If a moderator of an online forum edits my post to say something illegal, how could I prove I didn&#39;t write the incriminating message? Hypothetical situation. Several years ago, Reddit co-founder Steve Huffman caused some controversy by editing comments that criticized him. On most social media platforms, staff cannot edit users' messages without direct access to the database. However, this is often not the case for certain forum software, such as phpBB and vBulletin. In some cases, the forum does not even indicate that a moderator has edited a message. So if a moderator changes my post to say something illegal, then how could I prove in court that my post was tampered with? Let's say I go on a forum and say I wish to meet the president of the United States. Suppose a mod decides to pull a &quot;prank&quot; and edits the message to say I want to murder the president of the United States, and I end up getting a visit from the Secret Service. To complicate matters, the forum requires registration to view and is not accessible to the Wayback Machine or Google caches. In this case, how could I prove I didn't threaten the POTUS?
You do not have to. The burden of proof is on the prosecution to prove that you made the threat. Reasonable doubt exists in the circumstances that you describe, that there are no logs of who accessed what when and how. Your attorney may have to introduce expert witnesses who can explain how it is possible that text from your computer can end up on a web page, and they can testify that there are many ways that data can be entered into the database, only a few of which actually involve you.
(Assuming the jurisdiction is the US.) Your question I was wondering whether there are any limitations on using photos of private individuals on websites. is the least of your potential problems. Photos of the public taken in public are mostly legal to use and publish, and you own the copyright on the photo, and generally don't need a model release. But your plan of posting the photo with accompanying information about (alleged) fraud: There's a fraud conducting business in my state and I want to create a website that warns others of his fraudulent practices. is potentially legally problematic. As phoog indicates in his comment, you need to be aware of defamation, both at the federal level and among states, as some have criminalized defamation (Wikipedia). Libel is the publication of provably false facts by one person about another person. For a full outline of defamation (libel and slander, and including private and public figures), see Libel and Slander | Nolo.com. What you want to do is publish "facts" about this alleged fraud on the website with a photo of the individual, linking the fraud allegations to them. That is potentially libelous. The facts of the fraud may be provably true, or they may be provably false; that remains to be seen. But the facts don't matter when considering what actions the person can take against you if you publish such information on your website. If this business and the individual(s) feel they are not committing fraud, they can sue you for libel in civil court, alleging that you have damaged their reputation and impacted their business by publishing those facts on your website with the photo identifying the person and their business. If they take legal action, and you can prove the business and the individual(s) are committing fraud with provable facts - hard evidence of fraud, such as legal documents and court judgments - than you should (no guarantees) be able to successfully defend yourself in a libel suit brought against you by that person. Even if the business and the individual(s) are aware of facts that prove their fraud, and know they will probably not prevail in court, they can still take you to court, and it will cost you whatever time and money it takes to defend yourself. My responses above concern what legal actions the alleged could take against you if you published the website with the photo and information about the alleged fraud. No one here is advising you to put up the website with the photo and the "facts" as you see them, even if you have hard proof of the facts of the fraud; you should find legal representation before taking any action with the website. And, no one here is advising you to open any legal action against the person; that's your choice in terms of determining your case and if you can show actual harm that was caused by the alleged fraud by the individual, and you should find legal representation before taking any action.
The NYT article implies that she has used social media in the past to get her victims to believe her fake back story. She is being released from detention, and the restriction on her using social media is not tied to her expressing a particular viewpoint. Courts have repeatedly held that the Government can justify incidental limitations on First Amendment freedoms if it furthers an important or substantial governmental interest; if the governmental interest is unrelated to the suppression of free expression; and if the incidental restriction on alleged First Amendment freedoms is no greater than is essential to the furtherance of that interest ( U.S. v. O'Brien, 391 US 367 - Supreme Court 1968). One such compelling interest is the effective administration of criminal justice (U.S. v. Spilotro, 786 F. 2d 808 - Court of Appeals, 8th Circuit 1986). For instance, speech restrictions can be tied to the purpose of preventing a defendant from committing further crimes while released.
