[ad_1]
A Superior Court judge has asked that the Attorney General be notified about a request to find out who is behind a closed Instagram account that, according to one school, made derogatory and defamatory comments about students and teachers.
Judge Garrett Simons said he wanted the attorney general notified because of his concern that there could be free speech and public interest issues.
There may be “more to this case than meets the eye,” he said.
The judge made the comments when he delayed later this month a request from the board of directors of the Salesian Secondary College in Limerick against Facebook Ireland, owners of Instagram, for orders revealing the identity of the person or persons behind the account.
The judge also placed a limited restriction on reporting the case, allowing the school and Facebook to be named.
The school’s David Geoghegan BL said the app grew out of posts on an Instagram account that was operational for 10 days in October last year before it was shut down.
Various derogatory images and comments were posted about teachers and children that were inappropriate and some had a sexual context, he said. Gardai was notified due to the sexual nature of the comments, the attorney said.
The school took steps to find out who was behind it and eventually gained access after obtaining a password from one of the students. However, it was not yet possible to find out who was behind it.
Some of the messages that were sent to other students were humorous, but there were two messages of a sexual nature and there may be an element of sarcasm in them, the lawyer said. They expressed the director’s concerns and it has since been closed, having been operational between October 14 and 24, 2019.
The lawyer said that Facebook had told him at his side that it would only give information about account holders at the foot of a court order due to data protection concerns.
Without a warrant, the school cannot find out who is behind her and whether it was a student or a teacher, she said. It would be a disciplinary matter if you were a student and an obvious job problem if you were a teacher, he said. There was also the issue of alleged libel.
Judge Simons asked the lawyer if there was a freedom of speech problem. The attorney responded that someone who was being disciplined because of the comments could make that argument.
Facebook’s Andrea Mulligan BL said her client did not object to the order being placed in a certain form of words that has been used in similar cases where the social media company discloses the IDs of account holders.
The judge said he was concerned about the issue of freedom of expression and ordered that the attorney general be notified. He was concerned that there might be a public concern problem.
After Mr. Geoghegan requested to report restrictions due to what the school had said were negative consequences of the matter and highly inappropriate sexual references involving students and teachers who have done nothing wrong, the judge said he was prepared to impose limited restrictions on reporting.
While the school and Facebook could not be named, neither of the individuals, because they involved minors, could not be.
Online editors
[ad_2]