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Court spokeswoman Annette Gabriel talks about the verdict in the juridical dispute over the virtual legacy at Facebook of a deceased underage girl. DPA/PA Images
legacy issues
German court denies parents access to dead teen's Facebook account
The parents want to know if their child died by suicide.
10.30pm, 31 May 2017
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A GERMAN COURT backed online giant Facebook in its battle to reject a demand by the parents of a dead teenage girl for access to her account.
The 15-year-old was killed by a Berlin underground train in 2012 and her parents have been trying since to establish if she died by suicide by jumping onto the tracks.
They want access to her Facebook account to examine if she had ever mentioned a death wish in chats with friends or in any posts.
A first Berlin court had ruled in favour of the parents’ request, finding that the contents of the girl’s Facebook account are part of her legacy.
The panel found that emails and Facebook entries were similar to letters and diaries, which “can be inherited regardless of their content”.
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Denied
An appeals court ruled in favour of the US online group, which argued that opening up the account would compromise the privacy of the teenager’s contacts.
Facebook has faced increased scrutiny in Germany, where authorities have proposed heavy fines if online social networks fail to wipe illegal hate speech from their sites.
In a recent high-profile court case, the website clinched victory against a Syrian refugee whose selfie with Chancellor Angela Merkel made him the target of racist trolls.
The refugee had sought to get the online group to search out and delete defamatory posts, but the court ruled that it was unclear whether Facebook was able to conduct such searches without surmounting major technical hurdles.
Ian dempsey played blurred lines a few weeks ago. ..the very last thing I ever want to hear again is the song finishing and Ian continuing with ‘I know you want it..’ puke!
Ian has recently taken to singing the last few lines of another song in an Irish /Caribbean accent “all about da bass, da bass” Makes me want to eat my own face!
Reminds me of the great Morecambe and Wise sketch when playing for Andre Previn – and he tells Eric that he’s playing the wrong notes – ‘i’m playing the right notes – but not necessarily in the right order’.
Another rip off, if you look hard enough you’ll probably find a lot of modern songs do this. I remember people used to say Kid Rock was putting his own twist on Sweet Home Alabama with that summer song he had, turned out he’d taken the whole thing from another song called Werewolves of London. In his case I think he had permission but he just keeps it quiet so people think he wrote it himself. A lot of these so-called musicians’ only talent is being marketable. It’s even more obvious now the only reason Pharrell Williams was brought in for Blurred Lines was exposure, not for his musical ability because they already had the bones of the song and anyone could turn Gaye’s into Thicke’s with the software that’s available now. It’s a soulless industry now.
Does there come a point where modern pop simply runs out of notes to play an starts to consume itself?
Anyhow, never mind all that. To my ears, pop music a la Spin South West sounds bloody awful. If young people were listening to stuff I liked that would be more of a concern. C’mon da Biffy an all that.
Anyone notice how much Dylan’s “With God on our Side” sounds like “The Patriot Game” by our very own Dominic Behan?
There’s a true scandal.
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