Alleged Cheating Husband Gets Shamed on Facebook

The picture of a man who allegedly bragged about his cheating has gone viral. All public jerk beware

“If this is your husband,” wrote a Facebook user on Wednesday, “I have endured a 2 hour train ride from Philadelphia listening to this loser and his friends brag about their multiple affairs and how their wives are too stupid to catch on. Oh please repost …” And people did — the post currently has over 27,000 shares.

The “if this is your husband” pic is just the latest in a long line of public shamings on social media, the latest and most controversial being a tweet by programmer and tech evangelist Adria Richards. When Richards tweeted a picture of men she said were making inappropriate jokes (about “big dongles,” specifically) at a tech conference, she was deluged with threats and eventually fired from her job.

The reaction to the “if this is your husband” poster (whose name we’re not posting at this time) has been the polar opposite of that, with vitriol aimed at the purported husband and congratulations to the poster — “Get him girl” is a representative comment. The husband poster had the advantage of being on a commuter train, not at a tech conference. At the latter, women are already often unwelcome, and speaking out against dudes, in Richards’ case, only made things worse. But everybody hates a train loudmouth — even more so, apparently, if he’s an adulterer.

Yuh don’t speak about that which should not be discussed.

Not to no one.

Not your best friend, any woman ever and for damned sure your priest or pastor.

Hell, Your freaking psychiatrist ain’t safe.

You got a big mouth and get off telling this little secret?

Joke’s on you. Whoever you tell about secrets get off on telling it too.

Idiot.

the poster hasn’t responded to a request for comment. So at this point we don’t know if the “husband” is actually a cheater, or even if he’s really married. He could just be an unpleasant braggart — he certainly wouldn’t be the first to inflate his sexual accomplishments in front of his friends.

There is, of course, another possibility, the poster of the picture is flat out lying. Salon, politically correct as always, omits to mention this possibility.

Why didn't salon published the article with pictures and names? Well, because salon knows that it can be sued for libel if the poster made the story up out of whole cloth.

But there is more risk to those who republish the original post which is that truth is not always a defense in suits for libel if malice what can be shown. Please note the posters exhortation, "Oh please repost " a strong indication that the original poster wishes to harm the man whose photograph she published. Would a jury find there was malice here? And if we call this an action for invasion of privacy, rather than for libel, does the gentleman in question have a reasonable expectation of privacy for utterances made in public on a train? Does he expect to be eavesdropped upon? What are his reasonable expectations? Does the use of the ability to publish and distribute any invasion of his privacy, no matter how small and no matter in what cause, overcome the fact that he made a public utterance on a train because he did not expect 47,000 people to hear it?

The point of all these questions is to suggest that the law has yet to catch up with the power of the new technology but those who draw their cell phones like a gun ought to have a care unless they are very sure that they can predict a jury's behavior.

There is another potential party to this transaction, what about the children of this man who will be publicly humiliated by these disclosures, whether true or false? Do these children were have a cause of action against this poster because of the collateral damage done to them? What about the wife? Has she been humiliated? Do they have an open relationship? Does she have a right to privacy as well?

In my judgment, new generation feminists' seething anger against men in general is a cultural phenomenon and certainly enjoys a certain cachet of political correctness but it is one which might or might not shield liability for intentional torts.

Not going to read the whole piece because I will not give “Salon” the traffic. From what I can see, this is written by a female, a female with the emotional maturity — writing skills — of a 14-year-old, as evidenced by statements such as:

Yet, in the paragraph above this one, the “writer” says that this poor victim Richards “tweeted a picture of men she said were making inappropriate jokes”.

I could tweet a picture of anyone and say that that person was doing thus and such.

And if we call this an action for invasion of privacy, rather than for libel, does the gentleman in question have a reasonable expectation of privacy for utterances made in public on a train? Does he expect to be eavesdropped upon? What are his reasonable expectations?

I've been doing some reading re this PRISM matter. The majority opinion in the Supreme Court case that nominally allows this, Smith vs W.VA, is to me a horror show of lies based on fallacious arguments based on invalid assumptions factual impossibilities. One passage held that in the old days you had no expectation of privacy in giving the phone number you told to the human operator.

There is, of course, another possibility, the poster of the picture is flat out lying. Salon, politically correct as always, omits to mention this possibility.

When checking on my daughter’s myspace page when she was in high school, one of her friends posted a picture of his mashed up car and said they had outrun the cops the night before and sideswiped a couple of parked cars. I actually called the police.

However, I did more investigating and searched on the actual JPG file name and found the picture on an internet site out of a completely different state. It was one of several pictures of a souped up honda that had been damaged in a race and they were going to completely rebuild it and share the after pictures.

I let the police know that I had been hoodwinked...

For all we know, this man is the poster’s boyfriend or husband. Or even some guy she had just met and they conspired to make a “potentially viral” video.

I don’t trust things on the internet until I research them. Things like this are rarely what they seem.

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