The combination of ‘online’ and ‘misrepresentation’ hasn’t reached standard household, or geek-hold, term status. But it might soon. Real soon.
I’m fascinated by the outcome of a court trial in which a MO woman was convicted of ‘accessing computers without authorization’. She had assumed a false identity online to cyberbully a younger teenager and that teenager went on to commit suicide. For her criminal conviction she faces the maximum penalty of 3 years in jail and a $300K fine.
Going deeper into the story, what you find out is that this MO woman created a fictitious identity on MySpace and used that faux persona to berate some girl who had previously wronged the MO woman’s daughter. Once that girl took her own life it appears some CA prosecutors got on board to find some available legal channel by which to allege a crime. MySpace is headquartered in CA. I’m sure the reason this case even reached a judicial decision, resulting in conviction, was because of the heinous outcome and the media attraction. That and the fact that the CA courts are pretty friendly terrain.
Now, what I believe this means for the greater public is a potential enormous shift in online mores. This kind of thing has resulted in death. How soon until ‘accessing computers without authorization’ gives ways to a more relevant term used in this case – ‘online misrepresentation’. Everything that falls under tort, contracts and criminal code is in play. How soon until people pretending to be other people online, resulting in harm, becomes regularly qualified as criminal?
Online providers are typically immune from this kind of liability because of everything in their ULAs. My belief is that these providers will do everything they can to continue staying outside of liability by releasing details of their users who are involved in criminal activity. Much like copyright infringement. They will just get out of the way and turn detail over. So, thinking about screwing someone over on eBay? Going incognito on Facebook?
Better think twice.