In my younger and perhaps more naive years of college, I was convinced I wanted to go to law school. I majored in Pre-law, I was a paralegal intern in a firm in Memphis and in short – I learned to hate it. Family Law made me lose hope in people as a whole, divorce Law made me end relationships before I even began them, and the overall well being of my mental state was sub-par, to say the least.
Reading through this week’s learning materials, there were some things that were familiar to me. (like the rights you have as a photographer and the four kinds of privacy.)
I will say, one of the articles that did surprise me, would the Blogging Rights article. Of course, I knew that Bloggers can be a journalist and are entitled to free speech and political speech, it was the last two that got me.
I had no idea that a blogger had the right to stay anonymous as well as having freedom from liability for hosting speech. I personally don’t read many blogs in my spare time, I actually feel that I have read more blogs in this class than ever before, but this article gave clarification on the protection that I didn’t even know was offered.
Another point of interest that I found was on two of the articles that had similar issues but had two separate outcomes. The first was the Michelle Carter case, an instance where a 17-year-old girl convinced her boyfriend to kill himself.
In this case, it’s obvious that free speech would get involved, however as explained in the article, Michelle Carter’s argued that her verbal conduct towards her boyfriend was protected by free speech, however when the case was brought to the supreme court, she was convicted of involuntary manslaughter and ordered to serve 15 months of a two and a half year sentence. I personally believe that she should have had to serve her full sentence and believe that with her knowledge of her boyfriend’s depression and suicidal thoughts already, her pushing him to do it crosses the lines.
The other article that caught my interest regarding the law and media, was the overturning of the case against Lori Drew, who was accused of cyberbullying a 13-year-old Megan Meier, who later committed suicide.
However, this case was acquitted for a number of loopholes. One of them is that nobody in the hoax actually read the terms and agreement, and it was actually another person who sent the message to Megan, telling her the “world would be better off without you.” As the article continues, to actually convict drew, the prosecutors would have had to prove that drew accessed Myspace without authorization and did it for the purpose to torture Megan.
Reading through these articles and just how logistical the terms get when it comes to “proving” things, reminds me why I didn’t want to go to law school in the first place. After reading through these articles, more especially two mentioned, I think I’ll take more time and care reading through the terms and conditions that I have been so quick to scroll and check “yes.”
