<p>Son Files Harassment Charges Against Mother for Facebook Posts
04/07/10 3:45 pm | reporter: Pamela Smith producer: Evan Hoffmeyer</p>
<p>Arkadelphia - An Arkadelphia mother is charged with harassment for making entries on her son’s Facebook page.</p>
<p>Denise New’s 16 year old son filed charges against her last month and requested a no contact order after he claims she posted slanderous entries about him on the social networking site. New says she was just trying to monitor what he was posting.</p>
<p>I wonder why these websites have privacy settings even though the Internet is not private? I mean, what is the point in having some silly little thing that says “friends only” when the Internet is a public form of media?</p>
<p>“Friends only” means only your friends can access your profile, photos, posts, etc. If you tried to see my facebook page, you couldn’t, even though the Internet is public. If you tried to log onto my professional association’s website’s “members only” area, you couldn’t, because you’d need a user name and password that would be tied to membership – some things on the Internet can’t be seen by everyone.</p>
<p>Makes no sense. A law suit? Mother didn’t ‘hack’ his account, he obviously could have prevented her in the first place from having the ability post things on his wall. </p>
<p>I actually know a nutbar mother like this- she lives far away without custody, was posting things on her son’s wall that were offensive to him…he simple unfriended her and took away her ability. Lot cheaper than hiring a lawyer.</p>
<p>If they aren’t accessible by anyone but friends only, then how do so many people get in trouble for posting things they shouldn’t? I believe that I’ve even read on CC posts in the past (from folks who I assume are more knowledgable about computers and Internet than I) that admissions offices check applicant profiles online in some cases to see what they are posting before admitting them to a university or college. If it is friends only, how do they access that information?</p>
<p>I’ve changed certain details about my son* in order to make him unidentifiable to the general public, but armed with his applications, I’m sure a savvy admissions officer could still figure out who he is from my posts. That’s why I always post nice things. :o</p>
<p>LOL…and the whole mantori.suzuki thing is to hide that you’re really Swedish.</p>
<p>I may be reading too much into this, but I think she hacked into his account by doing the “i forgot my password” thing and gaining access that way. The story says that she changed his password. that suggests a LOT more than someone posting on one’s wall that can be avoided by de-friending.</p>
<p>Bluealien, they are only accessibly by friends only if that’s the setting chosen. Some people do not set their privacy settings that way. For example, I just looked up a fmaily member and I can see her photos, her wall, her profile – and we are not facebook friends. She either has it set to where anyone can see or she has it set to “friends of friends” and I can see because we have mutual FB friends. There are a number of choices a person can make regarding privacy. I kind of doubt admissions officers are hacking past privacy settings.</p>
<p>One problem is that kids who have their settings as private may still accept pretty much anyone who friends them. They are not as discriminating as they should be about accepting friend requests. If an employer or admissions officer wants access, all they have to do is request to be a friend and many kids will automatically accept them, giving them access to everything.</p>
<p>Well, I just finished reading 19 pages of comments, including those from the mother and other family members, assuming that these people really are who they say they are, which is assuming a lot, I know. </p>
<p>Apparently, the son was visiting his mother,used her computer and did not log off from his facebook. Mom saw some things that horrified her (driving his car at 95mph,for one thing) then pretended to be him,and posted comments on both his and his friends pages. Some of these posts created problems for the son with people at school. She also changed his password, keeping him from accessing his account.</p>
<p>Someone who claims to be a family member has posted saying that mom is the problem.She lost custody because she abandoned the son for a string of different men, and never was a true mother to this boy, and that she just wants attention. The grandmother, according to this poster, is the salt of the earth.</p>
<p>Mom (maybe mom) keeps on posting, and people are telling her that she’s jeopardizing her case by airing her dirty laundry in a forum, but it doesn’t seem to stop her. </p>
<p>If you enjoy terrible spelling and grammar, people correcting said terrible spelling and grammar, people completely not reading the story but having an opinion anyway, liberal vs. conservative bashing on all sides, corporal punishment advocates (Heck, one guy said “Shoot him!”), and posters who want to talk about things that don’t have anything to do with the story, do as I did and read all 19 pages. And of course, I’m no closer to the truth than I was when I started.</p>
<p>OK…let me say that in general, it is EASIER to hack into a Facebook acct vs a bank acct. Really. Folks have all sorts of friends in their network…some they haven’t even met. Even with the privacy settings, you can get through if you’re a friend of a friend. And lots of folks are not careful about how they set their privacy settings, and more important, what they post. </p>
<p>In general, I don’t really trust that we have all this info online. But I control what I can. And what I post is controllable.</p>