Twitter has removed TorrentFreak's tweet pointing to a news story on recent leaks of unreleased TV shows, after a questionable DMCA takedown request from Starz
A few days ago we reported on several major leaks of unreleased TV-shows. This included several episodes from the Starz original show “American Gods”.
Context & Ripple Effects
After unreleased episodes of American Gods and other shows leaked online, Starz filed a DMCA request that got Twitter to remove TorrentFreak's tweet — not for hosting the leaks, but for linking to a news story about them. The same day the story went viral, Starz was applying takedowns to other users' tweets about the removal itself.
The episode fits a familiar arc: leaks of unaired episodes trace back at least to the Game of Thrones season 5 review-copy leak, and studios have since leaned on notice-and-takedown as a first response. What makes this case a flashpoint is the target — coverage of the leak rather than the infringing files.
First-order effects
- TorrentFreak's reporting on the American Gods leak is suppressed on Twitter, and other accounts tweeting about the story face the same takedown treatment from Starz.
Second-order effects
- The viral backlash forces Starz into an apology, claiming the notices were issued 'inadvertently' amid a security breach — but the apology only lands after the tweets are already gone, showing how little friction an erroneous notice faces before it takes effect.
Third-order effects
- If mistaken or overbroad notices keep silencing legitimate reporting with no penalty for the sender, DMCA takedowns drift toward the weaponized use later documented in reputation-laundering campaigns using fake legal notices, pressuring platforms to add sender accountability to automated notice processing.
The trend: Copyright holders are expanding DMCA takedowns from infringing files to the journalism covering leaks, testing how far platforms will process notices without checking what is actually being claimed.