Twitter Loses Summary Judgment Bid in TCPA Claim
By Joseph C. Wylie II, Molly K. McGinley, Nicole C. Mueller
Last week a California federal court ruled that Twitter, Inc. is liable under the Telephone Consumer Protection Act (“TCPA”) for tweets it sent via text message to the new owner of a recycled cell phone number. The Court found that the online social networking service was the “sender” of the tweets, as that term is defined under the statute, rather than the authors of the tweets or the former owner of the cellphone who opted to receive the text messages. In doing so, the Court reiterated the Federal Communications Commission (the “FCC”)’s previous caution that where autodialers are utilized to make robocalls to a wireless number, it is the caller – and not the wireless recipient of the call – who bears the risk that the call was made without the prior express consent required under the statute. The Court also found that Twitter could not be shielded from liability under the Communications Decency Act of 1996.