STAR WAR'S KID: The Unintended Consequences of Virality
By Ryan Deng
INTRODUCTION
In November 2002, Ghyslain Raza , an overweight 14-year-old Canadian school boy, filmed himself at a high school studio for a class project. In the filmed video, Raza mimicked Darth Maul from the famous movie series Star Wars by waving around a golf ball retriever as his toy lightsaber, Raza mistakenly left the tape in the studio where another student discovered the tape and, without Raza’s permission, circulated the videotape around the school. In April 2003, another student uploaded the video to the internet with the title Jackass_starwars_funny.wmv and a third student posted the video on YouTube. In the coming months, the viral video of Raza amassed hundreds of millions of views on numerous platforms, and Raza became coined the "Star Wars Kid." Raza was the subject of intense cyberbullying, ridicule and harassment. Commenters said he should “kill himself” and made fun of his weight. Raza eventually dropped out of school and he became depressed and was entered into the psychiatric ward for children due to constant berating of his character.
Raza's parents eventually took legal action and sued the families of all three students initially involved in circulating the embarrassing video of their son. In April 2006, both parties agreed upon a confidential settlement, and the footage ultimately became viewed more than 900 million times! Numerous petitions arose in support of Raza to get roles in upcoming Star War Movie projects, with one petition receiving over 140,000 signatures for Episode III - Revenge of the Sith. In a more recent interview by Raza conducted by CBR news, Raza stated that to this day," there is an element of surrealism in all of this." Raza initially tried to distance himself from the video as much as possible, not wanting to be recognized and bullied any further. However, several years later Raza stepped forward and began to use his situation to help spread a message of anti-bullying on the internet and the effects that cyberbullying can have on individuals.
THE ISSUE OF A REASONABLE EXPECTATION OF PRIVACY
Many Americans mistakenly believe they have an absolute right to Privacy regarding their daily activities, the content of their conversations, and so forth. Yet, this misconstrued basis for which many Americans believe their Privacy exists is never once stated in the Constitution but instead is inferred from the 1st, 3rd, and 4th amendments within the Constitution. As such, typically, in a court of law to determine whether an invasion of one's Privacy has been made, a two-prong test is conducted to deduce whether, first, an individual shows "a subjective expectation that his activities or items would be private" and second, "that his subjective expectation of privacy is one in which society considers reasonable." The heightened ambiguity from these vague amendments also leads to loose attempts to define one's Privacy through "common law protections." Generally speaking, the provisions of which one can sue accordingly with these protections consist of five discrete rights of an individual that must never be violated. These five rights include intrusion upon seclusion, publicity that discloses private information, false-light advertising, appropriation of name or likeness, and theft of trade secrets.
LEGAL RAMIFICATIONS
With Raza's video, however, we find that first, with the reasonable expectation of Privacy, Raza initially did have an expectation, at just 14 years old, that a video he filmed with no one else present would remain private from the public. However, because he utilized camera equipment at the high school studio and left the camera at the studio individual could have accessed the footage. Given Raza's negligence and his poor care of the footage and the frequency at which that camera is used by others, it cannot be argued that he maintained an expectation of privacy in the videotape. Based solely on this two-pronged test, the legal consensus is that while the situation could be better for Raza, it should not be addressed legally in court and has no constitutional basis. However, there may be some applicable "common law protections" for Raza. Because Raza was harassed and bullied as a result of the dissemination of the video without his consent, those protections could serve as a benchmark for Raza to sue for damages. It would depend on the common law of Canada and whether it is similar to the law in the U.S.
PUNISHMENT BY THE SCHOOL?
As for punishment for those who spread the videos themselves, or engaged in any cyberbullying, any disciplinary action enforced by the school would revolve around the school's individual policy. However, due to the sheer volume of cyberbullying on the interconnected web we frequently use, some schools have shifted from prevention to treatment. Offering activities in school and optimistic character reinforcement in assemblies, these intervention programs serve as guidance for future students who may find themselves in situations such as Raza to educate them on the consequences of cyberbullying and how to seek resources for help.
