Student sues Facebook, friends for $3M

A University at Albany freshman filed a $3 million defamation and negligence lawsuit against Facebook, four former high school classmates and their parents for allegedly bullying her in a private Facebook group.

Denise Finkel, from Oceanside, Long Island, alleges four of her former classmates created a password-protected Facebook group called ".90$ short of a dollar."

The group was used "to hold the plaintiff up to public hatred, ridicule and disgrace," according to the complaint which was filed in State Supreme Court in Manhattan on Feb. 24.

The four students listed in the complaint are Michael Dauber, Jeffrey Schwartz, Melinda Danowitz and Leah Herz. All four, and Finkel, graduated from Oceanside High School in 2008.

On the wall of the Facebook group, the defendants referred to Finkel as the "11th cent," and claimed she contracted several sexually transmitted diseases, including one acquired while performing bestiality.

"The 11th cent, unbeknownst to many, acquired AIDS while on a cruise to Africa," Herz wrote on Jan. 29 2007. "While in Africa she was seen fucking a horse."

In response to Herz's post, Schwartz said Finkel actually contracted AIDS from sharing needles with heroin addicts.

Excerpts from the Facebook group, which was formed in early 2007, were attached to the complaint. Although Finkel is never actually referred to by name, a picture of her modified to have devil horns was posted on the wall.

"She had a difficult time in high school," said Mark Altschul, Finkel's attorney. "They [the defendants] made sure she was an unwanted soul."

None of the defendants responded to messages left by the Albany Student Press, however Bari Lewis, Danowitz's mother, told Newsday that the suit is "completely frivolous."

The group had six total members, but only the four defendants made the alleged defamatory comments, Altschul said.

"The ones that were named in the suit were the ones who said these horrific things," he said.

Six parents of the four alleged cyber-bullies were also named as defendants in the suit because their children were not 18-years-old at the time the group was created, Altschul said. He also said they were named because, by allowing their children to participate in the group, the parents were negligent.

Altschul said he is suing Facebook because the Web site should be held responsible for content posted on its pages.

"At the bottom of every page is a copyright notice," he said. "And the copyright notice claims original authorship."

Facebook spokeswoman Meredith Chin said Altschul does not have a strong case against the site.

"I do want to be clear though, that Facebook does not claim ownership of anything users post on the site," she said. "We see no merit to this suit and we will fight it vigorously."

After several court cases involving Web site liability, Congress passed the Communications Decency Act in 1996. Under this act, operators of Web sites cannot be held liable for statements posted on their sites.

"No provider or user of an interactive computer service shall be treated as the publisher or speaker of any information provided by another information content provider," the act reads.

This suit comes on the heels of a recent ownership controversy in which Facebook changed its terms and claimed ownership of all content posted on the site. However, Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook's founder and CEO, said the changes were a misunderstanding and Facebook does not claim ownership of any posted content.

"Our philosophy that people own their information and control who they share it with has remained constant," Zuckerberg wrote in a Feb. 16 blog post. "A lot of the language in our terms is overly formal and protective of the rights we need to provide this service to you. Over time we will continue to clarify our positions and make the terms simpler."