Courtney Love's Twitter Defamation Defense: 'Twitter Made Me Do It'

It's been nearly two years since we first wrote about singer Courtney Love being sued for defamation over her Twitter messages mocking and attacking fashion designer Dawn Simorangkir. At the time, we noted that filing for defamation seemed like a pretty strong response, and it seemed like a better response would have been to either ignore the angry tweets, or to just lay out her own side of the story. However, after two years and apparently unsuccessful attempts at a settlement, the case is set to hit the court early next month, and it appears that some of Love's defense arguments will be interesting to watch.

First up, her lawyers will argue that the messages weren't defamatory. Considering she called Simorangkir a "nasty, lying, hosebag thief" with "a history of dealing cocaine" while having "lost all custody of her child" and, being guilty of "assault and burglary," one could make an argument that those statements could be seen as defamatory, if it turns out that the factual allegations are untrue. Of course, you could also argue that most people reading them wouldn't, in fact, believe that they were true, and would read them as just Courtney Love being Courtney Love and attacking someone she didn't like.

More interesting, however, is that Love's lawyers will argue that even if the messages were defamatory, there was no damage done. Simorankir is going to argue that the tweets ruined her fashion career, but that seems like it would be quite difficult to prove. Would people really believe Love's tweets on the subject to the point that Simorankir's entire fashion career was ruined? Seems like a stretch.

The most interesting (and least likely to succeed) line of defense is a sort of "Twitter made me do it" defense:

Love's attorneys have their own witnesses, including a medical expert who plans to testify that even if Love's statements were untrue, her mental state was not "subjectively malicious" enough to justify the defamation lawsuit.

That claim -- something akin to an insanity defense for social media -- suggests that Twitter was so appealing and addictive for Love that she had no appreciation for how the comments she posted would be received by others.

If that argument flies, I'd imagine that becomes the default argument any time anyone gets sued for what they say on Twitter.

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