PSA: If Someone Doesn't Accept Your Friend Request, Do Not Threaten To Kill Them And Kick In Their Front Door

from the with-friends-like-these dept

We've all been there. You jump on some social media platform having met someone in this existence that passes for real life and fire off a friend request to them. And then you... wait. Sometimes you then wait some more. And then, sometimes, you're left in this terrifying, self-absorbed limbo, having tried to make this connection only to see it never accepted. Your mind races. Why didn't they accept my request? Do they not like me? Is it something I said? I know, you think, I'll just threaten to murder them and go break down their front door!

Wait, what? Well, that appears to be exactly the way that one North Dakota man chose to end his 2020 after a co-worker didn't accept his Facebook friend request.

Caleb Burczyk, 29, pleaded not guilty to felony charges of burglary and terrorizing filed in Williams County District Court Tuesday, Dec. 29. Burczyk’s attorney Jeff Nehring declined to comment on the case.

Police say Burczyk started sending aggressive Facebook messages to his ex-coworker on Dec. 24, according to an affidavit of probable cause. He threatened his ex-coworker’s life and warned him that he was going to “come at” him if he did not accept his Facebook friend request, the affidavit stated.

“Accept my friend request or I’m going to murder you,” Burczyk wrote in a message to his ex-coworker, according to the affidavit.

An addendum PSA: the best way to convince someone to accept your social media connection is probably not to explicitly threaten them with murder if they don't. On top of landing you in legal hot water, most of us just don't want to associate ourselves with folks who threaten to kill us.

Regardless, law enforcement reports that Burczyk proceeded to go to his ex-coworkers home, where there was a security camera, and kicked in the front door. He was arrested afterwards, of course. Given the mountain of physical evidence at hand, it feels like a certainty that he's not going to be found innocent, assuming any of this actually gets to a trial decision.

So stay even, Techdirt friends. A rebuffed social media connection request is nothing to go to jail over.

Filed Under: caleb burczyk, friending, jeff nehring, social media
Companies: facebook

Missouri Senate Backs Down, Says Its Okay For Teachers To Friend Students On Facebook

from the after-the-court-knocked-them-down dept

Well, it took some effort, but it appears that state politicians in Missouri may have finally gotten the message. After a widespread outcry and a lawsuit concerning a law that made it illegal for teachers to "friend" current and former students on social networking sites, as well as a lawsuit and an injunction by a court which found the law to be a "staggering" violation of the First Amendment, Missouri's Senate has amended the law in question to let teachers and students be virtual friends once again. The bill still needs to be approved by the House, but it cleans up the controversial part of the bill. Schools would still be required to have "a policy" on student-teacher communication, but won't have to completely limit such activities.

Filed Under: first amendment, free speech, friending, missouri, teachers

Court Finds Law Blocking Teachers From Friending Students 'Staggering'; Blocks Implementation

from the oh-look,-there's-a-first-amendment-after-all dept

There was quite an uproar after Missouri passed a law to ban teachers from communicating with current or former students on social networking platforms like Facebook. It didn't take long before teachers sued, and it was even faster for the court to issue an injunction blocking the implementation of the law, noting that it violated the First Amendment (thanks to Eric Goldman for the pointer). The judge made quick work of it. Here's the relevant portion (and the full ruling is embedded below):

Section §163.069.4 RSMo implicates the rights of Plaintiffs protected by the First Amendment of the United States Constitution and the Missouri Constitution in that it prohibits all teachers from using any non-work-related social networking sites which allow exclusive access with current and former students. Even if a complete ban on certain forms of communication between certain individuals could be construed as content neutral and only a reasonable restriction on "time, place and manner," the breadth of the prohibition is staggering. The Court finds at based upon the evidence adduced at the preliminary injunction hearing, social networking is extensively used by educators. It is often the primary, if not sole manner, of communications between the Plaintiffs and their students. Examination of the statute indicates that it would prohibit all teachers from using any non-work-related social networking sites which allow exclusive access with current and former students. It clearly prohibits communication between family members and their teacher parents using these types of sites. The Court finds that the statute would have a chilling effect on speech.

Given the fundamental nature of the right implicated, a "chilling effect" constitutes an immediate and irreperable harm sufficient to support a preliminary injunction.

Nice to see some courts willing to recognize that a First Amendment violation is irreparable harm. Too bad not all courts agree.

This isn't the end for the law. It's just an injunction barring it from being implemented until a full trial can be heard on the merits, but it sure sounds as if the court is pretty skeptical about the legality of the law as a whole.

