A Man Jailed for Sending Facebook Invite to his Wife

Facebook JailValleywag is reporting a story of a UK man, who was sentenced to 10 days in jail for sending a Facebook invite to his wife. The 37 year old man was given no-contact orders by the court after harassing his wife with text messages and phone calls. He signed up for Facebook to check out his friend’s wedding photos, and during the signup process he sent bulk invites to his entire email address book, including his ex-partner.

He was arrested for breaching his bail terms and served 7 days in jail before his lawyer petitioned the court that he was confused by Facebook’s signup procedure.

He was definitely confused by how Facebook works, and so was the judge before sending his to prison. This seems like a common problem everywhere. Oldskool judges don’t really understand how modern social networking sites work. Reminds me of a recent incident in India, when a 16 year old boy was killed by his Orkut friends.

Found via: Connected Internet

This post was published by on October 13, 2007

About the Author: Thilak Rao works as a Social Media Expert. He is one of the first professional bloggers from India, and he loves to write, travel and click photos. Follow him on Twitter @thilak

  • http://marcvz.net/blog Marc

    I doubt they were the boy’s friends if they killed him…

  • http://www.thinktechno.com Pranjal

    I see that story at digg.com last night……… funny ways people try to get themself in troubles. I wanted to chat with you in yahoo or Gtalk……….had some questions. maina231 my googletalk id. pranjal_gogoi2007 yahoo id

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  • http://indyankk.blogspot.com indyank

    hmm…the evil side of social networking definitely needs to
    be addressed…evils are like viruses to new software releases…

    definitely we cannot say that we shouldn’t be releasing new softwares…rather we should find ways to tackle the viruses…

  • http://tech-buzz.net Thilak

    Aseem Kishore: I’ll have to fix that contact form ASAP. That’s for reminding. In the mean time, you can contact me via email at me [at] thilak.in

  • http://tech-buzz.net Thilak

    Pranjal: Good timing! I only use Google Talk on weekends. Just added you as my friend.

  • http://www.cupronsales.com Avromi

    I still amazes me how many people know nothing about the Internet.

  • http://www.acorscadden.com Adrian Corscadden

    Just curious as to what the incident with the Indian boy was…I guess I missed it.

  • http://www.markmitchell.co.uk Maj

    Facebook can be very scary, mainly because people are.

  • http://www.starcafe.com Chester Mansky

    ‘Confused about Facebook’s signup procedure?’ I don’t think so. I might give him the benefit of the doubt on being confused about how Facebook works but not the signup procedure.

  • http://tech-buzz.net Thilak

    Chester: Yeah, If he was someone like us, then probably sending bulk invites to his email address book is the worst thing he could do.

  • http://tech-buzz.net Thilak
  • http://techroach.com Sreejith

    Weird (‘~’)

  • http://www.planetcreation.co.uk/sat-gps Mobile Phone Tracker

    Facebook is like that.. You can easily send a bunch of invites out with a click of a button not really knowing

  • http://indyankk.blogspot.com/ indyank

    hmm…the evil side of social networking definitely needs to
    be addressed…evils are like viruses to new software releases…

    definitely we cannot say that we shouldn't be releasing new softwares…rather we should find ways to tackle the viruses…