Week two

The case was about a lady who created a fake profile on MySpace to check if a girl was saying things about her daughter. The lady and other people that helped her create the profile about a sixteen year old boy flirted with the girl that was suffering from attention deficit disorder, depression and a weight problem for a few months. On October 15 2006 he sent her a message saying that he didn’t want to be her friend anymore because he had heard that she did not treat her friends well. She also got a message saying that the world would be better without her and saw posts that said many defamatory things about her. “A defamatory statement usually holds a person up to hatred, ridicule, or concept; or cause a person’s esteem, respect or social position to be diminished” Essentials of Business Law, Liuzzo-Bonnice pg 45. The girl was found dead in her bedroom the next day.

The lady that created the profile was being sued for breaking MySpace’s user policy saying that a profile should not be created to cause harm or damage. “The development of technology has introduced a burgeoning array of ethical questions” Essential of business law, Liuzzo-Bonnice pg 19.

The defendant attorney said during the court that it sounded like they were trying the lady for murder instead of breaking the policies. The court said that they could not prosecute the lady because there were no laws that covered that. They were trying to convict her on high charges of cyber bullying but was convicted on three misdemeanors of breaking the policy.