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Facebook User Arrested For a Poke
nk497 writes "A woman in Tennessee has been arrested for poking someone over Facebook. Sharon Jackson had been banned by courts from 'telephoning, contacting or otherwise communicating' with the apparent poke recipient, but just couldn't hold back from clicking the 'poke' button. She now faces a sentence of up to a year in prison."
The system works!
Stupid people & social networks.
The current generation of people will soon realize they have no privacy because of these kinds of sites.
A person had a protective order that was allegedly violated. That user was arrested and is getting their due process. News at 11.
There is a restraining order in force that says "no contact". No contact on a restraining order means just that...NO contact. Just because its a "poke" doesn't mean it doesn't count. Haul her stupid ass in and make her face what ever consequences were specified in the original order.
No sympathy what so ever. The stupid deserve what they get.
I want a new quote. One that won't spill. One that don't cost too much. Or come in a pill.
I don't think you understand the mechanics of prison sex.
The court order prohibited communication between the two directly or indirectly. A poke is a form of communication that was recognised by the court as being in violation of the order. The order its self could be wrong but the interpretation of the poke as being a form of communication and thus breaching the court order is correct.
Sigs are too short to say anything truly profound so read the above post instead.
Restraining orders aren't jokes. If the poker really was the person subject to the restraining order (and not someone else spoofing), she deserves whatever punishment would have come her way if she had telephoned, dropped by in person, or in any other, more conventional way, violated the order.
How can they be 100% sure it was the restrainee that did the poking?
(Yes, I'm serious.)
If restraining orders include Internet contact, then it means you can send someone to jail if you can forge a packet from their machine. That's really scary. Sure the restrainee shouldn't have done whatever they did to get the restraining order in the first place, but making it so anyone in the world can send them to jail seems excessive.
Also, what if they're both bidding on the same online auction? What if they're both Anonymous Cowards on /. ? What if they meet by accident on an online game? Does teabagging in Halo violate the restraining order?
This doesn't mean they need to create new laws for "e-this, or cyber-that" just that they have to do due diligence to confirm the guilt of the accused.
This is not the funny you're looking for.
Heavy-handed? No. If you've got a restraining order against you, you shouldn't be trying to push boundaries like that.
I wouldn't say it's equivalent to a wave in a public place. A wave is directional. You could always claim you were waving to someone else. A Facebook poke is far more directed and specific. It's more like walking up to someone in a crowd and saying "I see you." There's the issue of this being far more direct and obvious a form of communication. If this can be substantiated by facebook, I'd say it's perfectly reasonable to say she violated a protective order.
How can they be 100% sure it was the restrainee that did the poking?
(Yes, I'm serious.)
If restraining orders include Internet contact, then it means you can send someone to jail if you can forge a packet from their machine. That's really scary. Sure the restrainee shouldn't have done whatever they did to get the restraining order in the first place, but making it so anyone in the world can send them to jail seems excessive.
You'd be amazed with what you can do with a piece of paper, a typewriter, an envelope, and a stamp. Just because it involves the Internet, doesn't mean it's ground that hasn't been covered before.
Also, what if they're both bidding on the same online auction? What if they're both Anonymous Cowards on /. ? What if they meet by accident on an online game? Does teabagging in Halo violate the restraining order?
What if they're both submitting write-in bids to a well-established auction house? What if they're both writing commentary to their local newspaper? What if they're both competitive Scrabble players climbing through the ranks of the local Scrabble circuit? As for teabagging - that's the sort of immature behavior that leads to retraining orders as it is. Once again - this isn't scary or even all that novel. What's scary is that people will treat it as if it is.
(Playing devil's advocate here)
Yes we all agree that the woman should get locked up for breaching a restraining order .. IF SHE DID IT.
The question I have is how do you prove this?
She could have simply been stalking her victim on facebook and her cat walked across the keyboard at an inappropriate moment et voila one cat induced restraining order breach.
Any number of things from another household member to a hacked computer could have done this, so what is the level of proof required to lock her away. I hope that it is not just "well she says she didn't do it, but she was in the house with the computer at the time - just forget the fact that other people were in the same house as well".
I am Slashdot. Are you Slashdot as well?
I agree completely. Forgery, blackmail, fraud, all have existed since time immemorial. It gets more sophisticated, but not fundamentally different.
If I could bother to get a restraining order against someone I would sure as fuck bother to unfriend them. No reason to still be friends with someone you have a restraining order against.
I don't think it's heavy-handed. You generally have to do some persistent and crazy stuff to get a restraining order, so nerves are already pretty raw. Think of it like walking up to somebody and giving them the finger right in their face. It's stupid and obnoxious in any case (and yes, I think the Facebook "Poke" feature is always stupid and obnoxious), but what might be a mildly annoying jab when directed at a good friend could be a much bigger deal when done by a crazy stalker, crazy ex-, or whatever. In other words, you made yourself a persistent nuisance. A judge ordered you to stop on threat of fine or imprisonment. Flouting that court order, you got on Facebook and "poke" your victim, essentially saying, "You're still on my radar." I don't think it's terribly heavy-handed to punish the offender according to the terms of the restraining order.
Today's Sesame Street was brought to you by the number e.
Such restraining orders may or may not be justified or reasonable, but she clearly violated the order. I don't see that the fact that a "Facebook poke" was involved is relevant.
