As reported all over the net this week, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg and a number of other Facebook execs have been awarded US Patent #7,699,123: Dynamically providing a news feed about a user of a
social network, yet another highly vague, general software patent.  The abstract:

So as CNN is reporting today (yeah, a bit late), that evidently you CAN get sued for libel for a tweet. Sounds ridiculous? Yeah to me too. But really, it’s not so much ridiculous as it is yet another sad disjunction between the 1st Amendment, various traditional libel / slander laws, and all this new-fangled technolowhatsis that has been coming down the pike for the last few decade.

CNN Article: “Can the law keep up with technology?”

This is the same sort of thing that has been going on for ages; I’m sure that the first wheel maker was roundly condemned by the Porter’s Guild for stealing their livelihood.  But that’s really just something that happens whenever someone invents a better widget.