A Cautionary Tale to all you Social Networkers out there!

Social networking sites are great. They make it easy for us to connect with friends and share information with people whom we care about. But what happens when that information falls into the wrong hands? The answer to that question is exactly what one young California-native had to find out the hard way last spring.

Cynthia Moreno, a student at the University of California Berkeley, took to her MySpace account with a vengeance to post what she called an “Ode to Coalinga”, in reference to her hometown. The rant began with, “the older I get the more I realize how much I despise Coalinga.” It then went on to make a number of negative claims about the town. Within the next week, the piece was discovered by Moreno’s former high school principal, Roger Campbell. Despite the fact that Moreno removed the article six days after its initial posting, Campbell handed over a copy to his friend and editor of the local newspaper, Pamela Pond.

Pond printed the ode in the Coalinga Record in the letters to the editor section under Moreno’s full name, despite the fact that her last name appeared nowhere on her myspace page. Her immediate family, who still lived in Coalinga at the time, felt the repercussions right away. The community was enraged over the article. The family received death threats, their home was shot at, and Moreno’s father was forced to close his local business. In short, they were driven out of Coalinga.

All information was gathered from court transcripts of Moreno v. Hanford Sentinel acquired through Google Scholar. The court ruled that the Sentinel was justified in publishing the material as it was procured from a public domain. A trial date is set to determine whether or not the principal’s actions were extreme or outrageous as an intentional infliction of emotional distress.

What can we learn from this? In short, your blog is not your diary. It is specifically labeled a public domain, meaning once you post, you give up ownership. If you want everyone online to know about your horrid spanish prof or your fetish for blueberry oatmeal, that's fine. Just don't be surprised if it makes the ten o clock news.