Arguing on the internet - for the forces of good

July 7, 2024 3:07 PM

“Twitter was what made it possible for us to get together,” he said. “And now we’re suing it.” A litigation team built from the sharpest, funniest tweeters is suing Elon Musk. by John Leland for the New York Times. Includes quotes from metafilter’s own Kathryn Tewson .
posted by bq (14 comments total)

That is so awesome.
I've admired Kathryn Tewson's tweets for a while, but hadn't heard how she got her start as a paralegal.
posted by cheshyre at 3:10 PM on July 7 [3 favorites]

“There is not a single place in the Bible where Jesus states that he would ‘light someone on fire and send him to hell.’" ✅
posted by HearHere at 3:23 PM on July 7 [4 favorites]

Not long after I started reading the article, I thought it sounded familiar. It was! Anime News Network wrote an interest piece about it, due to the Vic Mignogna connection, the whole saga of which they covered extensively. Anime is truly inescapable on the internet.
posted by May Kasahara at 3:39 PM on July 7 [2 favorites]

In summary: A small law firm recruited a bunch of paralegals and lawyers using twitter/x on the basis of these are people who understand twitter and the legal issues around it. This has developed into a kind of specialized practice in litigation around twitter/x. Their biggest case is yet to come where they are now representing more than 200 former twitter/x employees who claim they were not paid the severance / compensation they were owed or wrongfully terminated when Elon Musk took over the company.
posted by interogative mood at 4:16 PM on July 7 [20 favorites]

Today I was not expecting to read the name Vic Mignogna, oh my god lol. Such deep revulsion
posted by yueliang at 5:05 PM on July 7 [5 favorites]

representing more than 200 former twitter/x employees who claim they were not paid the severance / compensation they were owed or wrongfully terminated when Elon Musk took over the company.

I wish I could find my comment from the week Elon made the purchase, when I predicted this exact thing, but oh well.

Do the litigants include that guy from Iceland that Phony Stark fired, then mocked for having a disability, and then he was advised that this person was a very early employee of Twitter and would be owed a nine-figure sum if fired, then tried to rehire? What happened with that guy?
posted by The Pluto Gangsta at 5:20 PM on July 7 [9 favorites]

I bought suegrok.com the absolute minute he announced his chatbot. So...red rover red rover...cmon OVER.
posted by lextex at 5:27 PM on July 7 [2 favorites]

Also, I'll be honest, I'm suing all of the data companies and media companies for identity exploitation and failure to report child abuse and neglect. These adults acting like they were actually hurt kinda is a waste of our precious systems and media. Also, it cost a lot of money to run these cases and this much data. What a wasteful way to pretend to reform systems.
posted by lextex at 5:31 PM on July 7 [1 favorite]

Wait… the adults who were cheated out of wages and severance packages, possibly illegally fired? Those adults are a waste of our precious systems and media? I don’t get it.
posted by GenjiandProust at 6:06 PM on July 7 [16 favorites]

Do the litigants include that guy from Iceland that Phony Stark fired, then mocked for having a disability, and then he was advised that this person was a very early employee of Twitter and would be owed a nine-figure sum if fired, then tried to rehire? What happened with that guy?
posted by The Pluto Gangsta at 7:20 PM on 7/7

Sounds like you're referring to Haraldur Thorleifsson. All of the links I found discussing his situation end with a quote from Musk saying "He is considering remaining at Twitter.", which makes me think a settlement including an NDA was reached.
posted by Reverend John at 6:40 PM on July 7 [6 favorites]

Mod note: One removed; let people discuss the post. You may personally elect not to interact with the site in any way, ever, but please don't try to impose that as a rule for other members. And to head off further derailing: As we've discussed here many times before, people have their own reasons and circumstances informing their choices, and we don't need to debate that yet again.
posted by taz (staff) at 11:42 PM on July 7 [15 favorites]

These adults acting like they were actually hurt kinda

Are we going with the presumption that losing one's job and having huge amounts of money stolen from you is...not hurt? I mean okay so it's not literally child abuse but somehow I doubt if someone wrongfully fired you and stole huge sums of money from you in the process that you'd be like, "oh, super cool, dope action."
posted by We put our faith in Blast Hardcheese at 6:53 AM on July 8 [8 favorites]

 Also, it cost a lot of money to run these cases and this much data

Oh me oh my! Won't someone think about the precious data!!
posted by nestor_makhno at 8:34 AM on July 8 [1 favorite]

Am I alone in wishing lextex had come back to explain what they meant?
posted by GenjiandProust at 3:13 PM on July 12