Two Swedish teenage girls were
found guilty of defamation on Tuesday for posting sexual insults about
other youngsters on the photo sharing website Instagram.
The court convicted the girls,
aged 15 and 16, for writing explicit, derogatory remarks next to
pictures of 38 young people, mostly girls, via an anonymous account on
Instagram.
Posted in December, the comments
quickly spread on the Internet before the account was shut down and
caused hundreds of young people to take to the streets in Gothenburg,
the teenagers' hometown, in protests that turned violent.
Cyber-bullying among young people
has become an increasing concer with the growth of social media and a
lawyer in the Swedish case said the convictions showed that people who
post defamatory comments, believing they are anonymous, can still be
vulnerable to prosecution.
“Many think they are anonymous
when they are sitting behind a computer and therefore take greater
liberties than if that anonymity wasn't there,” the plaintiffs'
attorney, Arash Raoufi, said.
“The verdict sends a signal to
young people and society that this indignity culture cannot be allowed
to exist. I hope it will also result in parents being more alert to what
kids do at the computer,” he said.
In the
Gothenburg case, the plaintiffs provided screen shots of the derogatory
remarks as evidence while forensic evidence tied the girls to the
account.
The girls, one of whom had
confessed to being behind the account while the other denied
involvement, were both fined and one was also sentenced to community
service.
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