Lawyer for “inventor of e-mail” sends threat letter over social media posts
Lawyer for “inventor of e-mail” sends threat letter over social media posts

          
          
Last year, Ayyadurai sued Gizmodo publisher Gawker Media over those articles, saying they defamed him. Gawker went bankrupt after losing a separate libel case regarding a sex tape of Terry Bollea, also known as Hulk Hogan. Ayyadurai’s case was settled in late 2016 for $750,000.
Earlier this month, Ayyadurai sued Techdirt, alleging that 14 posts that were published on the site, some of which cited the Gizmodo work and its subsequent takedown, also libeled him. Techdirt has said it will fight that lawsuit.
On Thursday, Techdirt reported on the threat letter, which Ars Technica has also reviewed. The letter contains language that it is "confidential," "copyright protected" and "not for publication or dissemination."
Tweets remain
Diaspora was created in 2010, as a sort of open-source alternative to Facebook. The social network is not owned by any single person or entity—nodes are operated by different people on different servers.
In this case, the administrator of that particular node, or "pod," where this post was published, received the e-mail, and asked Schestowitz to remove two Diaspora posts. One of the three Ayyadurai-related Diaspora posts mentioned in the letter still remain online.
"For me it’s not like a mortifying thing," Schestowitz told Ars in an interview. "I’ve had worse experiences. I was kind of annoyed, but I was thinking, 'here’s my chance to help shut down this charlatan.'"
Schestowitz also has several tweets related to Ayyadurai that remain online, including this one:

Ayyadurai is pure evil. Charlatan who lied, paid to spread his Big Lie, when media debunked his lies and sued and got money out of it. Fraud
— Dr. Roy Schestowitz (@schestowitz) November 7, 2016
"In 1978, as a 14-year-old boy, while working at a small medical college in Newark, New Jersey, I invented e-mail, demonstrating the essence of the American Dream that innovation can occur anytime, any place by anybody," Ayyadurai e-mailed Ars. "And, anyone who defames will be held accountable."
Harder didn’t respond to questions about the demand letter. Twitter also did not respond to Ars' question as to whether it had received a similar letter from Harder.


          
                  