Facebook and Libel

Is this week Facebook week?

Anyway, in the tradition of writing about our favorite self-promoting website for the moment, making one person happy after another (or ruining one person’s academic life after another), this entry shall be about Facebook, and something which may remotely demand attention as a legal issue.

People won’t just admit it, but we’re actually vainer than what we give ourselves credit for. Just look at people’s Facebook accounts. They always have the best images of them out there posted as their “primary pictures,” thinking that what’s wrong with trying to make a good impression right? Sometimes we may not even really desire to make the best impression, but at least just leave a decent one right?

Until we get tagged in other people’s photo albums. At first it seems harmless, and we may just think that “These are my friends anyway. What could they possibly post that would harm my reputation, or possibly even implicate me in acts contrary to good customs, or public policy, or hey, maybe crime?” So we ignore it. And then come those images that you fear would come out, images which you prayed would have been deleted and sent to file hell with the Jonas Brothers mp3s and Miley Cyrus wallpapers. But no, they’re right there, classified as photos of ‘you,’ and you being identified as that horrendous, or twisted, or immoral person, which, when the cursor moves over the face, your name appears as being that of that person. What a nightmare right?

Yes, Facebook and its tagging features may just provide a fertile gound for libel cases.

And thus ends my Facebook entry.