California Criminalizes Online Impersonation

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Social networks like Facebook have been big targets for malicious actions in the past. This is why California has brought up a new law, which will criminalize a person committing these procedures. Besides this the person will be punished with a $1,000 fine and a year in county jail under SB 1411 . The law states that “harming, intimidating, threatening or defrauding another person” online and without their consent a misdemeanor. It allows the victim to sue the imitator for damages and losses” .

This law will help California because one of the biggest issues is happening in the youth as they are falling in love. According to Janis Wolak study most victims fall in the 13 to 15-year-old teenage girls who would go in chat rooms and meet adult offenders. These girls would fall in love with them and have sexual relationships not realizing some of them were sex offenders, which eventually would end affecting them with their health . Another factor besides sexual relationships is teen suicide. Back in 2006, there was a big case where Lori Drew, was being sued because she made an account on Myspace as Josh Evans . Because of this incident Megan Meir a 13-year-old girl committed suicide. Meir believed that nobody liked her and in big part because of Josh Evans comments on her page. These actions were considered cyber bullying and can caused for others to commit suicide . In fact, there’s a need for regulation especially in an area where social networks have become more common for people to commit crimes. And some of this crimes have to do with the fact that website like Facebook have a lot of public information that should instead be private or have privacy options for the people who view their profile .

Current Policy

Under Section 528.5 of the new policy called SB 1411 in California it states that “Notwithstanding any other provision of law, any person who knowingly and without consent credibly impersonates another actual person through or on an Internet Web site or by other electronic means for purposes of harming, intimidating, threatening, or defrauding another person is guilty of a public offense punishable pursuant to subdivision” . It’s also important to state that if the victim who is involve in the incident is allowed to bring civil actions for compensatory damages the violator .

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