Twitter appeals court ruling, tries to protect user's personal data

Twitter announced οn Thursday that it will appeal a ruling in the state of New York instead of compromising personal data of one of its users. The user's name is Malcolm Harris and he is a senior editor at online publication The New Inquiry. He is also an active supporter of the Occupy Wall Street movement.  In October 2011 Harris was arrested along with more than 700 other people, when during a large Occuoy Wall Street protest they blocked the Brooklyn Bridge.

In May 2012, Twitter was subpoenaed  by New York County Criminal Court Judge Matthew Sciarrino Jr. to provide three months of tweets and other personal user information from Harris. Twitter challenged the subpoena, claiming that users own their Twitter data according to Twitter's terms of service. In early July though, the criminal court of New York City and the county of New York upheld the original order. According to Judge Sciarrino's opinion, Twitter users do not have a reasonable expectation of privacy, because their tweets are public. Twitter's legal counsel Ben Lee announced on Thursday morning on Twitter that the company will appeal Sciarrino's ruling.

"At Twitter, we are committed to fighting for our users. Accordingly, we are appealing this decision which, in our view, doesn’t strike the right balance between the rights of our users and the interests of law enforcement," Twitter said.