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    Cyberbullying on Facebook

    Article posted by in March 6, 2009 at 11:44 am.
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    A teenager from New York has filed a lawsuit against Facebook, four high-school classmates who used the site to harass her, and their parents.  Specifically, two boys and two girls created a Facebook group called password-protected “90 Cents Short Of A Dollar,” in order to “hold [her] up to public hatred, ridicule and disgrace.”  Content service providers are not liable for statements posted within their site by users because of the Communications Decency Act, and so I don’t believe Facebook will be required to do anything.  This case does, however, once again demonstrate how civil actions can be filed in order to at least send a message to individuals that victims will not take cyberbullying lying down.  Nationwide, it may also prompt more litigation in the same vein, and has led to some of the first media attention we’ve seen covering Facebook-based harassment.  Do you think this case has any leg to stand on?  What if the victim was able to demonstrate severe emotional and psychological harm?  If that were the case, should the law be amended to require content service providers to police the postings of their users?  These questions tend to surface in many cyberbullying cases, and this one gives us another chance to talk it out….

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