Professor: Facebook libel may meet criteria for criminal charges

Teuvo Loman

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Stylist Teuvo Loman has filed a report of an offence with the police with regard to a community set up in online networking site Facebook, the Finnish tabloid Iltalehti reveals.
      The name of the group that was set up threatens to change Loman’s sexual orientation through violence.
     
Loman first heard of the group from a person unknown to him. Initially he did not react to the news, but after visiting the Internet pages in question he decided to contact the police. The police then advised him to file a report of an offence.
      “Apparently it fills the criteria for an unlawful threat. It felt good to talk to the police. The way they reacted was positive and they, too, thought that such threats are alarming.”
      The founder of the Facebook group in question was a True Finns candidate for the Urjala municipal council in the October election.
      By Monday morning the group had attracted 62 members. During the course of the day, though, some of the members left the group. The name of the group is “Let’s beat Teuvo straight” and in Facebook it has been classified as “entertainment and humour”.
     
Professor of information and technology law Jukka Kemppinen, of the Lappeenranta University of Technology, doubts that the setting up of such a group would meet the criteria for an unlawful threat.
      “If the website read, say, let’s pickle Loman’s nuts by Friday, then it would be an unlawful threat. But without an action plan, time, and a place this is not the case”, Kemppinen tells Helsingin Sanomat.
      “It can be considered a libel, all the same”, Kemppinen adds, in which case the host of the site should close down the group.
     
Teuvo Loman finds it difficult to adopt an attitude towards the Facebook incident.
      Because of his homosexuality, Loman has already had to endure quite a lot.
      “It feels deplorable. When I go into the city I am afraid. Many times I have been attacked for example on the Metro”, Loman says in the Iltalehti article.
     

While the Facebook hate group against stylist and singer Teuvo Loman has lost members because of the negative publicity, another group that has announced it opposes those who oppose Teuvo Loman is continuously increasing its number of supporters.
      Whereas the first group offers insults with regard to Loman’s sexuality under the guise of freedom of speech and humour, the faction opposing the hate group says that intolerance and threats of physical violence in the name of humour are unacceptable.


Links:
  Teuvo Loman (Wikipedia)

Helsingin Sanomat