Senate GOP offers Internet violence bill ALBANY — Violence such as “bum fighting” in which homeless people are beaten up or paid to beat each other up for replay on Internet sites would be a new felony in New York under a proposal. The Internet violence bills scheduled to be introduced today by the New York Senate’s Republican majority would be aimed at this rising violence as well as recent attacks of girls in Florida and Indiana replayed on YouTube.com and other Web sites. “We’re trying to address this whole idea of escalating violence via recording and the distribution of it on any venue,” said Sen. Joseph Robach of Rochester. “It really, really is a very heinous activity, and I don’t think there is much out there now.” The measure is also aimed at animal attacks and “bum hunts” in which homeless people are treated as wild animals, attacked or paid to run into poles and other objects on video. Florida authorities believe the attack on a girl March 30 by several other girls was done so a video could be made and posted on You-Tube.com. The bill isn’t aimed at YouTube. com or any other site, but at those who commit violent acts. “Real violence is not allowed on YouTube,” the company stated Monday. “If a video shows someone getting hurt, attacked, or humiliated, it will be removed.”
CAPITOL Republicans look to stop assault videos on Web BY MICHAEL VIRTANEN The Associated Press
Reacting to recent Internet postings like “Dude gets savagely put to sleep” and “Brutal girl fight,” several Republican state senators vowed Tuesday to criminalize videotaping and sharing assaults online, saying it victimizes people a second time. “They make me sick,” said Sen. John Flanagan, a Long Island Republican. “We should never, ever, ever glorify this type of behavior.” Long faulted for graphic sexual content, the Web is drawing increasing fire for what some critics call “violence porn,” postings that range from teen fights and beatings to homeless bashing and even videos of deaths, like the beheading of journalist Daniel Pearl by terrorists after his 2002 kidnapping in Pakistan. The senators’ new bill would address one aspect of what sponsors see as a growing anti-social trend and establish the additional crime of “unlawful violent recording.” It would become an additional felony to commit assault while recording it for distribution and a new felony to persuade others to do so. Offenders could face 1 1 /2 to 4 years in prison, Sen. Martin Golden of Brooklyn said. Juveniles would go to Family Court. “Assault is already a crime. Conspiracy is already a crime,” said Donna Lieberman, executive director of the New York Civil Liberties Union. It’s a serious issue that deserves long and deliberate consideration, raising questions about videos of brutal crimes shot by journalists or passers-by, and shouldn’t be subject to “grandstanding” in the closing weeks of a legislative session, she said. The senators said the problem is a new area, they’re just figuring out how to address it and they hope the Democrat-controlled Assembly and other states will follow. They also said it’s especially alarming for them as parents when some kids are posting violent videos in the hopes of getting attention and creating copycats. Attorney Lawrence Walters, who handles free speech cases for Internet providers around the country, said similar discussions are happening all over but New York would be the first to enact a law, which he sees as having no chance of surviving court review. “Any time that you attempt to criminalize media based on its content, that is antithetical to the First Amendment guarantee of freedom of speech,” Walters said, questioning what it would mean for news broadcasts. “The only type of media that the courts have agreed to criminalize, or authorize to be prohibited, are obscenity and child pornography. Everything else is presumed to be protected by the Constitution.” Sen. Joseph Robach disagreed. Once the video is created, showing it may be subject to a First Amendment right, he said. “What created it — being violent — is not the First Amendment right,” he said. Lawrence said some of these issues can already be addressed in civil courts. “We’ve dealt with some of the fallout from the bum fights-type media, where later on somebody who was involved in the filming comes back and says somebody was paid to assault me,” the Florida-based attorney said. “That would be a civil claim for damages. That’s permitted in our society if somebody feels they were taken advantage of.” The New York Senate last year passed a measure introduced by Robach that would establish a felony for computer encryption that conceals crimes or criminals’ identities. That bill did not advance in the Assembly, where prospects for the anti-violence measure appear uncertain. Democratic Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver declined to comment Tuesday, saying he hadn’t seen the details. Meanwhile, a new law passed by both houses requiring convicted sex offenders to tell authorities of their online screen names awaited only Gov. David Paterson’s signature. It’s an effort to keep them from trolling for victims on popular Web sites frequented by young people and children.
