First Ever Facebook Harassment Case on Trial

Let's get things straight from the start, harassing somebody live or via any other means of communication is evil, despite what conclusions I might draw later on. Stalking isn't good either, unless it's for a really noble cause, and as those don't roll around that often and mobster ex-boyfriends don't meet with others in the open where the scorn girlfriend could gather important information easily, it's nothing to be doing wholeheartedly. It's true that some people just can't help themselves after having their heart and feelings thrown on the floor and stomped on with calked boots.

33-year-old Michael Hurst of Edgbaston has been accused of a breach in the Harassment Act 1997, when he used famous social network Facebook to contact his ex-girlfriend, Sophie Sladden. He pleaded not guilty when appearing before the magistrates, and was granted conditional bail to stand trial later in March.

The accounts of the two have been removed from Facebook, which is really amazing due to the fact that the social network is infamous for not giving the option to delete your personal page whenever you should choose to. Recently, they have made a move to calm the spirits of those protesting, but still a user has to motivate his decision in a dialogue with an employee of the second largest social network in the world.

"We have prosecuted harassment cases before where people have sent letters, made phone calls, and even text messages in recent years, but to my knowledge this is the first case where a website like Facebook has been involved," a spokesman for the Crown Prosecution Service was quoted by The Register as saying.

The exact nature of the contact initiated by Hurst is not known, but the 1997 Act clearly states that one might consider harassment anything from speech to other means of causing alarm or distress, BUT "a course of conduct [described above] must involve conduct on at least two occasions." I guess that by only contacting Sladden once (according to The Birmingham Mail), he should be off the hook. Apparently, it's ok to contact your ex and give her a piece of your mind, if it only happens once.