Legal Responsibility for Child's Internet Usage

yuggoth writes "According to this NY Times article, a father is being sued for negligence because his under-age son created a defamatory web site about a classmate. The classmate seeks damages of more than $50.000 because the father didn't always supervise his son while surfing on the 'net." Sounds like the plaintiff is grasping at straws.

A great chance for analogy...

[Max Hyre]

In some legal cases, we see the computer being used in truly original ways which are beyond the scope of current law. This is not one of them.

Let us create a perfect analogy to test the lawsuit's reasonability:

Suppose our miscreant had taken a photo from Hustler magazine, and pasted on the victim's head from the school yearbook, then tacked it up to the telephone pole in front of his house. Apply the lawsuit to that.

No? You claim it's a difference in degree sufficient to become a difference in kind? OK, posit our creep going down to Kinko's and printing off a few thousand of these compositions, and posting them all over school/town/wherever. This seems to me sufficiently broadcast to generate the same degree of harm. (I.e., the real damage occurs when the work comes to the notice of someone who knows the victim. It matters not that fifteen thousand strangers on another continent view it, so long as they have no, and do not create any, connection to her.)

So, now we have a very close meatspace analogue of the crime. What is the father's failing here? Not checking under the mattress for copies of Hustler? Allowing Junior to make surreptitious forays to Kinko's? Overlooking the need to monitor the level in the paste pot? I think not. Any lawyer with the brains God gave a lemon could get this one laughed out of court.

[Note that this applies solely to the father---Junior should get as much of the book thrown at him as his age allows.]

Re:Dangerous Weapon

[Jeremy Erwin]

For the plaintiff to succeed in the dangerous article case, the internet must be recognized as "inherently dangerous." This is a very different standard than your meatspace analogy. The article mentioned "blasting caps."

If a blasting cap is used properly, it will trigger an explosion, and if used by a child, has the potential to cause death or serious injury.

Simply walking through the "Red Light district" does not expose anyone to an iminent risk of death or serious injury. It may simply be a way to get from point A to point B.

If, however, this "Red light district" was home to live antipersonal land mines or snipers, the yes, entering the area might very well result in death and serious injury...

Re:Dangerous Weapon

[Nater]

Whats's interesting about this case is that the plaintiff is claiming that the internet is an inherently dangerou[s]

Consider the parallels you can draw with meatspace. I think most people agree that the world is dangerous, too, and that it is the responsibility of parents to prepare kids to live in it. I think the same goes for bitspace. It is a dangerous place. For illustration, think about the online analogues of these meatspace offenses:

robbery
b and e
neglect
vandalism

Suppose your hypothetical child wandered into the red light district of some meatspace city. I think most people would agree that it was your responsibility to keep the kid away from that, and so should it be in bitspace as well.

If succesful, this suit could also provide ammnition to those who want to mandate censorware.

Following analogues again, is censorship mandatory for anything in meatspace? In some places, for some things, but in most Western democratic countries, a very narrow part of culture. In bitspace it should be the same. For the time being it is not, but I think that is largely due to widespread fear of the Internet among certain conservative groups. Once the Internet is as commonplace and familiar as the telephone and the automobile, these discrepancies will fade away.

Supervise and Privacy = False

[Kjella]

Under this ruling, I'd say you'd have to keep a complete log of your underage members of family's activities, and go through it on a ragular basis, which would lead to outrage most sane places in the world, certainly among the juveniles if not with the lawmakers. There's a difference between learning them netiquette (how they should behave) and actually monitoring them. If people only would realize that computers and the Internet is a multiuse tool. If my kid grabbed the kitchen knife and stabbed someone, would I be responsible? Should the knife be under lock and key? Or if he used a pencil to draw/write something bad? Or if hit someone with the baseball bat I got him? I long since found out that if the americans can't get the perpetrator himself, then by golly someone else who provided the tools/medium/access is to blame. This goes for both ISPs, hacker tools, ftp/web servers and whatever, I'm glad we in this country still try to get the man (though we fail miserably most of the time :p) Kjella

Re:Supervise and Privacy = False

[91degrees]

If my kid grabbed the kitchen knife and stabbed someone, would I be responsible?

Yes. And you shouldn't have given him access to the knife.

Should the knife be under lock and key?

Only if you think it likely that he would stab someone with it.

You have to remember that an adult is responsible for a lot of things that a child does. Since the judge seems to be under the impression that nothing illegal, it seems a little harsh to punish the father.

how much?

[SmellMyTeenSpirit]

$50.000 the article says. why not do like the gas company and make it $49.99 9/10

Re:Article text--bypass creating another bogus ID

[sjames]

I can think of several things more dangerous than a computer that they will have to consider: Any piece of wire cord or rope (strangulation), a pencil (far more potential for a fatal stabbing), baseball bat, or a rock. All can be lethal.

And let's not forget: 'In Japan, the hand can be used like a knife... :-)

Dangerous Weapon

[Jeremy Erwin]

Whats's interesting about this case is that the plaintiff is claiming that the internet is an inherently dangerou article, akin to blasting caps.

If succesful, this suit could also provide ammnition to those who want to mandate censorware.

Countersuit in order . . .

[acceleriter]

And lots of publicity and mirrors for the "defamatory" website. Then the whole world can know what an asshole the "defamed" guy was, not just the people who happened upon the website before the suit.

Then the original suit gets dismissed, and everything's fine.

IANAL, yada yada yada.

Strange, but perhaps understandable...

[Kasreyn]

It's strange that, as stated in that lengthy article just above, there's no basis for this in legal precedent, but judges go ahead and make wrongheaded moves like this one.

The best reason I can come up with is that it's confusing to them. They don't really know what a computer is, what the internet is, what it can be used for, who is doing the using and how it is done. Without this information, they're effectively making their decisions blind. Imagine, if you will, making decisions on gun control but not knowing: a.) what a gun is for, b.) how one is operated, or c.) what types of people are involved with them. It'd be sheer folly to even try! But they do it all the time with "internet control" rulings.

I think we need some better educated judges, so people will stop seeing this area as a field day for spurious lawsuits like this one. The U.S.A.'s judicial system has 2 battle cries these days: Get Me Off the Hook and I Want Your Money. The latter is overhauling the former in popularity rather rapidly, too. ;)

-Kasreyn.