Bisulfide

Moreno, a UC Berkeley undergraduate who was brought up in Coalinga had posted an essay which included some negative comments about her hometown. Well, Coalinga has never been known for its beautiful scenes, but for its prison, the mental health institution and a Ranch. The title of the essay was “An Ode to Coalinga” and it started with “The older I get, the more I realize how much I despise Coalinga.” During the time the essay was on Moreno’s MySpace, the principal of the Coalinga High School saw it and passed it on to the local newspaper called the Coalinga Record newspaper. It later published the essay under Moreno’s full name.

After several days of posting, the author apparently had second thoughts and took the essay down from her MySpace layouts. However, the negative effects to the residents of Coalinga were irreversible. Their feelings were hurt and they didn’t take it well. The family house has been shot several times and the members even received death threats. The family had to move to somewhere else and its business which has been operated smoothly for 20 years was forced to close down.

Poor Moreno did her best to strike back, some of her family members and she started a lawsuit against a numbers of defendants for public disclosure of private facts and intentional infliction of emotional distress. Publisher of the newspaper was able to get away under an anti-SLAPP motion while the principal and the school district were not that lucky. They will be the defendants in this case.

Moreno’s privacy invasion claim will stand no chance in the court. According to the judge, once she posted the essay on her MySpace site, no matter how big the expected audience is, it’s open to the general public at large. The claim that her last name was not used for the essay was also rejected by the court since her full contact detail can be easily attained from her MySpace page which also included a picture of her.

On the other hand, the intentional infliction of emotional distress is still under discussion by the jury. The important aspect they will be looking at is whether what the principal did was extreme and outrageous in its nature.

I guess after this unfortunate case, it wouldn’t hurt to repeat the cliché: Do not post anything online that has the potential to make to the front page of the newspaper. What’s even more important is, once the “submit” button is hit, there is no way you can undo it. It is nave to think that one can take it back simply by deleting the essay. Don’t put the stake too high if you can’t afford to lose.