The web can not and should not be considered a “free zone” from the law, but as one of the areas in which the individual expresses and develops his personality. It needs so a suitable set of rules to implement the protections provided by the law.
WebLeagalAid wants to focus its attention to the “traditional” type crimes, but made through new technologies: Internet and Facebook, in particular, have become the new squares to commit crimes, all benefiting from a common (and false) of non-punishment belief or difficult prosecution of crimes by web.
So it is not: the huge amount of judgments that the courts are producing at this time is one example.
Social networks are now part of people’s lives, who through these channels may share the network views, images, videos, news and multimedia content related to their purely private sphere.
Their ubiquity, with the passage of time has made these channels likely to be turned into means to commit criminal offenses, thus becoming the vehicle of harassment or threats. Which constitute for them a crime and if they become harassing, persecutory and repeated, they come to materialize in unlawful conduct that is configured in stalking (from “to stalk”, proceed stealthily, to indicate figuratively the hunter who waits in ambush their prey).
Through your profile social subjects can be reached immediately, and can be harassed with repeated messages with insults, with threats and even suffer defamation, since the middle of telematics can reach an exponential number of other subscribers to the social media channel.
Through location-based services offered by “social” also the victim, posting the service enabled, run the risk of become traceable and trackable showing your position to those who do not want or when you do not want.
We continue, therefore, to examine individually all the main elements of an “telematics ” offense.
This is the most common crime on social networks.
Defamation consists in the publication or broadcast of any libellous or slanderous statement about an individual that can be proven to be false and published with the intention of harming that entity’s reputation.
Thus, online defamation is the publication of such statements made on any Internet based media including blogs, forums, websites, and even social networking websites.
The most common defamation cases regards Facebook, but the same principles apply to Twitter, Linkedin etc…
Once a defamatory statement is published on the Internet, the harm is done. In fact, false statements can potentially reach thousands of individuals when they are published online and then shared via email or sites, increasing the publication and the damage exponentially.
When the harm done to the victim of defamation is significant, quantifiable, and documented, a lawsuit for defamation may arise.
Defamation law protects people reputation and good name against any kind of false or derogatory statement. To be precise, defamation can occur in two different ways:
libel is a written defamation that can be seen, such as on a web site. Most online defamation occurs through libel by posting a web page, comment, bulletin board post, review, rating, a forum message, a social network post, a blog post or sending emails; slander is a spoken defamation such as through a transcribed video, podcast or audio file.
Online stalking is the use of the internet or electronics to threaten or harass an individual. This unlawful conduct is perpetrated through email, social media, chat rooms, instant messaging clients and any other online medium and can occur in conjunction with the more traditional form of offline stalking.
The purpose of the stalker is an obsessive monitoring of the victim’s private life activities. In the worst case, due to threats, victims may have to change their identity and lifestyle habits.
Today social networks are the most common and immediate means through which online stalking is made possible.
Likewise other “traditional” crimes, threats can be experienced online as well. Even though there is no specific legislation regarding web threats, the same rules that apply to offline threats extends to the World Wide Web.
A threat consist in the declaration of one’s purpose or intention to cause harm and damage to the person, property, or rights of another. A threat is intended to unsettle the mind of the person on whom it operates, and to take away from victim’s acts that free, voluntary action which alone constitutes consent.
For threats to occur, it is not necessary that the victim is actually placed in fear of imminent serious injury and harm or that the harasser has the capability or the intention to actually carry out the threat.
The offense is already completed when the harasser, by the threat, searches as a desired reaction, to place the victim in fear of imminent serious injury, intimidating him/her.
This crime occurs when a person uses the Internet to demand money or other goods or behaviour, from another person by using violence or threatening to inflict harm to the victim, his/her reputation, property or to other people or properties known by the victim. Thus the attacker illegally gains a profit and the victim’s self-determination power is seriously limited by the threat of the offender.
Extortion occurs whether or not the threat is carried out. In fact, it is sufficient that there is as a verbal, written or printed threat; there is intention to purposefully carry out the threat; and the victim reasonably believes that the threat is real.
The consent to use and share photographs and other visual contents is often undervalued by social network users.
Publishing photographs, without prior authorisation of those who are portrayed, is illegal. This is true even when family members and relatives are involved
Tagging photos requires the same kind of permission. In effect, tagging people on offensive contents such as sexually exploitative photographs or racial hatred images is illegal.
A person commits online criminal impersonation if he/she knowingly assumes a false or fictitious identity on social networks, using other people photographs or personal information without their consent.
Whoever steals sensitive data or personal account information, and uses this information for unlawful purposes, can be charged of identity theft.
If suspicious activity is noticed, it should be immediately reported and evidence should be provided to demonstrate unauthorised access.
Divulging online conversations or other people’s phone number to third parties is considered an unlawful processing of personal data.
The same rule applies to all those sensitive data, such as domicile or professional address, that a person has not decided to make public.
The right of individuals to free communication is recognised in many legislations. The concept of correspondence refers not only to traditional communication means, but also to online conversations.
This rule applies when a private conversation is partially or fully made public either by posting it on social networks or by sharing it to third parties.