Twitter also argued that it would be "a new and overwhelming burden" for them to have to step in on all such cases (The Wall Street Journal).
Internet privacy and civil liberties groups closely watched the case not only because they were interested in seeing how Harris would fair in his fight for his constitutional rights, but they also wanted to see how such an influential company would handle the matter. "I think the biggest implication is going to be about how companies are going to react to what happened to Twitter here," said Hanni Fakhoury, a staff attorney with the Electronic Frontier foundation. "One of the things we were happy to see is that Twitter actually took a stand and tried to challenge this - most companies wouldn't go that far" (The Wall Street Journal).
Other civil rights groups, including Electronic Frontier Foundation and the American Civil Liberties Union, filed an amicus brief in support of Twitter's appeal. They are worried that this case could set a precedent for requiring companies to protect their users against criminal prosecution. "It's what I would call a canary-in-a-coal-mine case," said Marcia Hofmann, a lawyer with the EFF. "I am concerned that companies will look at this case and say it's not a good idea to push back against governments we think are overreaching. That's troubling" (Ax). .
However, according to Aden Fine, an attorney for the ACLU, most companies would not even bother to protect the rights of their users as they have very little incentive to do so. Instead, users should be able to oppose subpoenas for their own content. "Twitter should be applauded for standing up for its users, but the unfortunate reality is that only the individual users have sufficient incentives to defend their constitutional rights." Twitter owns the content in question, and users cannot oppose subpoenas for their own content, just as an individual account holder cannot oppose a subpoena for their own bank records (Ax).