Funny fact: in 2012, 653 people were faced with various legal accusations in connection with the information they published on their Twitter and Facebook. There is a whole set of laws that you can break by having fun on social networks, and some of your pranks can turn into a prison sentence. We study this question in detail.
Slander
If you haven’t spent the second half of last year in a shelter in anticipation of the Apocalypse, then you have probably heard about the case of Lord McElpin and Sally Berkrow. Did not hear? Well, then briefly tell. In November last year, a BBC report suggested that a senior member of the Conservative Party sexually harassed a child. The name of the parliamentarian in the report was not reported, but in the seething hive of Twitter, it still sounded more than once.
Lord McElpin called it “Twitter court” and instructed his lawyers to sort out the issue. Public accusation of molesting minors, of course, is considered as a violation of the law of libel. According to the BBC, a tweet may qualify as slanderous if:
“It damages someone’s reputation in the eyes of correctly thinking members of society. This can be done by expressing “hatred, humiliation and insult” against the individual. In the UK, this crime is administrative, which cannot be said about Russia. At the same time, there is, of course, some difference between slandering a man on national television and on Twitter. Therefore, most likely, in case of violation of the law, you will get off with just a fine. By the way, this rule applies to retweets. ”
In fact, if you voice serious and groundless accusations against a person, whoever he is, he has every right to take you to court. Of course, if you follow one and a half people, it is unlikely that your cheeky cry will be heard by someone. However, in the case of McElpin, it was about a user with more than 500 readers.
The Sally Berkrow case ended in a fine of £ 50,000, but there are more serious situations. For example, when the Sunday Times newspaper wrote in 2004 that the cyclist Lance Armstrong was taking dope, the athlete was able to sue a million pounds from the publication.
“Extremely Offensive” Posts
It is also highly undesirable to publish tweets that carry "extremely offensive" remarks of obscene nature or with the content of threats. In fact, it is also illegal to send messages of a similar nature to “telecommunication networks”. Therefore, if instead of tweets you are going to send similar SMS, then we advise you to think about it well.
There have already been a lot of cases with insults on Twitter followed by punishment. For example, last July, a 17-year-old boy went to jail for publicly insulting British swimmer Tom Daley; the man was put in custody for insulting remarks about the missing girl, Madeline McCann; and another young man was sentenced to community service for publishing photographs in which he burns opium poppy.
And this time, the degree of your punishment directly depends on the number of the audience to which you have access. Currently, law enforcement agencies in different countries are developing relevant legislation regulating this issue. However, according to an internal order, first of all attention is drawn to users with the number of followers exceeding several thousand. Nevertheless, any rule has its exceptions, so even if you have only three unfortunate followers, think a hundred times before posting insults or threats. Maybe, to relieve stress, it is better to drink chamomile green tea or play some brutal game? And yes, as in the previous case, this rule also applies to retweets. Do not forget: the “RT” button is not your friend!
Contempt of court
A few weeks ago, the British media was overwhelmed with stories that some Twitter users published photos of John Venables and Robert Thompson - people who at the end of the last century committed the audacious murder of two-year-old boy James Balger.
The authors of these posts have been subject to prosecution, since the investigation into the alleged killers is still ongoing, and the appearance of this couple has not yet been proven. If it suddenly turns out that they are not guilty, one can imagine what hell their life has become in connection with false accusations and subsequent imminent threats. Despite the fact that users who distributed photos are not aware of the fact that the process is not yet finished, they still cannot escape from criminal liability. And the article on which they pass is called: Contempt of court.
Note that this is the first case of this type, so it is not yet known what the punishment will be. However, in other cases involving this charge, people received prison sentences of up to two months in prison.
Sexual Offense Reports
And here is another case where stories about other users of social services can cause you to appear in a room with barred windows. In 2012, a football player was accused of raping a 19-year-old girl. In accordance with the law, the media is officially prohibited to disclose the names of victims of sexual violence. This means that even Twitter users are subject to this law. In this particular case, there were nine people in the dock.
How to avoid trouble
Although Twitter is subject to many different laws that users violate at every step (we have described only the most common and dangerous laws above), the rules to be followed are quite simple:
Do not give the names of people involved in lawsuits and are mentioned in public media. If a person in the newspaper is called as an anonymous author, there is certainly a reason for this. And if you are in any way familiar with this person, do not rush to tell about it to everyone you meet, much less to disclose any information about this person.
- Do not share your assumptions about possible sexual offenses. Splint in public places as you like, but if the security services get to your Twitter, start thinking about forced immigration.
- Be careful about who you retweet. If your tape is filled with all sorts of dubious characters, one day you will certainly attract unwanted attention. Think about whether a particular tweet interested you enough to share it with your readers.
- Forget about such a buzzword like trolling. And this applies not only to social networks. If you are used to casually insulting people, sooner or later it will come around to you. Of course, restraining yourself, given the anonymity online, is quite difficult. But try to try, ok? And even if you stick to the network of arbitrary users, do not underestimate their abilities. If they calculate you, then you will not be credited.
- Jokes about airport bombings are not funny to anyone, believe me. We do not think that this needs any additional explanation.
Disclaimer: We are not lawyers, so do not take all of the foregoing as an indisputable truth. But in any case, if you behave prudently online, you will never encounter a situation where you may have problems, and never virtual. Therefore, feeling impunity associated with anonymity, do not forget that behind every virtual character is hiding a very real person. And to calculate it in the modern world is not so difficult.
Source: Gizmodo.com
The article is based on materials .
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