I was succumbing to my daily habit of perusing through Google News and this article caught my attention: http://www.dnj.com/article/20110628/NEWS01/110628014/ACLU-Tennessee-prepared-challenge-new-offensive-images-law.
Essentially, if you post an image online, that anyone claims causes them "emotional distress", your image is deemed to be offensive.
For personal reasons that won't be addressed here, I find the ACLU to be that barking dog that never shuts up most of the time, but here the ACLU has a point.
While I agree with the author that "emotional distress" in and of itself it vague, what bothers me even more is that images are only at most half of the problem. What about online bullying? Remember the MySpace suicide? There have even been a few stories of people that have posted near-suicidal updates on Facebook with resulting comments from their "friends" spurring the person on to commit suicide.
Why not also include language into the law that addresses words or text that is deemed to have cause "emotional distress"?
Is Public Chapter 362 an answer to a question that wasn't asked?
If we're going to write new laws, can we please make them less vague?
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