I'm not a lawyer; I'm not your lawyer 1 For the avoidance of doubt, the thrust of this debate is: By placing a logo associated with a certain political movement near my user profile, does StackExchange violate Section 4(c) of the CC BY-SA 3.0? Subscriber Content is Content that is contributed by StackExchange users. The relevant sections of CC BY-SA 3.0 (emphasis added) are: c. ... The credit required by this Section 4(c) may be implemented in any reasonable manner; provided, however, that in the case of a Adaptation or Collection, at a minimum such credit will appear, if a credit for all contributing authors of the Adaptation or Collection appears, then as part of these credits and in a manner at least as prominent as the credits for the other contributing authors. For the avoidance of doubt, You may only use the credit required by this Section for the purpose of attribution in the manner set out above and, by exercising Your rights under this License, You may not implicitly or explicitly assert or imply any connection with, sponsorship or endorsement by the Original Author, Licensor and/or Attribution Parties, as appropriate, of You or Your use of the Work, without the separate, express prior written permission of the Original Author, Licensor and/or Attribution Parties. d. Except as otherwise agreed in writing by the Licensor or as may be otherwise permitted by applicable law, if You Reproduce, Distribute or Publicly Perform the Work either by itself or as part of any Adaptations or Collections, You must not distort, mutilate, modify or take other derogatory action in relation to the Work which would be prejudicial to the Original Author's honor or reputation... Does changing the logo on all pages imply an endorsement of the site/organisation by the user? It is likely, though not definite, that this positioning of the logo will imply that the user endorses the website. However, actions taken by the user - such as creating an account, accepting the Terms, contributing content - are likely to affirm this view. Does changing the logo imply that the site/organisation supports a particular political view? Again, it is likely, not definite, that changing the logo will imply that the site/organisation supports a particular political view. Does changing the logo impute support of a political view to the user? In this case, however, it is highly unlikely that the change of logo would impute to the user support of the political view. In a case such as this, onus of proof is on the plaintiff - were this claim brought in court, it would need to be proven on the balance of probability (or, less likely, on the preponderance of evidence) that a reasonable person would impute support of the marriage equality (and perhaps some other) agenda to the user. Reasonable person does not mean any particular person, nor does it mean, all people. Part of the imputation must come from the purpose that the user subscribes to the site. Perhaps if StackOverflow were a site that promoted marriage equality or judicial activism, this could support an opinion that the user supports this view. However, StackOverflow is about programming, and programming doesn't imply that kind of agenda. Perhaps if the icon had been changed to something that suggested support for object-oriented programming, the icon could be taken to suggest that the user supports this agenda. Neither does the user's content suggest support for this cause - if they constantly made off-hand remarks about it in their posts, then perhaps, again, a reasonable person may make that imputation. In any case, the damages awarded to the user would likely be compensatory rather than punitive - the user would need to therefore demonstrate actual suffering or loss as a result of the change of icon. If there were actual damages or loss, the way in which the user contributed to them - perhaps by posting a thread that would be likely to be inflammatory and attract attention to the user - may reduce an award of damages. In the case of no actual suffering or loss, the user could be awarded nominal damages. Injunctions that could be awarded would need to be proportionate to the breach of license - the court could require references to this user to be anonymised. This is easily done. It is unlikely that the court would require all contribution by the user to be removed - this is unlikely to pass a public interest test. In relation to placing a disclaimer in the footer, US courts have generally accepted disclaimers if they are positioned such that a reasonable user is likely to see it... In the footer? It's not a great place, and easily missed. It could be better than nothing, though, and may help with the likelihood of someone imputing such opinions to a user. Essentially - it's extremely unlikely that a reasonable person would impute support of the marriage equality agenda on a user based on a logo change, because the support is not sufficiently connected to the primary purpose of the site, or the user's activities on the site. Even if the user were successful in showing that this is the likely conclusion of a reasonable person, the remedies available to them would be limited to damages (which limited to actual losses, including suffering), and an injunction (which is likely to be anonymisation). A disclaimer may not, on its own, actually preserve the validity of the license, but it may be useful on determining the likelihood of a reasonable person imputing opinions to a user. 1. This is larger than normal, because I think it is more important than normal.
In the United States at least, the answer is clearly "Yes". Absent some restrictive agreement to which the would-be blogger is explicitly a party, a person has a protected right to comment or report on events and publish opinions of them. The question does not mention a location or jurisdiction, and I am not suren what the law on this point might be in non-US jurisdictions.
