Social Media: Legal

I just discovered a "Social Networking Law Blog" focusing on the interaction between social media and the law.
A recent post was written about a woman in New Jersey who created a fake FaceBook profile for her ex-boyfriend in order to post things to hurt his reputation. She made remarks about him having STD's, calling prostitutes and using drugs. These remarks were clearly defamatory and once she was discovered she was taken to court.
"The New Jersey Code of Criminal Justice defines the offense of impersonation/identity theft to include "impersonat[ing] another or assuming a false identity and do[ing] an act in such assumed character or false identity . . . to injure or defraud another."
She has tried to get the case dismissed in saying that there is no mention of electronic communications but the judge has decided to go forward with it.
I thought this was very interesting to read about.
Laws based on the internet are still so new that many people are unaware of the consequences that can come from abusing the privilege to use the internet.
It will be interesting to see what comes of this case.

This article, called Social Media Policies for Legal Types gives great incite into what is legally appropriate and not appropriate as far as social media goes in the business and professional world. Are professionals allowed to have a personal life on the internet?
Harvard's Law Guidelines state:
“As a general matter, you may post content freely to your blog and to those of others, so long as the content is not illegal, obscene, defamatory, threatening, infringing of intellectual property rights, invasive of privacy or otherwise injurious or objectionable."

There is still so much to learn and change when it comes to social media and the law. The internet is an ever-expanding social outlet that is going to continue to grow throughout our lifetimes. It will be interesting to see what comes from it.