G20 Officer Bubbles Josephs Sues YouTube For ‘Ridicule’: Toronto Cop Goes After The Internet ‘Anonymous’
CONSTABLE Adam Josephs, aka “Officer Bubbles”, was at the G20 protest in Toronto having bubbles blown in his direction by a Courtney Wikels. It was filmed. Josephs is now suing YouTube for exposing him to “ridicule“. (Video at end of article.)
Officer Josephs was wearing dark sunglasses as he told the young woman that if the bubbles touched him he would arrest her for… assault. Officer Josephs says bubbles are a detergent and if they get in the eye they can hurt. So says Officer Josephs – the cop in the, er, dark glasses.
The woman is soon arrested. And the tin lid is placed on this box of delights as we see that Officer Joseph is wearing shorts. We’d like to say that Officer Josephs is not in the least bit flatulent but should one parp of methane from his posterior touch our eyes, mouth or skin we reserve the right to have him arrested for assault.
First though Officer Josephs wold like to issue a $1.2-million defamation lawsuit against YouTube:
The target of Constable Josephs’s lawsuit isn’t the original video, but a series of cartoons posted on YouTube over the following weeks that depict a policeman resembling the officer engaging in various acts of police abuse of power.
Sheesh! It’s not like he pushed her over and she died.
In his statement of claim, Constable Josephs alleges the cartoons have subjected him to ridicule, and have resulted in threats against himself and his family. He also seeks to compel YouTube to reveal the identities of the person who created and posted the cartoon – identified by the moniker “ThePMOCanada” – and the identities of several people who posted comments in response…
The animations in question depict a policeman identified as “A. Josephs” arresting various people – including Barack Obama and Santa Claus – and beating up a news photographer while funk music plays in the background.
Not that any of the spoofs come close to the wonder of the actual video – which is, in our opinion, beyond parody.
But there is a bigger deal at stake. Anonymous comments might be banned:
“From our client’s perspective, he was performing his duty as a police officer in what was an extremely volatile time at the summit,” said James Zibarras.
While he said Joseph’s actions at the summit can be subject to criticism, “that reaction had this massive backlash that we say is disproportionate and incommensurate to what happened, and started getting to the point where it included threats.”
The suit seeks the identity of YouTube user theforcebewithme — as well as those of 24 other commenters who Josephs contends defamed him — and $1.2 million in damages.
Theforcebewithme, who lists his age as 55 and residence as Freddy Beach, a common nickname for Fredericton, has since taken down the videos in question.
Among the user’s comments on the videos is: “I love the fact that this Nazi’s name is known. I am hoping some unstable Dilaudid addict takes this (expletive) down.”
If that was written in a published letter to a newspaper, what would happen?
Spotter: Boing Boing
Posted: 17th, October 2010 | In: Reviews Comments (6) | TrackBack | Permalink
