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Message To All Those Attending Anti-Vaxxer Event in Flatbush Tonight: DRESS NICELY
Does this count as doxxing/cyber-bullying? Any lawyers or self proclaimed legal experts, please weigh in. (For the record, I am a Healthcare provider and staunchly pro vaxx)I found this demand to be invasive. I’m not an atny nor do I portray one on the internets. This brings to mind the time I was attending a ticketed event and read the fine print. Basically it said by purchasing and using the ticket I gave the producers the right to photograph me. There are other aspects of this demand that leave me shaking my head, are they really going to photograph every attendee??? Where will the photos of women be published, if many of the frum publications blur out the photos of women and female children? FWIW the discussion of this event over on Imamotherdotcom indicates it was poorly attended.
There is nothing illegal about the reporting of facts. That is a constitutionally protected right. A person may face civil liability if they publish libelous claims which are damaging to another but for something to be libelous it must be untrue. Merely publishing the photographs of individuals and reporting that they attended an event is not libelous. As far as your concern about doxxing/cyber-bullying, these are not crimes nor torts in and of themselves. While doxxing is considered poor edicate in instances where there is an expectation of privacy/anonymity, an individual surely cannot expect to attend a public event and expect to remain anonymous.
It’s legal to be photographed in a public space without permission as long as you aren’t doing something that would generally be considered a negative thing. I think.
Private citizens can do what they want at public events. As long as the event is not on private property, one can’t exclude photographers. If they attempt to make commercial use of the photographs, they probably need a “release”, If the event is on private property, the owner could sue them for trespassing, or ask the police to remove them. If they take pictures on the public sidewalk, and post them with a crtical caption, they are open to a lawsuit for defamation (the law protecting social media protects the website, not the poster).
You may be photographed in public places as there is no expectation of privacy is such areas. You also may publish a person’s likeness (obtained in a legal way) so long as it is not for commercial gain and is not slander. One might argue that neither is present in the situation you point to so long as the posters stick to the facts and do not call the attendees “anti vaxxers” and only state that they attended an event purporting to support such a position.
It’s legal to take pictures of people on public property.
But this is a nutty idea. Nothing will come of the pictures anyways. I doubt anyone will even be taking them.
I am not a lawyer. Don’t like it, don’t go.
Seems like a wrong, and counterproductive idea.
“If they take pictures on the public sidewalk, and post them with a critical caption, they are open to a lawsuit for defamation ”
Wrong. Defamation (whether published which is libel, or oral which is defamation) is only a tort when the statements made are not true. There is nothing defamatory about writing “Ploni Almoni attended an antivax event, something I believe to be contemptuous.”
5ish – if they post the pictures in a way that states something false, it is defamation. If they take the picture and say this was taken by a antivax event, that is not defamatory and is true. If they post the picture and say the person opposed vaccination and has caused multiple death, that is defamatory, and if the person can disprove the online statement it will be clearly actionable. Knowing the social media, the latter scenario is more likely (remember not all persons photographed on the street outside the building are persons who oppose vaccination, but the social media will say so).
@5ish
You are confusing slander and defamation
Slander is oral and may be defamatory
Libel is slander that is reduced to writing and spread (published) to at least one other by almost any means and also may be defamatory in nature.Truth is a defense to both charges.
There is a stricter standard for proving defamation to public figures, there must be a malicious intent to cause harm.Haven’t taught Tort law in 25 years, but you posted a common misconception most incoming first year students have/had.
CTL’s biggest legal definition pet peeve:
Virtually all contracts are verbal, some are oral, some are written.
Example of the rare non-verbal contract: Auctioneer asks who who’ll bid and a paddle or hand is raised. That non-verbal agreement forms a contract,CTL: Sorry. I meant to write slander which should be clear now from my formatting. I was intending to distinguish between libel and slander in the parentheses but I mistakenly wrote defamation again. I’m aware of the threshold for government and officials and matters of public interest.
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