Twitter Lawyer Says Free Speech is Good Business

Flipping off the censors attracts customers

Alexander Macgillivray, Twitter's chief lawyer, says that fighting for free speech is more than a good idea. He thinks it is a competitive advantage for his company.

That conviction explains why he spends so much of Twitter's time and money going toe to toe with officers and apparatchiks both here and abroad. Last week, his legal team was fighting a court order to extract an Occupy Wall Street protester's Twitter posts. The week before, the team wrestled with Indian government officials seeking to take down missives they considered inflammatory. Last year, Macgillivray challenged the Justice Department in its hunt for WikiLeaks supporters who used Twitter to communicate.