Hungarian camerawoman Petra Laszlo seen tripping refugee in video to sue victim, There are a number of ways to establish infamy on the Internet, but almost all of them begin with a single phrase, photo or video clip. Often, it takes just one shareable link for a previously unknown individual to become a digital pariah.
Petra Laszlo learned this the hard way after she was caught on tape kicking Syrian refugees and tripping a man with a child in his arms as he fled a Hungarian camp in September. The Hungarian camerawoman, who was subsequently sacked from her position at N1TV, quickly became a symbol of Europe’s harsh treatment of migrants attempting to escape the war in Syria.
While Laszlo apologized for her actions in a letter to a Hungarian newspaper later that week, there was little hope for salvaging her reputation. Enraged social media groups — among them a “Petra Laszlo Shame Wall” with over 10,000 likes on Facebook — were already dedicated to condemning her actions.
Having failed to garner sympathy in the court of public opinion, Laszlo told the Russian newspaper Izvestia on Wednesday that she plans to file lawsuits against both Facebook and Osama Abdul Mohsen, the refugee she tripped.
“[My husband and I] believe Facebook played a major role in my situation,” Laszlo said, according to an Al Jazeera report. “It helped embitter people against me ... It is now a matter of honour.”Laszlo blames Facebook for allegedly failing to take down threatening and negative pages about her created on the social network, saying in her interview with Izvestia that people made fake profiles under her name and threatened to kill or rape her.
While she has tried reaching out to Facebook’s administrators to get the pages taken down, Laszlo said, no actions have been taken.
In Laszlo’s initial apology, the New York Times reports that she wrote, “I’m not a heartless, racist, children-kicking camerawoman. I do not deserve the political witch hunts against me, nor the smears or often the death threats. I’m just a woman, and now an unemployed mother of small children, who made a bad decision in a situation of panic.”
While Laszlo faults Facebook for enabling the threats that have made her afraid to leave her house, it’s unlikely that her suit against the company will get very far in court.
In the United States, Internet information content providers like Facebook are protected by Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, which establishes that websites are not liable for the information they publish from third-party sources: “No provider or user of an interactive computer service shall be treated as the publisher or speaker of any information provided by another information content provider.”
The European Union, of which Hungary is a member state, has legislation that ensures information service providers are not liable for the information stored at the request of a recipient of the service, so long as the provider does not have any knowledge of illegal activity.
The directive also dictates that member states shall not impose an obligation on providers to monitor the information they transmit and store.
Eric Goldman, an expert on Internet law at Santa Clara University, said Laszlo may be better off going after the individuals behind the online crusades against her.
“Anyone who’s conducting a harassment campaign against her might be liable directly,” Goldman told The Washington Post. “They’re the real wrongdoers, but they’re hard to find, there may be many of them and they might not have much money.”
Her proposed case against the refugee is even murkier, as Laszlo told Izvestia that Mohsen had supposedly changed his testimony about the police officers present and she wanted to “prove him wrong.”
The Syrian father who drew global sympathy has been sponsored by Spain’s national soccer coach-training centre, Cenafe, to live and work in Spain. Mohsen once coached Division I soccer in Syria, and Cenafe used part of its advertising budget to pay for his apartment, even though he doesn’t speak Spanish.
Meanwhile, Laszlo’s lawsuit plans have only sunk her deeper into online ignominy.
Laszlo told Izvestia, “It is safe to say that my life is broken.”
Petra Laszlo learned this the hard way after she was caught on tape kicking Syrian refugees and tripping a man with a child in his arms as he fled a Hungarian camp in September. The Hungarian camerawoman, who was subsequently sacked from her position at N1TV, quickly became a symbol of Europe’s harsh treatment of migrants attempting to escape the war in Syria.
While Laszlo apologized for her actions in a letter to a Hungarian newspaper later that week, there was little hope for salvaging her reputation. Enraged social media groups — among them a “Petra Laszlo Shame Wall” with over 10,000 likes on Facebook — were already dedicated to condemning her actions.
Having failed to garner sympathy in the court of public opinion, Laszlo told the Russian newspaper Izvestia on Wednesday that she plans to file lawsuits against both Facebook and Osama Abdul Mohsen, the refugee she tripped.
“[My husband and I] believe Facebook played a major role in my situation,” Laszlo said, according to an Al Jazeera report. “It helped embitter people against me ... It is now a matter of honour.”Laszlo blames Facebook for allegedly failing to take down threatening and negative pages about her created on the social network, saying in her interview with Izvestia that people made fake profiles under her name and threatened to kill or rape her.
While she has tried reaching out to Facebook’s administrators to get the pages taken down, Laszlo said, no actions have been taken.
In Laszlo’s initial apology, the New York Times reports that she wrote, “I’m not a heartless, racist, children-kicking camerawoman. I do not deserve the political witch hunts against me, nor the smears or often the death threats. I’m just a woman, and now an unemployed mother of small children, who made a bad decision in a situation of panic.”
While Laszlo faults Facebook for enabling the threats that have made her afraid to leave her house, it’s unlikely that her suit against the company will get very far in court.
In the United States, Internet information content providers like Facebook are protected by Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, which establishes that websites are not liable for the information they publish from third-party sources: “No provider or user of an interactive computer service shall be treated as the publisher or speaker of any information provided by another information content provider.”
The European Union, of which Hungary is a member state, has legislation that ensures information service providers are not liable for the information stored at the request of a recipient of the service, so long as the provider does not have any knowledge of illegal activity.
The directive also dictates that member states shall not impose an obligation on providers to monitor the information they transmit and store.
Eric Goldman, an expert on Internet law at Santa Clara University, said Laszlo may be better off going after the individuals behind the online crusades against her.
“Anyone who’s conducting a harassment campaign against her might be liable directly,” Goldman told The Washington Post. “They’re the real wrongdoers, but they’re hard to find, there may be many of them and they might not have much money.”
Her proposed case against the refugee is even murkier, as Laszlo told Izvestia that Mohsen had supposedly changed his testimony about the police officers present and she wanted to “prove him wrong.”
The Syrian father who drew global sympathy has been sponsored by Spain’s national soccer coach-training centre, Cenafe, to live and work in Spain. Mohsen once coached Division I soccer in Syria, and Cenafe used part of its advertising budget to pay for his apartment, even though he doesn’t speak Spanish.
Meanwhile, Laszlo’s lawsuit plans have only sunk her deeper into online ignominy.
Laszlo told Izvestia, “It is safe to say that my life is broken.”
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