Rights for Pervs a.ka. Predator becomes Prey

Grimmerick

I read this on yahoo today and our club has been in a bit of a lull the last week so I thought I might get us going again.

Ariane Friedrich, a German high jumper expected to contend for a medal at the upcoming Summer Olympics, posted the name and email address of a Facebook stalker who had allegedly been sending her explicit photographs over the social networking service."I've been offended in the past, sexually harassed and I've had a stalker before," she wrote in a recent Facebook post that included the name and email address of a man who she says sent her explicit messages and pictures of his genitals. "It's time to act, it's time to defend myself. And that's what I'm doing.""The removal of anonymity is a means to clarify," she wrote in a statement translated from German. "Just think of all the children, young people and adults who are secretly harassed by perverts and don't know what to do or how to defend themselves. Should we not go forward as a good example and demonstrate strength?"

German newspapers have asked whether Friedrich had a legal right to publicly disclose the man's name. In that country, names of offenders aren't disclosed in the media.

Do you think she is justified in what she did? Should she be held legally accountable?

fbmandy55

Generally, It's a risk. You can be sued for slander or in the case of George Zimmerman, a rapper may tweet the address of a little old couple by mistake. If she is positive that his name and info are correct, then by all means do it. He is intruding on her life, why not intrude on his!

BrettPGH

I'm with Mandy. I hate to think of people being unfairly labeled. But I also hate absolute creeps hiding behind a shield of "rights" that may not even really exist.

Good news is it's the internet and privacy seems to be a non-existent issue going by...well everything. So the lady should legally be allowed to post the emails for all to see. Am I wrong on that? If someone sends a message to you are you then allowed to share it's contents?

And if we wanted to make this MFP specific (since we all know what goes on here) I firmly believe that any woman who can prove some dude was sending her creepy emails should be able to call him out. As a way of protecting others and punishing the offender. Shine a light on these creeps ladies! Don't let them get away with such nonsense.

Unless the creep in question is me. Then it's mouths shut, you hear me!

SwannySez

It's a slippery slope. By doing so, the poster should accept that they could be charged as accessories should any harm come to that person.

Recently a friend shared a post on Facebook about an Amber Alert. It included the license plate number of a car that was allegedly involved in the abduction of a little girl. Now, she did this innocently, but being who I am, I checked the Amber Alert website and some local sites to where this supposedly occured and found out pretty quickly that it there was a) no Amber Alert and b) had been no abduction.

Now, maybe the license plate was phony too. But it would suck awfully to run into someone who thought you were guilty of having abducted a child based on something like that.

I know, I know, it's not the same thing, but I just worry that it is a slippery slope when reputations can be so easily destroyed and people can be offered up to others to be destroyed or even hurt by the less well-adjusted.

Am I sympathizing with those who would prey on other using the internet? No. I kinda liken it to my defense of the Westboro Baptist Church's right to protest military funeral with their God Hates *kitten* signs: I hate their message and everything they stand for, but I would rather have a thousand funerals protested than give up the right to freedom of speech even an inch.This isn't a freedom of speech issue, but that was me taking an unpopular position based on my concern that teh popular position would end up costing in the long run much more than it was worth.

debloves2ride

i don't recall reading anywhere when signing up for facebook a right to privacy. I think that once you put something out on the internet it is out there in a public domain. I believe this woman had every right to make public what this guy was doing. If he didn't want anyone to see or know what he was doing, then he shouldn't have been sending the photos. She never guaranteed him privacy so I don't see how he would have the right to assume it is private.

aliciagetshealthy

I think my first response would be to print out all of the offending materials and take it to the authorities (or, in the case of here, the moderators). From a legal standpoint, I have no idea what a person's legal rights are to protect you from internet stalkers.

As to trashing them in kind, as a gut reaction I'd trash away. Luckily, I very rarely operate on simple gut reaction. I would have to be pretty damn sure of the offenders identity before outing them. Not because I have any sympathy for predators, but because I would feel worse than worm food if I called someone out and was mistaken about who it was. I also would be concerned about the (legal) consequences of essentially distributing porn <if we're talking about pictures of his junk>. If the dude was local, and I actually knew he was correctly identified, I might be more tempted to print out his pictures with his name and email address on them and tack them to every telephone pole in the vicinity.