Mr. Zuckerberg in the afterlife.

And, if a NY Times movie critic says he likes the music of Llewyn Davis on Twitter, the movie company can say he said so.

And it's ridiculous to think that Twitter, a company, for crying out loud, has any standing here! They can put whatever they want in their Terms of Service, this is speech. They don't get to make rules about speech that happens outside their network.

I don't think I'm out on a limb here at all. I'm not a lawyer, but I think I understand the basic rules about speech.


Last built: Wed, Jul 9, 2014 at 11:23 AM

By Dave Winer, Monday, January 6, 2014 at 8:02 PM. Don't slam the door on the way out.