If you have over a thousand friends, should you assume that they’re all, well, friendly? Many of those with Facebook accounts will tell you that “friend" is a term that’s used loosely in the popular social media network. Quantity does not determine quality, after all. Argee Guevarra, a lawyer who’s been a Facebook user since 2006, certainly knows this now. Added friends Thanks to a Facebook “friend," Guevarra has been sued for libel by the Belo Medical Group, Inc. (BMGI) for allegedly writing malicious remarks in his Facebook status updates about Dr. Vicki Belo, famed for plastic surgery and her rocky romance with Dr. Hayden Kho. Guevarra, who represents Josefina Norcio, a businesswoman who’s suing BMGI for reckless imprudence because of a botched butt augmentation procedure, started posting the status updates referring to Belo on July 9. By September 15, Guevarra’s Facebook message said that he was “amused" by the libel case filed by Belo.
Guevarra was asked why he dared to post anti-Belo Facebook status messages when he had given BMGI general manager Agnes Ballesteros permission to access his profile. “[Facebook] speeds up my communication with friends and acquaintances," he emailed. “Problem is, I don’t want to be impolite and I don’t want to offend people when they ask to be added. It’s not bad to have a huge circle of friends." Guevarra forgot that his Belo-themed messages—which ranged from calling the doctor “
Reyna ng Kaplastikan" and promoting a boycott of the Belo clinics—could be read by Ballesteros, as well as a BMGI doctor who was also one of his Facebook friends. “Well, I didn’t recall [who all my friends are], because when I have spare time, I just use Facebook to play Scrabble," he said.
Worldly follies Compared to other Facebook cases, the Belo-Guevarra debacle seems lightweight. Three landmark cases from all over the world—and one right at home—go beyond controversial status messages.
Canada. In 2007, workers at the Ottawa grocery store chain, Farm Boy, got sacked after posting comments that were deemed as attacks against their employer in the “I Got Farm Boy’d" group on Facebook.
UK. Last year, Mathew Firsht won a case against Grant Raphael, an old school friend of his who created fake Facebook profiles for him and his company. The said profiles contained false and malicious information. Firsht was awarded £22,000 (£15,000 for libel, £2,000 for breach of privacy, and £5,000 for his company) in damages.
Australia. This month, six prison workers from Australia, known as the Facebook Six, are fighting a case against their employer, the New South Wales Corrective Services Department. They fear that they’re set to be fired for criticizing their bosses on Facebook.
Philippines. ABS-CBN TV reporter RG Cruz recently found himself in hot water for his Facebook diatribes against Korina Sanchez, one of the said network’s most prominent talents and wife-to-be of Senator Mar Roxas. A letter that may or may not have been written by Sanchez soon made the rounds and Cruz was told he was in danger of losing his job.
Guevarra’s add-all Facebook strategy also proved to be his folly, as the libel suit against him was initiated through Ballesteros. Needless to say, she and the BMGI doctor have been struck off his list of Facebook friends and therefore can no longer read his status updates, which, by the way, still makes references to you-know-who.
It’s complicated Apart from being a novel kind of dispute, the Belo-Guevarra Facebook smackdown exposes a gray area in social media and the law—especially since, in this case, the two people involved are neither friends in real life nor on Facebook. The fact that Belo got wind of the controversial status messages from another source has had some people dismissing the case as online
tsismis (gossip) that just got blown out of proportion. That would make the case the first of its kind in the world. “It’s a first insofar as I’m [being] sued by someone who [was not] added as a friend and is filing the case by proxy," Guevarra explained. “Friends say that I should look at the invasion of privacy angle but I just told them that I will—if and when I decide to take those who sued me to court for malicious prosecution and perjury."
The more the merrier In the wake of the libel case, Guevarra has experienced a spike in his Facebook popularity. On September 21, he had over 1,400 Facebook friends. Now, he has 1,839 of them. There’ll be more of them for sure. Guevarra stated: “Friend requests spiked after this Belo libel case broke out in the mainstream news." He added that he has confirmed as many as 350 new friend requests in a single day. By contrast, the Facebook fan page of the Belo Medical Group indicates that the upscale cosmetic surgery clinic has 1,334 fans. But the official statement issued by BMGI corporate public relations manager Leah Salterio reminds everyone that this isn’t a popularity contest.
Legal setting In a text message sent to GMANews.TV, Salterio stated: “With regard to the case against Atty. Argee Guevarra, the Belo Medical Group has been forced to exercise its legal right to protect its good name and reputation from persons unfairly maligning the clinic. Unlike Atty. Guevarra, the Belo Medical Group has gone to the proper forum, which are the courts of law, instead of engaging in a trial by publicity. To date, Atty. Guevarra has not filed any case with the courts of law against the Belo Medical Group, which is the proper procedure, as it will allow all the parties to present their side. In fact, at the hearing on the libel case, Atty. Guevarra did not even attend the preliminary investigation and has opted instead to make statements to the press that unfairly malign the Belo Medical Group."
Guevarra has remained unflappable. His lawyer, JV Bautista, who is not a Facebook user, is equally confident that BMGI has no case against his client, saying that “there’s no such thing as Internet libel." He cited Article 355 of the Revised Penal Code, which does not include the Internet as a medium for committing libel. Meanwhile, Guevarra’s September 23, 2009 Facebook status message rages against Belo once more. Hopefully, the friends on his list won’t make a big deal out of them. After all, he has the right to rant against anyone and everything. But perhaps he should consider adjusting his privacy settings to separate his real friends from the friends of his enemies. -
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