NY’s highest court seemed to be ready to trim down a county law that makes it crime to bullying others over the internet.
The lawsuit of Marquan W. Mackey-Meggs, a 16-year old back then, used Facebook to post pictures of other teens with captions that listed their alleged sex partners, sex acts done, as well as insults.
The Albany law of 2010 makes it a crime to communicate information via electronic means that harass humiliate, intimidate, abuse, threaten, or inflict emotional harm to another individual.
The law will need to go through a major re-construction to pass the First Amendment, made to give protection to all but to a few aspects of speech.
The major issue the Court of Appeals in New York need to tackle is to whether or not they should trim the law further.
Mackey-Meggs was arrested after law enforcement discovered his identity via his IP address, and then charged him with eight counts of Albany’s cyberbullying law violation. He was found guilty with one count of cyberbullying.
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