{"id":1174,"date":"2012-11-02T15:21:04","date_gmt":"2012-11-02T15:21:04","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/ncjolt.org\/?p=1174"},"modified":"2020-06-04T20:54:05","modified_gmt":"2020-06-04T20:54:05","slug":"twitter-troll-faces-possible-criminal-charges-as-a-result-of-false-tweets-regarding-the-effects-of-hurricane-sandy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/journals.law.unc.edu\/ncjolt\/blogs\/twitter-troll-faces-possible-criminal-charges-as-a-result-of-false-tweets-regarding-the-effects-of-hurricane-sandy\/","title":{"rendered":"Twitter Troll Faces Possible Criminal Charges As A Result Of False Tweets Regarding The Effects Of Hurricane Sandy"},"content":{"rendered":"

Friday, November 2, 2012, by Tasneem Dharamsi
\nAs Hurricane Sandy\u2019s remnants dissipate over the North American continent, the battered East coast is left with a lot more than just the expected structural damages, massive power outages, and flooding.\u00a0 Sandy had effects on social media that severely damaged the reputation of an individual who is now facing possible criminal charges.
\nAs Sandy was slamming into the Northeast on Monday night, Shashank Tripathi, a Wall Street Analyst, tweeted false information on Monday night about the damage the hurricane was causing.\u00a0 Among other false statements, Tripathi tweeted that the trading floor of the New York Stock Exchange was under more than three feet of water due to the hurricane and that ConEdison<\/a>, a utility company serving New York and Westchester, was preemptively cutting off power to its customers.
\nOn Tuesday, the internet website BuzzFeed broke the identity<\/a> of Tripathi, who had been tweeting false statements about the effects of Sandy under the guise of his Twitter handle, \u201cComfortablySmug<\/a>.\u201d\u00a0 Although many Twitter users expressed outrage at Tripathi\u2019s statements, the Twitter handle chosen by Tripathi certainly did not help garner any sympathy for the 29 year-old.
\nTripathi was the campaign manager for Christopher Wight, the Republican candidate for Congress for the 12th Congressional District of New York.\u00a0 On Wednesday, Wight accepted Tripathi\u2019s resignation and released a statement<\/a> condemning his former campaign manager\u2019s actions.
\nIn the statement, Wight acknowledged the destruction that Sandy caused, and also expressed profound disapproval at Triphati\u2019s Twitter trolling.\u00a0 Wight stated, \u201c[n]ot only [is New York] reeling from the shock of Hurricane Sandy\u2019s destruction to our communities and surrounding areas, but I also remain shocked and disgusted by the actions of my former campaign manager, Shashank Tripathi.\u00a0 His actions were all the more distressing, occurring as they did, in the midst of Monday\u2019s disastrous weather\u2014during a time when no one was truly safe.\u201d
\nUnfortunately for Tripathi, his political career is not the only part of his life that has been destroyed by his false tweets, but Tripathi could face criminal charges as well.\u00a0 In an interview with BuzzFeed, New York City Councilman said that he has asked the Manhattan District Attorney\u2019s office to look into pressing criminal charges against Tripathi.\u00a0 In the interview<\/a>, Vallone acknowledged that it might be difficult to prove that Tripathi is guilty of the criminal charges, but likened Tripathi\u2019s actions to \u201cyelling fire in a crowded movie theater.\u201d
\nThose who oppose Tripathi being criminally charged for his false tweets would assert that he the First Amendment guarantees freedom of speech, and that Tripathi\u2019s tweets would be protected.\u00a0 However, Vallone\u2019s theory might have the thrust of the law behind it.\u00a0 Speech that is \u201clikely to incite or produce [imminent lawless] action<\/a>\u201d can be prohibited.\u00a0 This is a long-acknowledged exception to the First Amendment.
\nAccording to Vallone, in order to find Tripathi guilty of committing a crime, the DA\u2019s office would have to prove that Tripathi made the tweets to purposefully fool the public with \u201cno legit [sic] basis for the tweets themselves\u201d and that the tweets were actually posted by Tripathi.\u00a0\u00a0
\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Friday, November 2, 2012, by Tasneem Dharamsi As Hurricane Sandy\u2019s remnants dissipate over the North American continent, the battered East coast is left with a lot more than just the expected structural damages, massive power outages, and flooding.\u00a0 Sandy had effects on social media that severely damaged the reputation of an individual who is now …<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[51],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.unc.edu\/ncjolt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1174"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.unc.edu\/ncjolt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.unc.edu\/ncjolt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.unc.edu\/ncjolt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.unc.edu\/ncjolt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1174"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.unc.edu\/ncjolt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1174\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7667,"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.unc.edu\/ncjolt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1174\/revisions\/7667"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.unc.edu\/ncjolt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1174"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.unc.edu\/ncjolt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1174"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.unc.edu\/ncjolt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1174"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}