Filed Under: first amendment, free speech, friending, missouri, teachers
Companies: facebook

New Missouri Law May Make It Illegal To Friend Your Former Teachers On Facebook

from the for-the-children! dept

Gabriel Tane points us to another odd state law coming out of Missouri, where it appears that schoolteachers could run afoul of the law if they friend any former student on Facebook. Part of the problem here is that the law in question is worded incredibly vaguely. But the text does say:

Teachers cannot establish, maintain, or use a work-related website unless it is available to school administrators and the child's legal custodian, physical custodian, or legal guardian. Teachers also cannot have a nonwork-related website that allows exclusive access with a current or former student.

This is the part that would seem to cover friending any current or former student on Facebook. While plenty of teachers I know refuse to friend students on Facebook just out of principle (and general caution), to make it illegal seems extreme. That's doubly true when it includes "former" students. At some point, former students grow up and become fully functioning adults (one hopes). At that point, does it still make sense to make it illegal for the student and teacher to have contact? Update: As pointed out in the comments, the law does define "former student" to mean someone under the age of 18, meaning that former students over the age of 18 can be friended safely...

The bill is clearly targeted at stopping sexual relationships between teachers and students, which is a perfectly admirable goal. But, like so many laws, it appears this one was written very poorly, and creates massive unintended consequences.

Filed Under: friending, missouri, teachers
Companies: facebook

US Gov't Relying On 'Narcissistic Tendencies' To Get People To Accept Facebook Friend Requests To Spy On You

from the the-gov't-wants-to-be-your-friend dept

Were you wondering what the FBI was doing hanging out on Reddit, and using random out-of-context comments to put tracking devices on vehicles? Well, not surprisingly, the government's social networking voyeurism goes much further. Jay points us to the news, revealed via an EFF Freedom of Information Act request, that parts of the government are using social networks to try to "friend" people in order to keep track of them. They even point out that the general desire of individuals to collect more friends means that many won't wonder why a government official they don't know wants to be their friend:

Narcissistic tendencies in many people fuels a need to have a large group of "friends" link to their pages and many of these people accept cyber-friends that they don't even know. This provides an excellent vantage point for FDNS to observe the daily life of beneficiaries and petitioners who are suspected of fraudulent activities.

Now, as the EFF notes, there's nothing wrong with law enforcement making use of social networking tools to try to deal with crime or terrorism. But they do wonder if the rules should be clearer, noting that:

the memo makes no mention of what level of suspicion, if any, an agent must find before conducting such surveillance, leaving every applicant as a potential target. Nor does the memo address whether or not DHS agents must reveal their government affiliation or even their real name during the friend request, leaving open the possibility that agents could actively deceive online users to infiltrate their social networks and monitor the activities of not only that user, but also the user's friends, family, and other associates.

So, no matter what your narcissistic tendencies might be, and your desire to collect as many friends as possible, perhaps think twice before friending random people you don't know.

Filed Under: friending, government, privacy, social networks, surveillance

Jurors Cause Trouble By Friending Each Other On Facebook, Using Wikipedia For Research

from the no-friending-allowed dept

We've discussed numerous court cases where modern technology has caused significant procedural problems from "the old ways" of doing things. CitMediaLaw points us to a story that includes two more cases, both in Maryland. In one, lawyers are seeking a new trial because some of the jurors became Facebook "friends" during the trial. This follows on the news that Florida is forbidding judges from friending lawyers on social networking sites, but is it reasonable to prevent jurors from friending each other? For many Facebook users, "friending" people you meet is quite natural and something you do almost immediately upon meeting someone new. So it should be no surprise that some jurors would choose to quickly friend each other. It's hard to see how that would make the results of the jury verdict suspect, however.

The second case involved jurors using Wikipedia to look up some terms. This is hardly a new concept. Some judges these days are specifically warning jurors not to use the internet to look up anything related to a case, but for a generation of folks who consider internet research to be an adjunct part of the thinking process, it's not hard to recognize why many would ignore this, and not think they're doing anything wrong (and they might have a good argument). The real question is whether or not there are reasonable ways to change the way the jury system works to allow for what many people consider perfectly natural: doing additional research on their own. For those who are comfortable with the old system, this may seem like a horrific idea (and yes, we all understand the reasons why the current system wants to limit things to just what's said in the courtroom). However, at some point the system may need to recognize that an artificial constraint on learning about the details of the case may not actually be the best system.

Filed Under: friending, jurors, jury, research, social networks
Companies: facebook, wikipedia