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Making A Gay MySpace Profile Of Your High School Principal Isn't Defamation

edrooney.jpgHey kids! Want to make fun of your teachers by insulting them on the Web? Then Texas is the place for you.

An appellate court in the Lone Star State this week told an assistant high school principal from San Antonio that her students didn't defame her when they created a fake MySpace profile that claimed she was a lesbian. Apparently there was other inappropriate stuff as well.

The bogus profile stayed up for about a month in 2006 before Anna Draker found it, after which she asked MySpace to take it down. They promptly did. But not content to saddle the two kids with a zillion hours of detention, Draker sued the two minors -- and their parents -- for defamation and negligence.

Draker didn't have much luck with her potentially precedent-setting case. A trial judge in San Antonio threw out the charges before trial, arguing that they didn't meet the state's standard of of "defamation". And this week the appellate court upheld the dismissal, bringing the case to an end. But not before jotting down some cross words:

The school children of this state should know that appropriating the identity of a teacher or school administrator to create a fraudulent internet social profile is unacceptable, and that engaging in such conduct will have consequences.

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See also: Are Web Sites Responsible For Their Commenters? No, Thank God

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