Social media sites like Facebook and Twitter sometimes cause more harm than good. They lead to bullying, affairs and even murder. In this case, Facebook “poking” led to a murder across the pond. A man in England killed his friend after finding out he ‘poked’ his girlfriend on Facebook. The man has been sentenced to four years in prison.
This is not your everyday murder case. Sending someone a virtual ‘poke’ on Facebook is often seen as a way of flirting, and that led to this man attacking his friend. He struck his friend numerous times, causing him to bleed from the nose and then he delivered the fatal blow, knocking his friend to floor which caused him to bang his head on the pavement. The victim suffered devastating head injuries and died in the hospital a few hours later. The suspect fled the scene, but later turned himself in to the local authorities.
While he never intended to kill his friend, his violent actions over something that isn’t that important, made him look worse. In this country, we usually hear about internet crime cases that involve cyberstalking or cyberbullying. It’s important to remember that physical contact of any form is no longer a requirement to be charged, thanks to the way we interact on social media. This makes cases much more complex for defense attorneys and prosecutors. These cases are often full of mistakes that can compromise the rights of the accused.
Those are usually the kind of cases we hear about when it comes to the internet, but in this crazy world we live in today, it’s not shocking to hear about a murder stemming from an online confrontation.
