UK High Court serves first Twitter writ

England’s High Court has used Twitter to issue a writ to an anonymous user of the micro-blogging service, in what is believed to be a world first.

The court said the tweet was the best way to reach the owner of @Blaney’sBlarney, after ruling that the unknown account holder was impersonating law firm owner Donal Blaney, who has a blog in the same name.

The tweet told the account holder to stop posting under the account, remove past posts and identify himself to the court.

I think this is a landmark decision to issue a writ via Twitter,” UK law lecturer Konstantinos Komaitis told The Telegraph. “You are creating a precedent that people will be able to refer to. It only takes one litigant to open the path for others to follow.

“The law tends to be quite cumbersome and slow, so to have a court deliberate on something like Twitter – so hot, so relevant – it shows quite impressive engagement.”