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This is why HN - as awesome as it otherwise is - is awful for legal advice. A reasonable argument would be that the first time I went to Facebook, I wanted to
by dotBen 15y ago
This is why HN - as awesome as it otherwise is - is awful for legal advice.
A reasonable argument would be that the first time I went to Facebook, I wanted to search for a friend, so I put in HIS first name and last name, created an account, and now I am stuck with it.
But unless you are a complete moron you would have known you were registering a new account and not doing a search. So now you've just lied under oath in Federal Court.
A good prosecutor would reason for the jury that given that you "work in computers" you would have known the difference between registration and site search - and so now you're also being charged with 18 USC §1621 [Federal Perjury] for making a false declaration and you're looking at up to an extra 5 years in prison tacked on to whatever the judge is going to hand you at the end of this. To make matters worse the prosecutor is appealing for all of the evidence you gave for your defense to be ignored given that you've demonstrated you are a bad witness.
Well done.
- jerfelix 15y agoI agree that HN shouldn't be used for legal advice. I was actually involved in a case where the registration page, terms and usage policy were confusing and inconsistent in a similar fashion (not exactly, but close), and as I recall, the judge agreed with that part of the complaint. I am not a lawyer, but I believe the legal basis for that portion of the decision was that the terms are being defined by the corporation (presumably with reasonable resources to make sure they do it right), and being presented to the user (presumably with significantly less resources) with little option for discussion - you either agree or go away. And therefore the judge felt that it was incumbent on the the website to get it right, since they had designed the registration and defined the terms. The benefit of the doubt was given to the user. I would never advocate lying under oath (as you suggested). Presenting an argument is different than lying under oath. Your experience may be different, but that was my firsthand experience.
- fennecfoxen 15y agoYeah - depending on the specifics of your case, as a defendant you may be able to do a "defense in depth" where you argue multiple, possibly-contradictory explanations why you might not be guilty, without actually committing to one of them as actually true. Presumption of innocence is awesome.
- rprospero 15y agoA little over a year ago, my uncle wanted to reconnect with an old friend, so he tried fFcebook for the first time. He came to the form and did EXACTLY what was described above. He knew that he was signing up for Facebook, but he only thought that he was signing up to read it and not to have his own page. He thought the e-mail and password were his username and password and the first and last name were his search terms. It took two months to get everything straightened out with him. So, yes, Facebook's terrible UX will no longer just be obnoxious, it will actually be making people into criminals.
- gcb 15y agonice try. but to enforce that the prosecutor would have to call the guy "a complete moron"... i don't think the jury would take that very well.
- dotBen 15y agonah. He'd pull up your actual Facebook profile and then show it alongside the fake profile that was created when you 'thought you were doing a person search', and suggest you can't have got it right the first time and wrong the second. I said you'd "have to be a complete moron", not that the prosecutor would have to describe you as one.
- gcb 15y ago"honestly, i was typing all his information to better search for him"