Death and taxes ... and asses. Yes, despite all of its awesomeness, the Internet has ensured that miserable jerks are another of life's guarantees and that they have a place to share their awfulness with the world. The worst of the Web are the bastards who defile online memorial sites.
With just a few keystrokes, anybody can be the digital variety of the creep that pissed on Brian Euston's makeshift Westport memorial. We can all agree that people who ridicule the deceased online are terrible. But do we want to tinker with the First Amendment to stop them?
Karla O'Malley does. According to The Kansas City Star, the Overland Park woman is drumming up support for a law that would ban desecrating online memorial pages. It's sure to spark a free-speech debate that would make the Phelps clan proud.
O'Malley, the paper writes, was motivated to ban the rubbing of salt into
wounds online after she came upon a Christmas Eve car crash in which
17-year-old Travis Storm McAfee died. McAfee's friends created a Web memorial for him, which was promptly sullied by crass jokes.
Like any decent human being, O'Malley didn't like it. But, she told
the paper, she wants to take her anger toward online bullies one step further:
"I am not a legal expert by any means. I just have astrong burning inside to make this stop. Protesters can voice their
opinions elsewhere, but there is a time and place for mourners to be
left alone."
O'Malley has started an online petition
that she's calling Travis' Law, which reads in part:
Visitors to memorial websites are prohibited from postingobscene or
altered photos with the intent to hurt or create a hostile environment.
Customary standards of what is hurtful and what is hostile will apply.
It would allow violators to be fined $1,000 and get thrown in the slammer for
up to a year. The petition has been forwarded to Kansas Congressman Kevin
Yoder.
Everybody knows you can't run into a crowded theater and yell fire. But
can you run into a burned-down theater and say mock the corpses? A law professor told the Star that this concept will be a tough one to advance because Americans are pretty big fans of saying what they want.
"It sounds as though the law would be aimed at suppressingparticular viewpoints, and anytime a law attempts to do that, it faces a
lot of First Amendment hurdles," said Doug Linder, a professor at the
University of Missouri-Kansas City School of Law. "I think it would be
very difficult to draft a law that would stand constitutional challenge
there."
Another law professor said O'Malley's idea could get off the ground by arguing that hurtful speech is a tort, which causes harm. But we'll have to wait until the Supreme Court rules on the Phelps case before a clearer picture of this law can be formed.
For now, Internet trolls (and bloggers and journalists and opinionated tweeters and anybody who has ever said anything that would upset people) should take heart. It sounds like this challenge to your rights won't get very far, at least not quickly.
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How about public humiliation? i.e. Mentioning the culprit's name in the local paper, stating what he did, and said?
I believe in freedom of speech, but I am also aware that it does not give you the right to yell "fire" in a crowded theater.
i've been dealing with this issue for years after the death of my daughter- who was killed in a DUI homicide. I can cope with the words, the sick sexual statements and the alterered photos-- in my own way because i've been forced to learn how to do so, since youtube/facebook/myspace couldnt care less about how painful it is to me.
What i cant take are the parents who have just lost a child and have to see on their 6 year old deceased daughter's memorial video-- things like this:
"I just dug up little Mary's body and had the best anal sex ever!" and...
"talk about a skull f***" etc.
now how is a parent who just lost a child supposed to deal with that? and how is that considered "free speech"
I'm not for putting these trolls in jail, but a fine would be good and or blocking or their IP from the site they are using- would be great.
i somewhat get why trolls do what they do- however i am disgusted that these big sites like youtube- do not remove the comments after they've been reported over and over again and do nothing to stop the groups of trolls that attack our children.
These disgusting people should be illegal. even freedom of speech must have limits. If you are warped enough you could see shooting someone as freedom of expression. I'm not good with words so I will communicate with these creeps by shooting them. Free speech needs to be moderated by mutual respect.
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