New Law That Makes Online Impersonation Now Illega

[acommondisaster]

That's right. A violation of § 528.5(a) would require that the object of the impersonation be an "actual person". It would also require that the would-be violator "knowingly and without consent credibly impersonate[d]" that actual person and, further, that they did so "for purposes of harming, intimidating, threatening, or defrauding another person."

So, if I were to, say, register on somd.com with the screen name 'Daniel Snyder', and then proceed to make sarcastic comments about how Mr. Snyder runs the Washington Redskins - comments that were pretty clearly not actually coming from Daniel Snyder - then there probably wouldn't be a violation.

Perhaps the most important part of this law is that it explicitly creates a civil cause of action whereby subjects of impersonation (as well as other injured parties) can sue for compensatory damages and injunctive relief.

So this doesn't cover that sick mother in Missouri who made up a fake guy to flirt with and subsequently dump her daughter's exfriend to the point where the girl committed suicide?

 

[philibusters]

So this doesn't cover that sick mother in Missouri who made up a fake guy to flirt with and subsequently dump her daughter's exfriend to the point where the girl committed suicide?

I do not think it does.

 

[Tilted]

So this doesn't cover that sick mother in Missouri who made up a fake guy to flirt with and subsequently dump her daughter's exfriend to the point where the girl committed suicide?

This particular law wouldn't (i.e. even if it was a Missouri law or federal law or whatever), but some jurisdictions have enacted or considered other - so called cyber bullying - laws that might.