A teenager in Georgia has decided to take things into her own hands
after her school and police said they could do nothing about the
classmates bullying her on Facebook.
Fourteen-year-old Alex Boston and her parents are filing suit against
two classmates and their parents for libel after the two classmates
allegedly created a fake Facebook account in her name, using a photo of
her that they distorted. The account was also used to post a racist
video to YouTube that implied that Boston hated African-Americans, and
to leave crude comments on the Facebook pages of other friends,
suggesting she was sexually active and smoked marijuana.
“All of these things were not true and they knew them to be not true,” says Boston’s attorney Natalie Woodward.
The activities exposed Boston to “hatred, contempt and ridicule by
her classmates and peers,” according to the complaint, which accuses the
teens of defamation and intentional infliction of emotional distress,
and seeks punitive damages. The parents of the defendants are named in
the suit because they paid for the internet access that allowed their
children to create the account and post the messages, and allegedly
failed to supervise their activity.
