10-02-2019, 09:55 AM
(10-02-2019, 09:35 AM)BmorePat87 Wrote: I don't think the suicide should play a role unless they encouraged it (which they did not in this case), but how is someone outing another person not done in malice?
In this circumstance, the allegation is that the girl who shared the texts was angry at Channing after finding out that her boyfriend had previously exchanged these texts with him and released them in response to an argument she then had with Channing. There's also the revelation that he had a history of being bullied at the school for being effeminate.
Suggesting this type of graphic, public outing of a teen was "not negative" is a pretty wild claim.
I didn't say it wasn't negative, I am saying it doesn't meet a threshold of criminality without it having more context. When I think of malice, I am looking for some sort of commentary along with it showing it (derogatory words, calls to action in regards to the information, etc). The article posted provided little to no context about previous incidents or any commentary added to the sharing of the information. That said, see my other examples of shared information. Are those also crimes? If the answer is no then this can't be either, at least as portrayed in the story. If the answer is yes then newspapers are complicit in a lot of crimes and I don't think we want to head down that road.
They could probably get the girlfriend for some sort of cyber crime for illegally accessing the phone if the boyfriend cooperated, but going after anything related to the death is an overcharge here as the story is written.
