Last year, a 13-year-old Black girl spent 11 days in a Florida juvenile detention center all because someone impersonated her on Instagram and sent threatening messages to her teacher and school—and because it took the tech company and the investigating authorities the better part of two weeks to figure out that an IP address didn’t match the account the threats were sent from.
And because they refused to believe a Black girl proclaiming her innocence.
Now, the teen and her family have filed a lawsuit against the school and Instagram for their role in the unjust incarceration of a minor whose only “crime” was being bullied.
According to the New York Times, the family of Nia Whims of Miramar, Fla., is suing Meta, the company that owns Instagram, and Renaissance Charter School at Pines. They are also reportedly planning to add the Pembroke Pines Police Department as defendants in the suit.
“On Nov. 18, Nia was using her brother’s iPad and communicating with a classmate at the charter school,” other Times reported. “At some point, the classmate created an Instagram account using Nia’s name and information, according to the lawsuit and police officials. Then, the student, who is identified in the lawsuit only as M.S., used this new account ‘to send messages to herself that would appear to be sent’ from...
Pakistani actress and model Ayesha Omar has strongly denied a controversial statement falsely attributed to her on social media. In recent days, a statement circulated online claiming that the act...