School Official Sues Over MySpace Page

SoCal writes, "How much legal liability do parents have for what their kids do online? A lawsuit filed in Texas by a high-school assistant principal may give some answers. Some students she had disciplined set up a fake MySpace page in her name depicting her as a lesbian (which she happens not to be). In its coverage, Ars Technica notes that 'What sets this case apart from many other lawsuits filed over the content of blogs is that it doesn't target only the teenagers who created the site. It also argues that the parents were guilty of negligence by failing to supervise their children, and that they bear some of the responsibility for the defaming site.'" The article links the Media Law Resource Center's resource tracking more than 50 cases now in the courts nationwide, in which bloggers have been sued for libel and related claims.

Comments

Re:... depicting her as a lesbian.

[Lazbien]

Especially if they are depicting her as a .jpg

Re:... depicting her as a lesbian.

[Anonymous Coward]

Of course there is nothing wrong with lesbians, they're great! I'm a big fan, I have all their video's!

Proposed kindergarten curriculum

[Anonymous Coward]

1. Sharing is bad: Intro to Copyright Law
2. Sticks and stones may break my bones, but libel makes me call my lawyer
3. Sit down and shut up: Intro to Democracy
4. Why did those mean men take mommy away? Homeland Security for kids

Re:... depicting her as a lesbian.

[budgenator]

Well concidering that it happened in Texas, at least the kids had enough restraint to have not claimed she was something really bad, like an athieist!

Re:Not really

[Eli Gottlieb]

Have you ever thought about turning off the TV, sitting down with your kids and hitting them?

Re:One step closer

[Sj0]

I applaud your well thought out, articulate reply.

Well, I would, if your reply didn't amount to "Is not!"...

Re:I'm somewhat divided

[elsilver]

I'm up in the air about making it the parents' fault.

On the other hand, I strongly disagree with the idea that "Allowing access to the Internet, unsupervised and without restraint poses an obvious and unreasonable danger that such children would utilize the Internet for illicit purposes"

It would be a really great defense if the parents could show that they monitored their children's activities at home, and the myspace page was made from school. Then the assistant-principal would have to sue herself.

Re:... depicting her as a lesbian.

[fyngyrz]

You might look really cute in a hat, though... :-)