Kardashian Lawsuit: Peeing in the Twitter Punch Bowl

Good article in MediaPost this morning about a lawsuit between a "cookie diet" doctor and Kim Kardashian. In short, the good doctor is suing because Kardashian said he was lying about her being on his diet and that his diet is unhealthy. Meanwhile its not clear at all that he said she was on his diet...apparently all he did was link to an article that claimed as such. And why does she even care? Because she's getting paid to tweet about another diet that she is on.

On the one hand, I think: 'congratulations! great pr for all of you. everybody wins. how many tweets will this generate? how many people will start on both the cookie diet and kardashian's other diet today?'

On the other hand, though, is this what we've come to? This is pitiful. Celebrities are now renting out their thoughts & lawsuits are being fired back and forth in defense of shortcut diets that ethically stable doctors would reject in a heartbeat.

Twitter's great. Social media's great. But none of it means anything if there aren't standards and guidelines. I've got my libertarian streak but maybe its time to recognize that just like a free-for-all in the financial markets ended badly, so could it end badly in the "information marketplace." Consumer trust is already a preciously fleeting commodity...its time for more people to stand up and call BS on practices like paid tweeets.