Twitter Hit with Proposed Class Action

On September 14, 2015, a class action suit was filed against Twitter on behalf of its American users “who have sent or received direct messages” through Twitter.  The proposed class action claims that the social media giant eavesdrops on the use of its private direct messaging application, without the consent of its users, thereby violating the federal Electronic Communications Privacy Act and California’s privacy law.

According to the complainant, “as soon as a user sends a Direct Message, Twitter intercepts, reads, and, at times, even alters the message." The lawsuit refers to an algorithm and is not directed against any particular Twitter employee. When sending a link in a direct message, the algorithm in question is said to alter the link by shorting the URL to one owned by Twitter. This means that when a user clicks on the modified link, the user is taken to Twitter’s site first, and then forwarded to the original site – even though users still see the original link. This modification allows the owner of the original site to determine how many individuals viewed its online content through Twitter.

The class action argues that this practice is deceptive and is only used as a tool for Twitter to increase its value to third-party websites and advertisers, thus allowing Twitter to negotiate better advertising rates.

For related articles, see:

http://tinyurl.com/o63feud and http://tinyurl.com/nlyobna.