The fake account racked up 181 "friends" and the victim was "subjected to numerous incidents of teasing and ridicule for an ongoing period of time as a result," a school official says. The girls have been charged with aggravated stalking of a minor under 16 and have been ordered to have 21 days home detention before a hearing next month.
So it apparently crossed the line from parody to a situation with actual consequences for her reputation. And the girls apparently kept up their activities for some time.
It might even qualify as reckless endangerment -- one can easily imagine some mouth-breather taking this parody as permission to have his way with the "nasty girl" from the Facebook page.
It's a tough one ... but I think they crossed the line.
Isn't that the effect of any great parody? You don't think Tina Fey's parody of Sarah Palin had "actual consequences" for her [Palin's] reputation? Of course it did.
As you might have guess, I'm not a fan - at all - of these cyber-bullying laws. They are at least tangential to the case in Tuscon. We cannot limit speech, to include mean-spirited or satirical speech because it might compel a crazy person to do something untoward.
If a teenager kills themselves, it's not because someone was mean to them. It's because they don't have basic social coping skills to deal with the obstacles of life - like verbal bullies.
When we start to define any antagonistic speech as bullying or stalking, and then criminalize it, we are infringing on rights that shouldn't be infringed. If the girls libeled the teen, then that teen should seek remedy with the civil court, not the criminal court.