Sending Love Notes Via MySpace Not Considered Harassment

from the not-that-it-should-give-you-any-ideas dept

Wed, Apr 9th 2008 9:51am — Mike Masnick

Teenagers fall in love quite easily... and when they do, they often do silly things like repeatedly telling the object of their affection how they feel, even if that love is unrequited. These days, with teens living on social networks like MySpace and Facebook, it should come as no surprise that many are using such social networks to express that love. Apparently, one young woman felt that an infatuated teen's MySpace repeated messages constituted harassment. However, in a rather eloquent decision, a NY court has disagreed, pointing out the awkward and obsessive nature of teenaged love, combined with the more practical fact that MySpace users can block messages (which this girl never did) and that she never bothered to tell the guy to stop sending such messages. Combine this with the recent ruling that sending a Facebook friend request to an ex- is not harassment, and you start to realize that the courts are going to be quite busy over the next few years trying to port offline laws into the online world of social networks.

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Filed Under: harassment, social networks
Companies: myspace

10 Comments

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Anonymous Coward, 9 Apr 2008 @ 9:58am

With the job market, and economy in the shape that it is in, it is great to know that our lawyers will continue to thrive, and have plenty to get rich off of. Besides, in this country, sue or be sued, the new American way.
Better idea, hang them all, or lashings 'til death sounds pretty good, also.
I love you all, hehehe!!!
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Well Known Hero, 9 Apr 2008 @ 11:00am

Guy, do you have a job? All you do is post on these articles every day.
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- Anarchy_Creator, 9 Apr 2008 @ 12:15pm
  
  Re:
  He's not your Guy, Buddy!
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  - Nightmare (profile), 9 Apr 2008 @ 12:33pm
    
    Re: Re:
    He's not your Buddy, Friend!
    
    It's funny that it was the state prosecutors that were charging the guy and not private attorneys. Now if he said something like, "I watch you while you sleep" or "I'll kill anyone that tries to take you away from me", I could see where they'd have a case lol.
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    - Anarchy_Creator, 9 Apr 2008 @ 12:44pm
      
      Re: Re: Re:
      I'm Not Your Friend Pal!
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koresho, 9 Apr 2008 @ 11:24am

he could...
He could have a job that is like mine... stultifying boredom while awaiting new computers to work on. The life of a tech :/

In response to the article, that is funny. Especially since she didn't tell him to stop or to block the messages.
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- Bored tech 2, 9 Apr 2008 @ 12:09pm
  
  Re: he could...
  I agree. My job is just like that as well. I am actually hoping for computers and their accessories to be broken or have problems to justify my existence.
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SailorAlphaCentauri, 9 Apr 2008 @ 12:20pm

Hmm...
I found this one interesting simply because common sense seems to have prevailed here. She never told him to stop, which weakens her case and she never blocked his messages. It's the latter part that really hurts her case. MySpace is stupidly easy to use and allows you to block people at any time, so unless she wanted to have an excuse to sue somebody, she should've taken steps to stop receiving his messages. Have people forgotten how to deal with things without running to court to have someone else fix their problems? It's one thing to be harassed, but it's something else entirely different when steps could have been taken to make it stop sooner.

Now if she had done all that and he went out of his way to still make contact with her, then she would have a case.
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Anonymous Coward, 9 Apr 2008 @ 2:11pm

Re: Re: Re: Re:
I'm Not Your Pal, Comrade!
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johnlee (profile), 29 Jun 2012 @ 10:05pm

Yes this is wright that when someone fall in love he use love notes to show his feeling to love ones,we have a great collection of falling in love quotes that can be helpful for you.
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