Warning: this article may contain humor, sarcasm, parody, and perhaps even irony. Read at your own risk.
Shut up. You are annoying as hell.
...up to a year in prison...
More then 365 days = State Prison
Less then 365 days = County Jail
Jail is for pre-trial flight risks, and sentences which are less then one calander year. Less then 1 year, you stay in county lockup, more then that, and you're shipped off to the state pen. A weekend of incarceration is not prison, it's jail. It sucks, yes. But it's not prison. The bodily risk in my experience in county is very minimal, (don't start anything, and you'll be left alone). It's hours upon hours upon hours of sheer boredom, no tobacco, and no freedom, but your probably not going to end up somebody's bitch, or anything. You'll just be bored. Besides, if you behave, you can get work release, and be outside the walls for 10hrs a day. (or depending on the facility, be back before lockdown).
Jail sucks, but it's not prison.
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But would you stay in contact with that person? The person with the restraining order made a CHOICE to voluntarily give this person access to them. The person HAD to make the arrested a friend for them to be able to poke them. The person with the restraining order would not have been able to if the harrassed person did not give them access.
I bet the harrassed person added them to see what would happen, and then decided to get pissy when they got poked or otherwise used the friending ability to provoke the person, who may have poked to see if maybe they were open to becoming friendly again.
If you feel harrassed, why would you invite the person to your home? And why would you even be allowed to get a restraining order if you brought the person to your home?
I seem to be the only person here who doesn't get this "poking" business. In more ways than one, it would seem.
If I had a restraining order against someone who seriously bothered me that much, I'd take them off my damn friend list and make my profile private.
You can't poke someone unless you are friends or their profile is wide open.
-b
No offense, but I've stopped responding to AC's.
why wouldn't the pokee have just blocked the poker from even seeing their profile on Facebook before it reached this stage?
This is slashdot, I bet more people thought "physics" than "cars"...
It's not a meaningful message in the sense of a letter or phone call, but it's still a form of communication, yes, especially when viewed in the context of something like a restraining order, which says, in essence, "leave this person the hell alone". So while your "poke" on Facebook might not be the same as showing up at their door, it is still a deliberate, concious attempt at reminding the target that you are still watching them. That violates not only the letter but the spirit of a restraining order.
Consider this. Let's say that instead of a "poke", the perp had instead placed a call to the victim's house and hung up after one ring. That kind of nonsense occurs all the time in these situations, and everyone pretty much agrees it is a form of harassment that violates the restraining order. The ring itself is exactly the same level of "communication" as the one-ring hang-up move -- it's a way of saying "I'm still here..."
mirrorshades radio -- darkwave, industrial, futurepop, ebm.
If the protective order stated no contact, then person Y would be in violation of it under your scenario. The thing with restraining orders is that any violation of the order is considered a violation until it is shown to not be intentional or knowingly. The only out they would have is if person Y signed up for the game with no knowledge of person X being a player or member until later. At the point person Y has knowledge of person X's involvement, person Y would have to take any steps reasonable to be in compliance with the order.
Here is the unobvious thing about protective orders. People have been attempting to work around them for ages and most judges will see right through attempts to ignore them. A very real fact is intimidation with the protected in which they can be influenced by simply seeing that a person is willing to violate a protective order. Judges take this very seriously and it's why most states have adopted the rules that allow prosecutors to continue prosecution of crimes even if the offended/victims ask to have the charges dropped. Attempting to sneak into a game or site in order to harass someone who has a protective order against you is only going to anger the courts and they plenty of experience of this happening outside of being online.
is...why are you facebook friends with someone whom you have a restraining order on?
It's more like walking up to someone in a crowd and saying "I see you."
Or like walking up to someone and, y'know', poking them.
The most common reason for restraining orders is harassment and/or abuse. It's a judge saying: You leave that person the hell alone, or face the consequences.
And a wink, a smile, or a wave sure as hell counts as communication in this context, as do calling the victim and hanging up after one ring and a million other ways of harassing someone.
The part which you're missing is that though a wink, or a poke, or a wave, doesn't by itself contain a lot of communication, if someone who has a history of harassing or abusing you, persist in showing up in your life, despite being ORDERED by a judge to stop doing that, it sure as hell is harassment. And the judge sure as hell is correct in slapping that kind of behaviour down with whatever punishment seems appropriate.
By the wording of your post, I assume you meant to say that being 'over the internet' or not is irrelevant, and that the same thing will happen regardless. So as a regular, law-ignorant Slashdotter I must ask: what *does* happen in those cases? inquiring minds want to know.
That's what judges are for. They "judge" whether or not the defendant's actions were in violation of the intent of the restraining order.
If the defendant goes to the same grocery store he goes to every week, and his ex-wife who has a restraining order against him happens to be there, and he immediately leaves as soon as he sees her so as not to be in violation, but she calls the police — the judge will likely decide that he was not actually in violation of the restraining order. On the other hand, if he shows up at a grocery store he's never been to before which he knows is the store she regularly shops at, sees her, and proceeds to follow her around the store — welll, that won't be looked at too fondly by any judge.
Those are easy examples, but the point is that it is up to the judge to decide, with help from attorneys on both sides arguing their cases.