Fastway Couriers seeks court orders over ‘abusive’ parody Twitter account

Fastway Couriers is seeking court orders over an alleged "abusive" parody Twitter account most recently named Fartway Deliveries Ireland.

Some of the tweets posted by the parody account insult various geographical regions of Ireland by referring to them in abusive terms such as "holes" to which it is claimed Fastway will not deliver, Donogh Hardiman told Mr Justice Michael Twomey in the High Court on Thursday.

Mr Hardiman, for the company, said the nature of the tweets were “consistently in the same vein”, they purported to come from Fastway operators, depicted Fastway staff and its service as incompetent, and regularly featured “foul and abusive” language. Some of the tweets had suggested Fastway staff were infected with coronavirus and that they lick customers doors, he said.

He said the parody account appeared just before Christmas last and had used various names, the latest appearing to be Fartway Deliveries Ireland but which “could be anything now”. The account has about 3,000 followers and it seems some Twitter users are under the impression they were interacting with Fastway operators, he said.

His client, Parcel Connect Ltd, trading as Fastway Couriers, wanted an early return date for its application for orders against Twitter International Company aimed at having the account taken down, or at the very least its content restricted, and obtaining details as to who was behind it.

Fastway’s solicitors Byrne Wallace had, in correspondence with Twitter, alleged the parody account breached Fastway’s trademark and logo right and that some of the material posted is defamatory and in breach of Fastway’s intellectual property rights.

The correspondence with Twitter had resulted in the parody account being suspended between April 4th and April 9th, counsel said. The suspension was lifted on April 11th without notice to his side after Twitter had said the account was consistent with Twitter’s own policies.

Twitter had not acceded to requests to have the account removed or to provide information about those responsible for it and in those circumstances Fastway had initiated the court proceedings this week.

Mr Justice Twomey said he saw the basis for counsel seeking an early return date for its application against Twitter and he returned the matter to next week.