Rock Starlette vs. Fashionista

We’ve all just about heard of the historical “shot heard around the world”, however in this day in age Paul Revere's enemy comes in many forms. One in particular: Courtney Love.

CASE: Courtney Love (rock star) vs. Dawn Simorangkir (fashion designer).

Albeit rather than Love a gun (as in Rever’s case), Twitter was the accessory. One of her slanderous comments of calling Simorangkir a "drug-pushing prostitute with a history of assault and battery who lost custody of her own child and capitalized on Love's fame before stealing from her", was seen by over 90,000 of Love’s followers, which was then retweeted to a much bigger audience. Who would've known! (clearly sarcastic)...

So regardless if you’re a Twitter extremist, a sporadic Facebooker or a blog-a-holic, you need to know of the possible ramifications you face every time you “click”. If you think you can click without penalties…think again.

Courtney clearly didn't, resulting in a settlement of Love being down $430k and Simorangkir up by $430k.

The lesson learned here: even in short 20-minute 140-character tsunamic bursts, one can even be responsible for defamation.

Ms. Love brought upon herself a libel case by calling the designer a "drug-pushing prostitute" via Twitter. For it to be deemed “libel”, the slanderous comment has to be confirmed that it was false and was publicized to someone other than the offendee.

As mentioned by Simorangkir’s attorney, "(Love) embarked on what is nothing short of an obsessive and delusional crusade to destroy Simorangkir's reputation and her livelihood." And let’s face it being a called a "drug-pushing prostitute" doesn’t normally up your real estate value.

To be honest, I certainly wouldn’t expect anything more than classy from the Love machine and I’m not totally surprised about her Twitter tirade either.

What we all need to learn from her pre-pubescent playground rant is that, in general, anything involving a lawsuit muddled with social media has a high chance of being picked up in the internet.

If you make a mistake with your social media posts, it can cost you your job, reputation, bank account(s) and credibility.