Brickbat: Policing Social Media

Jaap Arriens/ZUMA Press/Newscom

Anne King is suing her ex-husband—a Washington County, Georgia, sheriff's deputy—and two of his fellow deputies for having her and a friend arrested after she posted something he didn't like on Facebook. Anne King posted that her ex had refused to get some medicine for their sick children. The friend responded that she would pick it up and called the ex a "POS." The man got a magistrate to issue arrest warrants for both women for criminal defamation. But the Georgia law making defamation a crime was overturned by the state Supreme Court in 1982. A judge tossed the charges out, but not before King and her friend spent four hours in jail.