Police Say Facebook Is Liable In Man's Death, Because He Was At A Flashmob Organized On Facebook

from the make-it-stop dept

Following the story we just had about a judge trying to order Facebook to stop students from skipping classes, an anonymous reader sends in an even more ridiculous "blame Facebook" story. This one takes place in France, and involves a flash mob that was organized on Facebook -- as many flash mobs are these days. This particular flash mob involved getting a lot of people together and having them all drink an alcoholic beverage. Tragically, however, a young man died during the flash mob (Google translation of the original story). Apparently this particular participant in the flash mob tried to slide down a guard rail, but missed, and fell off a bridge to his death. The article quotes some people suggesting Facebook should be blamed, and the person who submitted the post notes that a police spokesperson on TV also blamed Facebook:

According to Mohamed Douane, a police official representative, on a live broadcast on the TV channel BFMTV, Facebook is liable for allowing the flash mob to be made by providing a space on which you can express yourself. In addition, whoever had the idea of making the flash mob are also liable for the death of this man, and this case would be under investigation, in order to find who had the idea of such a flash mob.

Yes, it's tragic that this guy died, but blaming Facebook? And whoever organized a get together of people, because this guy apparently drank too much? That's going way too far.

Filed Under: flash mob, france, liability
Companies: facebook

Philly City Council Members Want To Sue Facebook And Twitter Over Flash Mob Snowball Fight

from the section-230 dept

And here we go again. Apparently there was recently a "flash mob" snowball fight in Philadephia that got a bit out of control, resulting in a "rampage" through a Macy's department store. Nobody was hurt, but 16 people were arrested. So how are Philly officials dealing with it? They're threatening to sue Twitter and Facebook. Seriously. Two city council members say that those companies deserve some of the blame and a lawsuit is an option:

"While [the kids] certainly owe this city an apology and deserve to be punished under the fullest extent of the law, we believe that social media outlets should also bear some of the blame." The letter, written by council members Frank DiCicco and James F. Kenney, explains that this is the second such time a band of mischievous teens has formed via social media and went on to destroy property. "We believe that the lack of monitoring of these sites allows for mass, organized riots to occur."

Hopefully someone explains to these two council members that both sites are certainly protected from liability under Section 230 of the CDA. But, more importantly, beyond just invoking those safe harbors, can someone explain to them how silly it is to blame a communication tool for how it's used? Do they want to sue the phone company when criminals use phones to plan their crimes? Do they threaten to sue the car companies when a car is used in a crime? Furthermore, if their complaint is that these sites failed to "monitor" what people were planning, then isn't the city council actually even more to blame? The content of Twitter is available to the public, and these days much of Facebook is as well (and info on such a flashmob would almost certainly be public). Then shouldn't Philadelphia officials be aware of what's being planned in their own city? Based on the reasoning of DiCicco and Kenney, perhaps they should be suing themselves for failing to monitor what kids in their city were planning on some very public forums.

Filed Under: city council, flash mob, frank dicicco, james f. kenney, liability, philadelphia, section 230, snowball fight
Companies: facebook, twitter