A court order has been served through the use of Twitter to an anonymous user who was impersonating a right-wing blogger, according to articles by the BBC and Reuters. The anonymous user could not be reached via normal methods, so the court order was sent to their Twitter account.
The next time the impersonator logs in to their Twitter account, they will be greeted with the court order sent by Britain"s High Court and, according to Andre Walker, "will be told to stop posting, to remove previous posts and to identify themselves to the High Court via a web link form."
The court order was sought by right-wing blogger Donal Blaney, who decided to send a court order to an anonymous Twitter user as opposed to contacting Twitter to have the account closed. According to Channel 4 News, the plan was to send part of the court order to the impersonating account in a direct message, and then log the IP address of the user when they visit the link to the full court order.
It would appear that whoever created the plan failed to realise that the user impersonating Mr Blaney may decide not to click the link, considering all the publicity this has generated. In addition, the user could also use a proxy to prevent his IP address being discovered.
The barrister for the case said "No person can now break the law anonymously on the internet in this country. That means no false Twitter accounts, no false Facebook accounts, and no fake blogs. It"s a step in a very special direction."
How correct the barrister"s statement is remains to be seen.