I just received a call from my girlfriend about a conflict she is having with another student at our university over Facebook. She called because the other student just threatened legal action.
This guy is White and my girlfriend is Hispanic. He made a post on his wall attacking a rapper which led to my girlfriend accusing him of being a racist, to which he replied "Maybe I am a racist. A lot more shit got done in those days." He deleted the entire conversation from his wall, but not before she took a screenshot of it. Since then, she showed it to a friend, who has been showing it all around the admissions office where they work.
Now he just contacted her saying that he spoke with his lawyer and that if the screenshot keeps going around he will sue her for defamation. He states that he took all measures to make sure the statement wasn't seen and "misconstrued" as discriminatory, and now she's the one causing trouble. She doesn't want this to go any further but I'm afraid it's out of our hands now that the photo is in the possession of other people.
Does he have any grounds for this sort of thing? Isn't anything put on a social media site completely public? Where do we stand in this situation?
This guy is White and my girlfriend is Hispanic. He made a post on his wall attacking a rapper which led to my girlfriend accusing him of being a racist, to which he replied "Maybe I am a racist. A lot more shit got done in those days." He deleted the entire conversation from his wall, but not before she took a screenshot of it. Since then, she showed it to a friend, who has been showing it all around the admissions office where they work.
Now he just contacted her saying that he spoke with his lawyer and that if the screenshot keeps going around he will sue her for defamation. He states that he took all measures to make sure the statement wasn't seen and "misconstrued" as discriminatory, and now she's the one causing trouble. She doesn't want this to go any further but I'm afraid it's out of our hands now that the photo is in the possession of other people.
Does he have any grounds for this sort of thing? Isn't anything put on a social media site completely public? Where do we stand in this situation?
