NEW YORK — Twitter reversed course and complied with a subpoena Tuesday to hand-over information to the NYPD about an account holder who had threatened a "Batman"-style shooting rampage at a Broadway theater last weekend, news sources said.
"This sh-- ain't no joke yo I'm serious people are gonna die just like in aurora," user @obamasmistress, who went by the alias Anonymous Celebrity, declared Thursday, referring to the July 20 massacre in Colorado that left 12 people dead and 58 injured at a midnight screening of "The Dark Knight Rises."
@obamasmistress, who earlier had claimed to be writing from Florida, apparently named a specific target the next night.
"ima shoot that theater up tonight trust me," the poster told another user Friday, who had written that she was waiting in line for opening night of Mike Tyson's one-man play, "Mike Tyson: Undisputed Truth," directed by filmmaker Spike Lee.
Police sent a security detail to the 48th Street theater as a precaution Friday, and sent Twitter an "emergency request" to reveal any information it a had on @obamasmistress, the NYPD said. Twitter, however, initially declined the request, stating in an email that the threat did not appear "present, specific and immediate."
The social media site changed its decision Tuesday, according to the New York Daily News and New York Post.
The exchange occurred just one month after Twitter appealed a federal court ruling that it must give the NYPD information about Brooklyn resident Malcolm Harris, who had used the site to write about the Occupy Wall Street protests.
It also comes just 10 days after Twitter became embroiled in media controvery by temporarily suspending the account of a British reporter who had been openly critical of NBC's Olympics coverage.
Twitter has declined to comment on its latest incident with the NYPD. @obamasmistress' account was no longer visible on the site Wednesday morning.
