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Who Owns Your Social Media Account? Man Sued by Former Employer Over Ownership of His Personal Twitter Account

When is your Twitter account (or Facebook or other social media account) not your Twitter account? At what point does your work-related use of your social media account convert that account to your employer’s intellectual or other property? Noah Kravitz is being sued by his former employer, PhoneDog, over what is now, in theory, Kravitz’s personal Twitter account. An account which he says he converted to his own use with PhoneDog’s blessings, only to have them turn around and bite him in the back. Kravitz used Twitter while he worked for Phone Dog – using the Twitter handle @PhoneDog-Noah – and when he stopped working for PhoneDog he changed his Twitter ID to @noahkravitz – but it was the same account, with the same followers – 17,000 followers – and PhoneDog now claims that Kravitz’s Twitter account is actually their intellectual property, and that a Twitter account by any other name is still theirs. But there is way more to this story.