Facebook finds itself in the midst of controversy once again as a Texas woman is suing the social networking platform for keeping a "revenge porn," post active.
Meryem Ali, a Houston resident, has filed a $123 million lawsuit against Facebook and a former associate responsible for the act. She alleges that former friend Adeel Shah Khan pretended to be her and created an "imposter Facebook site" that had "doctored" and photoshopped pictures of Ali's face on "false, phony, naked body shots." According to Ali's lawyer David Altenbern, the plaintiff befriended the defendant five years ago but the individuals did not share a serious relationship.
Khan's act it is believed was likely a result of revenge porn. For the uninitiated, revenge porn is used to describe the scenario when an ex-flame puts up intimate images/videos of the ex-partner on the Internet sans their consent, with the motive of paying them back for a break up.
In this case, victim Ali learnt about the phony Facebook site in Dec. 2013 from family and friends and repeatedly approached Facebook to pull it down. However, Facebook did not adhere to her demands until several months later, and only when the Houston Police Department got involved and summoned the social network to aid them in identifying the culprit behind the fake page. It was only then that the page was removed.
While the Facebook ordeal may have ended for Ali, the trauma she experienced propelled her to take action. Moreover, the action taken by Facebook came a little too late.
Ali filed the $123 million lawsuit against Facebook and Khan on July 25 in a bid to seek "full justice for the significant trauma, extreme humiliation, extreme embarrassment, severe emotional disturbances, and severe mental and physical suffering ... due to the unconscionable activities and gross failures of Defendant Adeel and Defendant Facebook."
Moreover, the lawsuit also wants "expose the frailties and failures of the falsely advertised, and false promoted privacy mechanisms" of Facebook. The lawsuit also raises concerns over privacy violation.
The $123 million amount in damages has been arrived at a rate of 10 cents for each Facebook subscriber. The site has 1.23 billion users and, therefore, the resultant monetary compensation figure.
