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Twitter hands over Occupy Wall Street protestor's updates under pressure
Twitter has been building a modest reputation for siding with the little guy (or girl) when it comes to communication privacy, and it just demonstrated how far it's willing to go in a showdown with Manhattan's Criminal Court over a demand to hand over tweets from Occupy Wall Street protestor Malcolm Harris. The social network has been pushed into delivering the claimed evidence, but only as it faced a deadline and the threat of a fine -- it even tried one last request for a stay before producing hard copies of the messages. However much the handover affects Harris' chances at winning during trial, it emphasizes that public posts have serious consequences -- companies ultimately can't shield you from the law. [Image credit: Paul Stein, Flickr]
140 characters to the clink: Occupy Wall Street protester loses battle to block Twitter subpoena
In a decision that's sure to be lost on this generation of over-sharers, Occupy Wall Street protester Malcolm Harris, arrested this past October during a Brooklyn Bridge demonstration, has just lost a legal battle to block prosecutors' attempts to subpoena three month's worth of his tweets. Chalking the ruling up to Twitter's terms of service, Judge Matthew Sciarrino Jr. concluded that the posted updates belong to the social networking company under license and, therefore, are fair game for use in the case "given their relevance." Harris, as expected, is in the process of filing a motion to reargue, but let this be a fair warning to our open online culture: what happens on the internet, stays on the internet forever. So you better watch what you tweet.
Levine: Occupy Wall Street and tea party mirror revolution in BioShock Infinite
Irrational Games' creative frontman Ken Levine started Occupy Wall Street in a city in the sky, a year before the first tent was pitched on the ground in Manhattan -- and if his timeline of events in BioShock Infinite is any indication of our own future, we'd better start building some evacuation skyhooks yesterday. Levine draws parallels between the fighting political factions in Infinite, the Founders and the Vox Populi, and the OWS and tea party movements, in an interview with the Washington Post. But it doesn't start -- or stop -- there: "In this world, we came up with the idea of looking at what was happening at the time of the game [the 1890s], with the jingoism movement and the nationalist movement versus internationalist movement," Levine said. "This was before the tea party, before Occupy Wall Street. Actually, when people saw that demo, they thought we were aping the tea party; they thought it was a hit piece on the Tea Party. But these movements tend to happen. There have been nationalist and nativist movements many times through history. "As we developed these opposing groups," Levine continued, "the Founders versus the Vox Populi, it was interesting to see this play out in real time, so that the fictional movements we're creating that are set in this heightened past are almost being duplicated in reality." The polarizing views in the game mirror real-life partisan perception of the BioShock games, Levine said, with people on both sides vilifying them for opposing reasons. Infinite demonstrates a possible outcome of such political extremes, with Columbia seceding from McKinley-era America and devolving into violent drama. "I hope the real-life movements don't head to the same place, though," Levine said. "I'm not going anywhere nice, I'll tell you that much."
Everything is Ghostcrawler's fault with #OccupyGregStreet
Greg Street, better known as Ghostcrawler (lead systems designer on World of Warcraft), is at the center of a vast game designer conspiracy ruining the in-game lives of millions of players. Or so goes the popular theory espoused by the exploding Twitter hashtag #OccupyGregStreet spoofing (what else?) the Occupy Wall Street movement. As Mike Sacco explained in WoW Insider's back room chat, the joke originated from a conversation he'd had at BlizzCon with Narci (@druidis4fite) of Flavor Text, and as far as I can tell, the first tweets are from Narci and @malgrim on the con's second day. WoW Insider's first tweet with the hashtag went live around 1:00 this morning. Things snowballed from there and reached new levels of hilarity when the official World of Warcraft Twitter account (@warcraft) got in on the joke.
