Fake Facebook profiles could be criminalized

Pennsylvania Independent ^ | 9/20/2012 | Melissa Daniels

[dirtboy]

HARRISBURG — Offending someone online isn’t a crime, but proposed legislation in Pennsylvania would penalize people who take it too far.

Next week, House Judiciary Committee representatives are scheduled to discuss House Bill 2249, which makes it a misdemeanor to impersonate someone online. But the bill has stirred up free speech debates for its potential chilling effect on online communication — or on pranksters.

Now, the bill’s sponsor says specific changes will ensure people who are joking with friends, or exercising First Amendment rights, won’t be prosecuted.

The sponsor, state Rep. Katharine Watson, R-Bucks, said the bill is targeted toward giving law enforcement a way to penalize online bullying.

The law would make it a crime to impersonate someone online through a social media account like Facebook or Twitter, or through a fake email address or text message.

[dirtboy]

So if this legislation passes and Corbett signs it, will PA Freepers no long be able to use screen names instead of their real names?

[2ndDivisionVet]

Let me get this straight: You can claim to be a war hero who won more medals than Audie Murphy but you can’t post a fake Facebook profile?

[xtinct]

wish obnoxious people both Repubs and Dems would lay off what they don't understand on the Internet

we don't need or want their opinions

[badpacifist]

There goes my redhighheelsblackpartydressonwednesdays account

[SunkenCiv]

Thanks dirtboy.

...proposed legislation in Pennsylvania... House Bill 2249, which makes it a misdemeanor to impersonate someone online... The sponsor, state Rep. Katharine Watson, R-Bucks, said the bill is targeted toward giving law enforcement a way to penalize online bullying.

I'll be happy to impersonate hundreds of Pennsylvania voters if anyone needs signatures for petitions for a recall to remove that 'hole from office.

[dirtboy]

Please ping the PA list when you get a chance, thanks!

[LibWhacker]

Oh, what the heck, let’s just throw the Constitution in the trash.

[Republican Wildcat]

So if this legislation passes and Corbett signs it, will PA Freepers no long be able to use screen names instead of their real names?

I'm not seeing anything in that article that would point to that. Looks like its intent is to go after people setting up fake accounts to impersonate others and destroy their reputations...this likely is already a tort but apparently they want to make this also subject to criminal penalties.

That said...this kind of a law would have to be fine tuned...VERY fine tuned...to avoid a slippery slope issue of internet intrusion beyond the scope of the stated intent of this bill...might be best to just leave this a tort and allow for civil penalties.

[mo]

most of the Federalist Papers were originally published under pseudonyms.

IMHO..this legislation and this...are strategically linked by First Amendment opponents in the present administration...

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2932745/posts

[FreedomPoster]

Katharine you ignorant slut . . . < /Dan Akroyd voice>

Clearly this woman doesn’t understand what the words “Congress shall make no law . . . abridging the freedom of speech” mean.

Anyone with an ounce of knowledge about pre-Revolutionary America, and all the anonymous pamphleteers, would not have proposed this idiot bill.

[mnehring]

It seems the gist of the law isn’t really ‘fake’ profiles but impersonating someone. Almost like online identity theft.

[Hardraade]

Oh good. So now they can clap Obama in irons for his facebook false-persona generator ;)

[Vince Ferrer]

The sponsor, state Rep. Katharine Watson, R-Bucks, said the bill is targeted toward giving law enforcement a way to penalize online bullying.

The best way for the government to stop online bullying is for the government to stop bullying people online.

[bgill]

Just one more point in the ever growing list of reasons not to use FB.

[dirtboy]

It seems the gist of the law isn’t really ‘fake’ profiles but impersonating someone. Almost like online identity theft.

However, it would leave the door open for prosecutorial mischief, IMO - going after anonymous comments on MSM websites that a politician doesn't like, for example.

Too often, application of a law such as this one goes well beyond the original intent of who created it.

[C210N]

and all the anonymous pamphleteers

Exactly - we would never have heard from Publius, Cato and Brutus.

[coloradan]

Let me guess: there is an exception crafted to allow government psyops to continue doing exactly this, in furtherance of their agenda against the freedoms of US citizens. (For example, to harass whistleblowers.)

[iowamark]

You didn’t bother to read the article before posting it?

[E. Pluribus Unum]

Then we should also criminalize fake political profiles that certain candidates project, only to do whatever they want when they assume office.

Go ahead and lie about what you are going to do when elected, but go directly to jail when you don't.

[microgood]

The current generation has no idea what bullying is. They are just a bunch of bedwetting crybabies.