Social networks have been considered a boon of everyone’s existence as they provide

an electronic avenue for expressions and a way to connect with friends and loved ones.
Facebook in particular has billions of users and because of its powerful impact, anyone
can be exposed to cybercrimes. A private individual can become an instant celebrity if
another person recognizes either his good or bad deed, thanks to your mobile phone’s
ability to capture the pleasant and not-so-pleasant moments. Due to Facebook’s vast
reach, it is easy to build or destroy one’s reputation at the drop of a hat. Sadly,
exercising your right to free speech often blurs the line between expression and
imputation. Is there such a thing as Facebook etiquette? Do we really have to exercise
our freedom of speech regardless of the consequences?

Libeling a public official versus libeling a private individual

Mudslinging has been part of the country’s political culture and when the public officials
or public figures have been dragged into shame, most of them will cry foul and resort to
filing a libel case to the person behind the malicious statement. However, before a
public official can file a case, the libel needs to hold water. The burden of proof will
definitely lie with the offended party as he needs to prove that there is indeed a “higher
standard of actual malice”. If the offended party is a private individual, the burden of
proof is with the accused. This means the accused needs to prove that he has justifiable
reason for the defamatory statement even if there is truth to it.

Although truth can be used as a defense, it does not necessarily exempt the accused
from the crime of libel. The Supreme Court requires the accused to show “good motives
and justifiable ends” for truth to become a valid defense.  For libel committed online, the
author of the offending article will be held liable. When a libelous statement is posted on
Facebook, the acts of liking, sharing or commenting do not fall under cyber libel. Does
that mean an individual can share a libelous post without facing any legal
consequences? It is interesting to note that sharing a post and creating a new story to
support the statement of the original post can still hold a person liable. For instance, the
original author posts “ John is a wife beater” and another person shares the post with a
new story that says “he is also a murderer”, this can be considered as another libelous
statement despite the fact that he was not the original author.

Aside from libel, there are other ways a person can get sued on Facebook:
•    Copyright Infringement-when a copyrighted material is posted by others without
permission from the original author, the individual who posted the content can be liable
for copyright infringement.  It is considered an infringement even if it was only shared
with a few Facebook friends.

•    Privacy-posting private information of others such as photos can be considered a

violation especially when such posts have enabled others to tag or share.

•    Harassment-when someone behaves in a manner that is deemed threatening or

intrusive, the person can be sued for harassment. Facebook is a viable platform for
harassment and if a person breaks into another person’s account and pretends as the
real account user, this act can pass itself off as Facebook harassment.  Unfortunately,
harassment can be subjective as one person may believe he has been harassed and
another might not.

•    Breach of Contract-although this violation has a very broad area, an individual who
talks about work on Facebook even if he has agreed to company rules and regulations
may also be liable for breaching the contract.