MY OPINION
The sad truth of the Star Wars Kid saga is that it is all too common in the Internet Age. Time and time again embarrassing videos/pictures from people’s pasts resurface, or videos/pictures that were not meant to be seen by the public. In this evolving age of technology and rapid publication of videos we should center our conversation on the invasion of privacy based on ethics. The ability of a user to publish a video should not be bound by legal matters but rather by an unofficial rule that allows those in videos, such as Raza, to express their concern and demonstrate their request to remove the video from the internet. The European Union, with its “right to be forgotten” allows this to happen. In the future, I hope for society to find the proper moral and ethical obligations when sharing videos, such as Raza's, to respect those included in videos and promote and foster a safer and more friendly online environment. Otherwise, we all risk becoming the next Star Wars Kid.
Sources:
River, Julie. “Star Wars Kid Opens up about Harassment Sparked by Viral 2000s Video.” CBR, 2 Apr. 2022, www.cbr.com/star-wars-kid-harassment-from-viral-2000s-video/. Accessed 18 Jan. 2023.
Taylor, Chris. “Reconsidering “Star Wars Kid,” the Early Internet’s Meanest Moment.” Mashable, 28 Oct. 2020, mashable.com/article/star-wars-kid-cyberbullying.
Report, Wired News. “Star Wars Kid Files Lawsuit.” Wired, www.wired.com/2003/07/star-wars-kid-files-lawsuit/#:~:text=Star%20Wars%20Kid%20Files%20Lawsuit%20The%20parents%20of. Accessed 18 Jan. 2023.
ASO staff writers. “Addressing Cyberbullying in School: Prevention and Victim Support.” AccreditedSchoolsOnline.org, AccreditedSchoolsOnline.org, 21 Feb. 2019, www.accreditedschoolsonline.org/resources/cyberbullying-prevention-and-support/.
Wolford, Ben. “Everything You Need to Know about the “Right to Be Forgotten” - GDPR.eu.” GDPR.eu, 5 Nov. 2018, gdpr.eu/right-to-be-forgotten/.
“Bullying and Cyberbullying | SchoolSafety.gov.” Www.schoolsafety.gov, www.schoolsafety.gov/bullying-and-cyberbullying.
This case as a whole seems to illustrate the fact of the way that privacy can be violated via the internet, and how demeaning it can be overall. There is definitely an overstepping of boundaries here, because there was no reason for the kid to take the footage and share it around school. However, it leads me to question what exactly is the place of the school when it comes to dealing with such matters. I think that a school should have the authority to remove such a video from the internet, but even so, that may open up a can of worms of how much ground a school has when it comes to internet related bullying. But I think that it should fall on the school for finding a way to remove the content that is put on here. One way this could happen is some legal way for the school to survey students, but that may infringe upon some of the privacy laws around a warranted search and seizure. It may also be a problem due to the children being minors, who may have stricter privacy laws. But I think that the school should have some part to play in the sense of keeping information like this, for an assignment, private for each student. Maybe in a stricter way, where students can face severe punishment for infringing on the privacy rights of someone doing an assignment. A right to private work.
ReplyDeleteIn my opinion, Raza's experience is unfortunate. However, I do not think that an issue such as this should be addressed legally in court. Because the footage was obtained with school equipment during school hours on school property, I believe the school should take responsibility in this matter. I believe the students who obtained the footage are not legally liable for this because, as mentioned previously, Raza was negligent in keeping the video private, therefore, he did not have an expectation that the video would be kept private. However, the school should have policies against situations such as this regarding student projects that use school equipment. The perpetrators should be subject to disciplinary action from the school for obtaining and spreading the video because they knowingly attempted to embarrass Raza by using his "private" content. Once the video was spread about the internet, there is not much the school can do, and because the US does not have a "right to be forgotten" policy similar to the EU, Raza is unfortunately left to deal with the consequences.
ReplyDeleteIn this case, the fact is sad and depressing. The Star Wars Kid got a harsh reality of what the internet can do to someone and even an underaged kid. Later on, reading that Raza did take the right actions and separate yourself from the situation. with cyber bullying being so common and hard to escape the only way is to distance yourself from the matter. He even took steps to support the anticommunity he fell victim to. Unfortunately for schools it is nearly impossible for them to prevent all cyberbullying, but it was sad to see how long it took for the school to actually do something especially in today's schools where very one has a phone. The schools switch to treatment for kids who have fell victim to cyberbullying. It's a shame that this kind of bullying wasn't delt with sooner and Raza who's just a kid had to take his own actions agents death threats.
ReplyDelete