'Officer Bubbles' sues YouTube and users over cartoons
Re-post of Toronto Star article vecause it has good legal information.
When he first saw a video of a Toronto constable threatening to arrest a G20 protester for blowing bubbles, one YouTube user was so livid, he couldn't stop writing comments.
In fact, the man, who uses the alias "theforcebewithme," can't even remember writing the specific comment that now has him defending a $1.2 million defamation lawsuit launched by Toronto's now notorious "Officer Bubbles."
Const. Adam Josephs seeks to compel the Google-owned YouTube to reveal the identity of the person who created and posted the videos as well as any information it has on the 24 other users who made allegedly defamatory remarks.
The case highlights a collision between two worlds: The wild-west of social media, where people under aliases throw insults without pause versus the laws of the old media world, where people are held accountable for everything they write. "I thought my opinion was my opinion in this country. I probably might not even post anymore," said "theforcebewithme," a 59-year-old government employee from New Brunswick who refused to give his real name.
Josephs' lawsuit isn't targeting the video that sparked his infamy, but a collection of eight cartoons posted to the popular video website that show a police officer resembling Josephs engaging in abusive acts of power.
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The animations depict an officer named "A. Josephs" arresting a variety of people - from Santa Claus to U.S. President Barack Obama - as well as punching a news photographer. In his statement of claim, Josephs calls the cartoons and several comments "devastatingly defamatory," alleging they have brought him "ridicule, scandal and contempt both personally and as a member of the (Toronto Police Service)."
He claims the animations have also resulted in threats against him and his family. "The reaction was way beyond anything that our client should have to deal with or should expect from carrying out his duties as a police officer to protect the public," one of Josephs' lawyers, James Zibarras, said.
The statement of claim alleges the comments included theforcebewithme's jab: "If this steroid addicted Nazi has children, they must be sooooo embarrassed."
The cartoons - and the account of the user who posted them - have already vanished from the site. "A large part of what we're trying to do is just get the stuff down," Zibarras said. "I don't know what further steps we're going to take at this stage."
Earlier this month, several of the defendants received notices from Google asking whether they wanted the website to disclose their identities. Not surprisingly, it appears none did. Josephs' lawyers haven't yet received any of the YouTube commentators' real identities.
However, online anonymity won't necessarily protect people's identities, as the website can be ordered by the court to provide users' IP address and other information, said lawyer Tony Wong, a partner at Blake, Cassels & Graydon LLP who specializes in media and privacy law.
On Friday, a Manhattan judge gave Google 15 days to reveal any information it has on the identities of three cyberbullies who labeled a woman a "whore" on YouTube. "I think there's a real ignorance among the public about the risks of posting user comments or Twittering or blogging.
The technology is new but the same laws of libel apply," said Wong. "Every time you post a comment on YouTube, a newspaper's website, a blog, you can be sued for defamation by anyone whose reputation has been harmed by your comment."
The original video of Const. Josephs became a symbol for what many viewed as heavy-handed policing during the G20 summit that brought world leaders to Toronto in June. In the clip, the 52 Division officer sternly tells the woman protesting on Queen St. W: "If the bubble touches me, you're going to be arrested for assault."
One of the YouTube users being sued said that by launching the suit, Josephs is only reinforcing the image that he over-reacted to the bubble blowing. "I think they're trying to control the situation and, in reality, it's just making it worse for the guy," said the man, who also refused to give his real name.
#30#
surely, even the most extremely 'soi' of your evidently soi-distant techies can see that if you are logging in to post a comment then following the login you may want to return to the same article? doh!? and your treatment of ctrl-v drives me crazy - good thing I am not a cop
uh oh, calm down, look out, don't say anything 'defamatory' about the techies or they are likely to sue, is that it?
how about this then?
who behaves like Adam Josephs did in the video? nevermind viewing it as a 'symbol' of this or that, how about wondering about where this particular 'acting out' of his came from? a poem which I guess they don't teach in Ontario schools anymore goes, "I and the public know / What all schoolchildren learn, / Those to whom evil is done / Do evil in return."
clearly (to me at least) he has not been getting enough respect, well, where did he grow up? if it was Toronto then history may give us a clue - it was not so many years ago that a black person was rare on the streets of Toronto, and nevermind just Toronto ... the whole of Canada except for a few zones in Montreal (Rockhead's Paradise & The Black Bottom), Dartmouth & Niagara (that I know of) is that it? is it growing up coloured in a white bourgeois town that set him up?
or inversely, was he promoted above his capabilities because of this same colour? and is his insecurity founded in simply not knowing what to do? or maybe it has nothing to do with any of that and is just another reflection of the culture of arrogance that seems to prevail these days among our police
or is it that frustration at whatever he experienced 'from above' was most easily dispensed to someone with even less power than he had?
the only interaction I had with police during the G20 was on the Sunday, I asked a pair of them, one white and one black, about walking down to look at the fence, the white guy wanted to whack me for having the temerity to ask, the black guy cooled him out and then smiled and said "no, you can't do that," it was a rhetorical question anyway and he got it right, there are advandages in being a half-lame old fart I guess
to me, Adam Josephs' going to law over the issue is evidence that he is still trying to work it out, however wrong-headedly, that he is at the same time reinforcing negative stereotypes with this action is also true I guess, so which syl-lable gets the em-phas-sis then?
I grew up in this town when the police really did serve and protect, as a teenager I had reason to thank them, when I cracked up my bike far from my neighbourhood they took me and the crumpled bike back home again, and when they caught us at 3am in the Mount Pleasant Cemetery they simply told us, "go home now boys, it's late"
has to do with D&D - discernment and discretion, adult qualities, and it looks to me like there are just not enough adults around anymore, and I have no idea how to fix that.
dlw
(whew! what a struggle, I had to reinsert paragraph breaks three times before it stuck, puh-leeze fix this interface!)