If the social networks are a new kind of public space, there is still a long way for us to have a type of informal code on how to relate in each of these spaces. Or even to understand that Internet communication has different characteristics in comparison to traditional face-to-face communication, such as how long it stays available.

One of the functions that networks have taken, also because of the relative publicity of some spaces such as Facebook walls, is that of collection of a debt or public embarrassment. That was the case involving two neighbors in Santa Maria (RS): the repair of a car costed R$250 and the neighbors agreed on the payment of  R$200 up front and another R$50 the next day. According to the car owner, in the following day he couldn’t find the neighbor to pay him, and then did not have any change for the payment.

Taking advantage of the friendship they had on Facebook, the mechanic decided to publicly collect the debt through several posts on the social network. He affirmed that he had been trying to collect the money for over a month, with no success. Surprised by the posts that called him a “bad payer”, the debtor, who is a businessman, decided to take the case to court. He declared that the “deadbeat” fame even forced him to close his business.

Seeking for a restitution for the moral damage he suffered due to the posts, the owner of the car sued the mechanic neighbor. When deciding the case, the judge of the Small Claims Court of Santa Maria understood that there was moral damage and condemned the defendant to the payment of R$1500 to the car owner. Due to the losses, the neighbor decided to appeal and the case went to the Court of Appeals. In the trial that took place last month, the Fourth Civil Appeal Panel decided to uphold the decision under the argument that it would be “inevitable to recognize the moral damage caused to the plaintiff, provided that the defendant could have pursued his right otherwise”. The trio of judges hearing the appeal was unanimous in finding that “the exposure of the name and image of the debtor” should be avoided.

Indeed, the exposure of a person before their social circle — and even out of it — can have undesirable consequences. Think of a person that has their financial situation exposed to their work colleagues or someone that has intimate details of their private life revealed in an unrestricted way.

However, in some cases, the public constraint has served as a way to avoid a long and expensive process. In 2014, for instance, a freelance worker launched the website “Pague meu Freela” (Pay my Freelance) to pressure an agency to pay for the services he had provided. As he publicly constrained the company, the freelancer accelerated a process of collecting that otherwise could have taken very long. The strategy paid off, and the freelance was payed. There are also many complaint cases involving sexual harassment, which are complex because of the difficulties to report them.

In the case of the neighbors from Santa Maria, it is possible to imagine that there were other ways for the mechanic to collect the debt and that he did not have to resort to social networks to receive the rest of the due payment — for example, when meeting the car owner in the local market, he could personally charge him.

Regardless of what one thinks about the legal decision in question and about so many other public constraint incidents, the case seems to indicate that if up to some time ago the legal disputes involving information technologies were rare and drew attention of the public, they are now becoming daily. Law and Internet are even the subject of neighbor fights.

Click here to access the decision of the Rio Grande do Sul Court of Appeals (TJRS) (in Portuguese).

By Dennys Antonialli, Francisco Brito Cruz and Mariana Giorgetti Valente

Translation by Ana Luiza Araujo