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SALEM, Ore. — After middle school students allegedly made parody Facebook and Twitter accounts for their assistant principal, he decided to take matters into his own hands by suing them and their parents.
Adam Matot, assistant principal at Judson Middle School in Salem, Ore., sued five students and their parents for defamation and negligent supervision under the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act, according to court documents.
The students allegedly made social media accounts in his name with the purpose of mocking him, sometimes in obscene ways, which Matot claimed damaged his reputation.
In order to sue his students under the CFAA, Matot tried to pass his students off as hackers because the accounts were "unauthorized," but it didn't convince US District Judge Michael J. McShane.
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McShane said Matot's argument was "unpersuasive" and that "the Court found that lying on social media websites is common: People shave years off their age, add inches to their height and drop pounds from their weight."
Facebook predicted approximately 83 million of their active users were duplicate, false or undesirable accounts, court documents said, and even police departments have created false profiles to aid their work.
"Were this court to 'adopt the [plaintiff’s] proposed [argument], millions of unsuspecting individuals would find that they are engaging in criminal conduct,' in addition to any civil liability," McShane wrote.
Court documents also said "the CFAA’s focus is 'on hacking' rather than the creation of a 'sweeping internet-policing mandate.'"
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Utah State University officials are looking into potentially illegal activities, including an alleged rape, after students posted comments about the activities on a Facebook page unaffiliated with the school.Not to be deterred after his plan to take the students down a notch with CFAA didn't gain traction, CNet reported Matot tried to invoke the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act, which was designed to penalize ongoing organized criminal organizations like the Mafia.
That strategy didn't pan out either.
"Congress did not intend to target the misguided attempts at retribution by juvenile middle school students against an assistant principal in enacting RICO," McShane wrote.
Interestingly, Matot's decision to sue his students has actually brought him more into the public eye than the student's social media pages probably did in the first place.