This could be a violation of 18 USC 1030 (and a crime). A number of things go into requirements for conviction under this law. First, it has to be a computer, which is defined as an electronic, magnetic, optical, electrochemical, or other high speed data processing device performing logical, arithmetic, or storage functions, and includes any data storage facility or communications facility directly related to or operating in conjunction with such device, but such term does not include an automated typewriter or typesetter, a portable hand held calculator, or other similar device Any printer that I have encountered in the past 40 years counts as &quot;a computer&quot;. Second, (2) intentionally accesses a computer without authorization or exceeds authorized access, and thereby obtains—...(C) information from any protected computer; It is highly likely that the person printing has to receive some information from the printer, and respond accordingly so you have your &quot;obtains information&quot; element. Maybe not useful information, but information nevertheless. It also has to be a protected computer, (B) which is used in or affecting interstate or foreign commerce or communication, including a computer located outside the United States that is used in a manner that affects interstate or foreign commerce or communication of the United States Well, a computer connected to the internet is a protected computer, see US v. Trotter, 478 F.3d 918. Also, the access must be &quot;without authorization or exceeds authorized access&quot;. The law doesn't explain with &quot;without authorization&quot; means, but the latter is defined as to access a computer with authorization and to use such access to obtain or alter information in the computer that the accesser is not entitled so to obtain or alter If the law were stated in terms of &quot;prohibited access&quot;, meaning &quot;express denial of permission&quot;, and if the computer owner had set the computer to &quot;prohibited access&quot; by default (password protected), there would be no issue -- accessing the computer is prohibited. &quot;Unauthorized&quot; can also mean &quot;has not been explicitly authorized&quot;, i.e. lacking any indication one way or the other. Every computer access is initially unauthorized, until authorization is granted; and re-trying a login after mis-typing a user name (and being denied access) is not a violation of this law. There does not appear to be case law that addresses the status of computers just left open to the public, and whether using a computer that is so exposed constitutes &quot;unauthorized access&quot;. Also, it is not clear that the defendant in this case has &quot;obtained information&quot;, since with printing, information flows into the computer. There is also a clause about recklessly causing damage, but I don't see what damage would result (&quot;damage&quot; is defined as &quot;any impairment to the integrity or availability of data, a program, a system, or information&quot;), and how printing would be &quot;reckless&quot;. It seems somewhat unlikely that this would be deemed to be a crime, though if you experiment, you could be on the cutting edge of new case law.
It's generally correct in the American system that everything not forbidden is permitted. But the law you're looking at isn't really an exception. You have the legal right to tamper with evidence if tampering is not illegal, but this statute makes it illegal. The language you've highlighted merely says that the law does not apply to those who have some other affirmative grant of authority to do so. So if you stab someone to death in your kitchen, you can't remove the body or other evidence, but the detectives investigating the case can, because they have the legal authority to process the scene and maintain the evidence for trial. So the law is similar to the &quot;speaking in public&quot; hypothetical, but that doesn't make it meaningless. Because of the First Amendment, that law doesn't actually outlaw anything, but the tampering law faces no such legal barriers. You had the right to tamper until the government said you didn't. Now that it says you don't, you can only do it on the government's terms, which require an affirmative grant of authority.
There are two scenarios to consider. One is that there is such a policy written down and duly communicated in some fashion. In that case, it is obviously "okay" in all senses to enforce that policy. (That does not preclude the possibility of suing the institution because they are abridging some right of yours in having this policy, but that's a separate matter). The alternative is that there is no such policy, and someone spoke incorrectly. If that is the case, then they "can't" enforce a non-existent policy. Actually, they can prevent you from using the facility, the question is, how could you correct their misunderstanding of their policy? The most protracted way to resolve this is to file a lawsuit against the university, for denying some right (constitutional or property). A more efficient way to do that is to bring the matter to the attention of a reasonably high-ranked official within the institution, perhaps the department chair, who may not be aware that subordinates are making up or misinterpreting rules. The fact that you were unable to locate a written statement of policy online really doesn't count for much. It is entirely reasonable to believe that the chair may have instituted such a policy, under his authority as chair, and communicated it verbally to subordinates: or, the subordinates simply do not know where to find the policies. An alternative approach is to raise the question with the Student Advocate's office, if discussion with the chair is unsatisfactory.