Cyberbullied Teen Sues Ex-Classmates, Their Parents, and Facebook

by Warren Riddle on March 4, 2009 at 04:14 PM

Denise Finkel (please don't sue us), a student at The University of Albany in New York, is suing four of her former high school classmates for supposedly bullying and harassing her on Facebook. The lawsuit, filed in New York State Supreme Court, seeks damages of $3 million from the accused teens, their parents and the popular social networking site.

The defendants in the case, Michael Dauber, Jeffrey Schwartz, Leah Hertz and Melinda Danowitz, allegedly created a private, password-protected Facebook group that posted damaging statements about the plaintiff, including accusations that Finkel suffers from AIDS and took part in bestiality.

Increased reports of such Internet bullying and harassment have led to several other high profile lawsuits, and even prompted the European Union to actively fight Web harassment through an anti-bullying pact, which also seeks to protect under-age users from online predators. A total of 17 networking Web sites, led by MySpace and Facebook, signed the pact. MySpace and Facebook have also signed similar agreements in the United States with 49 State Attorneys General offices.

MySpace, in particular, has received attention and criticism during the past several years for its role in two suicide lawsuits. The family of a 15-year-old girl in Texas sued MySpace after the young woman committed suicide when her 27-year-old lover called off their relationship. The family claimed MySpace facilitated the illegal affair.

MySpace also drew criticism when another teenage girl killed herself after neighbors created a fake MySpace account, purporting to be managed by a teenage boy. The young girl committed suicide after the neighbors, under the guise of the fake account, told her the world would be better off without her. The resulting lawsuit is believed to be the first case involving Internet bullying.

Still a relatively new phenomenon despite our nation's litigious nature, these online defamation suits hinge upon cloudy legality. The current lawsuit includes documents that allegedly contain defamatory comments from the defendants, yet none of the statements specifically name the plaintiff. The mother of defendant Melinda Danowitz dismissed the suit as "completely frivolous" and said that her daughter "never wrote anything defamatory about anybody." Facebook is taking a similar stance, spokesperson Barry Schnitt stating, "We see no merit to this suit and we will fight it vigorously." [From: Newsday.com]

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Tags: crime, cyber-bullying, Facebook, facebook lawsuit, FacebookLawsuit, lawsuits, MySpace, myspace suicide, MyspaceSuicide, social networking, SocialNetworking

Comments

helenMar 4th 2009 11:01PM

Neutral

First of all, why sue Facebook? They were the medium through which the events occurred, but it's not like Facebook itself worked to insult her or instigate any of these cases. That's like suing Buick when a drunk guy in a Buick Century hits you! Also, it's not Myspace's fault that the one chick was dumb enough to date someone who was twelve years older than her when she was fifteen. Sorry, parents, but Myspace didn't force them to get together, your baby actually made a mistake. *Gasp*
Why can't people just be responsible for their own actions and behave like decent human beings instead of trying to throw the blame off on other people?

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MufinmomApr 14th 2009 7:16AM

Neutral

The whole point of the suit IS to make people responsible for their actions. In this case, the people who actively took mere comments
to a libel and slanderous aka bullying level. My son once said "bullying" is a childish word. No. It applies to all ages.
The stakes just get more real, deadlier, as we get older.
Freedom of speech is NOT license for freedom of mean-dom.

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xbplaya1122Mar 5th 2009 6:53AM

Neutral

hmmm she's only suing to get money.... if she didnt like what she saw then she could have easily set her profile to private and/or block those people. $3 million???? for what?? because this little bitch is insecure about herself? i wouldnt give her $3 let alone $3 million

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TreeApr 14th 2009 12:20PM

Neutral

I tried w/o any luck to block/set/delete my minor child access to myspace.com . They use a friends computer and even the schools computer. I read the profiles and i am shocked on the content. i have had other parents tell me what they have seen concerning my "child's account" . A minor cannot enter into a contract or so i thought! Thanks to my space they can.....a place where the f word is highly encouraged!!! myspace go pick on someone your own age and size.....

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