A California appellate court ruled that a person does not have a right to privacy for any material they post on their social networking page. This exact case should also act as a cautionary tale to all parents and their children to understand the possible ramification of a seemingly innocent post on their Facebook.com, Myspace.com, or other social networking pages.
Here are the facts: Following a visit to her hometown of Coalinga, California, Cynthia Moreno, wrote An ode to Coalinga (”The Ode”) and posted it in her online journal on MySpace.com. The Ode opens “the older I get, the more I realize how much I despise Coalinga” and then proceeds to make a number of extremely negative comments about Coalinga and its inhabitants.
Cynthia’s parents, David and Maria Moreno, and Cynthia’s sister, Araceli Moreno, (collectively “The Family”) were living in Coalinga.
Roger Campbell, was the principal of Coalinga High School.
Mr. Campbell read The Ode on Cynthia’s MySpace.com page and submitted the Ode to the local newspaper, the Coalinga Record, which published it as a letter to the editor, and signed it with Cynthia’s first and last name.
“””The community reacted violently to the publication of the Ode. The Family received death threats and a shot was fired at the family home, forcing the family to move out of Coalinga. Due to severe losses, David closed the 20-year-old family business.”””
The family filed suit for invasion of privacy and intentional infliction of emotional distress against the person who gave the ode to the newspaper, the school district which he worked for and the newspaper which published it.
The appellate court found that since The Ode was published on Myspace.com the Ode was not private.
“”Once posted on myspace.com, this article was available to anyone with internet access.””
“””A crucial ingredient of the applicable invasion of privacy cause of action is a public disclosure of private facts. A matter that is already public or that has previously become part of the public domain is not private.””
“Cynthia by publicizing her opinions about Coalinga on her post on MySpace.com, made her article available to any person with a computer and thus opened it to the public eye.”
“Under these circumstances, no reasonable person would have had an expectation of privacy regarding the published material.”
“Cynthia’s last name was not a private fact. Although her online journal only used the name “Cynthia”; it is clear that her identity was readily ascertainable from her MySpace page” and the court noted that Cynthia’s MySpace page included her picture.
So bottom line, be careful, very careful of what you post on your Facebook.com, MySpace.com and Twitter pages.
Not only can the post be used against you, but appearently reprinted and used against you in a whole different forum than the author intended.
Have a long discussion with your children about the extremely harsh and long lasting consequences of before making a post on their social networking pages.
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