Slashdot Mirror
Court Rules Parents May Be Liable For What Their Kids Post On Facebook
schwit1 writes Parents can be held liable for what their kids post on Facebook, a Georgia appellate court ruled in a decision that lawyers said marked a legal precedent on the issue of parental responsibility over their children's online activity. The Georgia Court of Appeals ruled that the parents of a seventh-grade student may be negligent for failing to get their son to delete a fake Facebook profile that allegedly defamed a female classmate.
The internet isn't some zone that is free from libel and slander laws just because "it's on a computer."
Quite simply, my beef is with the morons who would believe you. To you yourself, the only proper response would be crafty verbal one. I might need to hire a writer for such a purpose...
“He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
it wasn't just a "post", it was a whole fake profile complete with racial comments, sexual perversions, morphed photos, etc. Really it's identity theft and libel.
You are advocating that one person should be liable for the actions of another person.
This is sloppy without clarifying how the different categories of criminal vs. civil liability should be handled.
Holding parents criminally liable is intractable because there is no certain way to control a child or any other person. I'm talking absolute control. Any law that holds you responsible for forces that you cannot control must be invalidated, or else societal disintegration will eventually result. Such inherent contradictions predictably lead to disaster.
Furthermore, there are also laws making it felony child abuse to employ nearly any sort of corporal punishment (not that I advocate that) and laws are interpreted so liberally that nearly any attempt to employ physical force to restrain, control, or restrict the behavior of a child may be interpreted as felony child abuse. So our society wants a person to be liable for the actions of a child, and also makes them criminally liable if they try to use force to discipline a child.
Also, as has been mentioned by others, children are legally mandated by the state to attend school. Parents cannot possibly control a child while they are at school. Yet they should be prosecuted if the child commits a crime while under state mandated separation from the parents?
This is all complete insanity. Of course, I only expect matters to get much, much worse...