The [state Senate majority’s] proposed law restricting the posting of violence on Web sites like YouTube must be very carefully worded [May 14 Gazette]. It must distinguish between videos of fights and violence that appear on the Internet and news video of the same situations shown on the 11 o’clock newscast, and then posted on that station’s Web site. ARTHUR HOMBACH Schenectady
MECHANICVILLE Two women arrested in girls’ video fight BY J. JUDE HAZARD Gazette Reporter
Two local women have been arrested after police said they encouraged a fight between two teenage girls in a video that was later posted on the Internet. According to police, Veronica Farley, 31, of Viall Ave., Mechanicville, encouraged her daughter as the teenager held down and repeatedly punched another teenage girl in the head during a fight in late March. Police said the girl’s aunt, Tina Farley, 26, of Turf Trailer Park, Halfmoon, also encouraged the fight. The two women were charged with endangering the welfare of a child, a misdemeanor. They were both arrested on Thursday and released on an appearance ticket. According to police, the fight happened on March 25. Police said they didn’t know the fight happened until last week when they were tipped off about the video. Officers said they recognized the adults and teenagers involved once they watched the video, which was posted on the Web site www.tinypic. com after the fight. The names and ages of the girls involved are not being released, but police said they are both teenagers under the age of 16. The teenage aggressor in the video was charged with assault and will be processed as a minor, Mechanicville Police Chief Joseph Waldron said. The victim was not charged. The victim suffered minor injuries as a result of the fight and did not seek medical attention, Waldron said. At one point during the profanity-laced video, one woman can be heard saying “Pick ’em up and kick ‘em.” The victim being pinned to the ground and repeatedly punched can be heard yelling at the other girl to get off of her throughout the video. The video captured about 20 seconds of the fight before it was broken up. “This case involved a very disturbing event in which a guardian or a relative actually encouraged a fight to take place,” Waldron said. “When we went on the Web and we saw this, we knew something had to take place now.”
MECHANICVILLE Assault video pulled from Web BY J. JUDE HAZARD Gazette Reporter
The Internet video that police said shows a mother encouraging her teenage daughter to punch another girl repeatedly in the head has been removed from the Web site that hosted it, amid a flurry of local and national media attention since the story broke on Tuesday. The video, shot on March 25 by a fellow student of the teenage girls, was posted on the Web site http://www. tinypic.com the day after the fight, police said. It shows at least 20 seconds of what police claim is Veronica Farley’s 15-year-old daughter pinning down and repeatedly punching the 13-year-old victim until Farley broke the fight up. According to police, Farley is one of the women seen encouraging the fight. Farley, 31, of Mechanicville, was arrested last Thursday and charged with endangering the welfare of a child, a misdemeanor. The girl’s aunt, Tina Farley, 26, of Halfmoon, was arrested on the same charge. Both were released on appearance tickets and are scheduled back in City Court on June 3. Mechanicville Police Chief Joseph Waldron said he was happy the video was taken down, although he said he believes it should have been removed long before Wednesday. “The companies . . . should accept some responsibility here,” Waldron said. “If it’s going to damage a person mentally, then they should step in and take that stuff down.” TinyPic is operated by Photo-Bucket, a company owned by Fox Interactive Media, the company that also owns MySpace, a popular social networking site. Fox Interactive Media is a News Corp. company. “TinyPic takes the safety and security of its users very seriously and employs several methods to moderate content on its site including human moderation, where employees scan all uploaded content, and a publicly moderated system, where members of the user community flag issues that are then reviewed by TinyPic,” the company said in a statement to The Daily Gazette on Wednesday. “We can’t comment on the details of this specific incident.” Late Wednesday, the page where the video previously appeared displayed a message that reads “This image or video has been moved or deleted” “That video is just constantly bringing that child back to the horror,” Waldron said. “How many times do you have to hear her yelling for help? Do you know how many parents came up to me and were just disgusted by that video?”
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