“In other words, Twitter wants to be treated the same as a “common carrier” such as a telephone company, which isn’t liable for the content it carries.”

How can they take any other view?

If someone texts an insult to me on my mobile phone, I delete it & I block them. If they continue to do it to a point where I am threatened by their behavior I report them to the police. Not the phone carrier?

Why would anyone assume twitter to be any different?

But then again if I see an advertisement in the newspaper for a property to rent. I visit the property and I rent it.

Months later the balcony collapses due to it being faulty and it is also discovered that it was an illegal structure. Would the news paper who published the add for this dwelling be liable for having introduced me to it should I sustain serious injury?

I mean, had I not read the paper I would not have been introduced to the landlord and not moved into a situation where I was endangered by a faulty, illegal building structure.

Or

As the publisher of the paper are they little more than a carrier for anyone to publish any advertisements in, true or false?

Where is the line drawn?

I think you will find the law would take a view that the paper was liable only if a representative of the paper had actually visited the property and seen first hand that the balcony was faulty and potentially illegal.

If after seeing it and knowing this they still ran the advert they could be deemed liable.

Drawing parallels here if the decision makers at twitter knew the offensive taunts were occurring & refused to act, would they be liable if the recipient of these taunts was caused suffering?

Love to hear others take this one. It's a very interesting topic considering the internet still has international law makers scratching their heads after how many years now.

I wonder what Pownce thinks of this publicity?

The idea that Twitter is a utility is truly ludicrous in this context. The people for whom it's a productivity tool are living in a bubble in which “productivity” has its own special and hilarious definition. So yes, the argument that it's not a mediator of content is equally ridiculous.

People have to ask themselves: do they want the Twitter folks to focus on fixing the service? Or catering to the sensitive needs of the dear, little community.

“Oh no, precious dear. Were thou feelings hurt? Let me kiss them, make them better.”

Because lord knows, the rest of the internet is such a polite, and safe place to be.