I'll go ahead and link over the two sources that I used to find this bad boy.
Basically, Denise Finkel, a student at University of Albany, is suing Facebook and four of her high school classmates for bullying her online....to the tune of $3 million.
The students allegedly created a Facebook group to make fun of Finkel, stating that she had AIDS, abused intravenous drugs, and took part in "inappropriate conduct with animals." Finkle is suing her former classmates, their parents and the social networking giant for defamation of character and libel. The case has been filed in a New York State Supreme Court in Manhattan.
From an editor's standpoint, we'll start from the top. Both articles have simple, strong headlines that state "who did what." I prefer the NewsDay article's opening lede because it conveys all of the basic information in one graph, whereas the CNET article is a little more clever and vague. Both articles follow AP style.
As to the idea of libel, I think it's iffy at best. The Facebook group apparently never mentions Finkle by name, but alludes to her. Finkle's suit against Facebook is presumably one for accountability over what is published online, which is likely to be quashed pretty quickly. Since the stories are both left relatively open-ended, I think it's also safe to assume that a follow-up story will be published on both sites as soon as more information becomes available.
Davis out.
Interesting topic Davis. Certainly a 21st Century problem. But in terms of libel, where do you think there might be some?
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