The digital era allows information to spread at an unprecedented speed. The Internet is a communication platform that also enables different forms of misuse. Posting harmful information online in California is prohibited and has severe legal repercussions.

California Penal Code 653.2 makes it unlawful to harass or intimidate people through electronic communication or to instigate harm against them. A person accused of posting harmful online information risks misdemeanor charges, fines, and imprisonment. In domestic violence cases, the high emotional state often leads to criminal prosecution through online retaliation.

Monterey Criminal Attorney acknowledges the complex nature of cyber harassment laws and assists those affected. Call our office for a private consultation about your charges.

Definition Of Harassment

According to California Penal Code 653.2, harassment consists of willfully directed conduct aimed at one person that creates serious alarm or annoyance, torment, or terror without any legitimate reason. Harassment differs from ordinary disagreements because it uses continuous or purposeful actions to make a person feel disturbed while threatening them.

The various forms of harassment include:

  • Cyber harassment
  • Stalking
  • Threatening messages
  • Public sharing of sensitive information, which can incite harm

The critical element in determining harassment involves assessing whether the conduct would cause a typical person to experience severe emotional distress or develop safety concerns.

The perpetrator does not have to interact with the domestic violence victim to carry out harassment activities. When electronic harassment occurs indirectly, the victim can file charges against the perpetrator without direct communication. 

Posting someone's home address, phone number, or private images on the Internet to induce harassment from third parties meets the requirements of PC 653.2 harassment.

Under California state law, harassment is separate from protected First Amendment rights. The right to free speech allows opinion sharing but does not protect actions that create dangers through threats, result in defamation, or cause purposeful emotional suffering. The criminal charge of harassment becomes possible when posted content contains elements that stir fear or distress or function to motivate others toward victim harm.

Definition of “Electronic Communication Devices”

The California Penal Code 653.2 describes an electronic communication device as any tool, service, or system that can distribute information and communicate electronically. Various sorts of modern online communication fall under legal definitions of electronic communication devices because mobile technologies have radically transformed digital interactions. Examples include:

  • Mobile phones, smartphones, and all other electronic tools and systems for distributing information. Evidence related to cyberharassment exists in text messages, social media posts, emails, and direct messages originating from mobile phones and smartphones.
  • A desktop or laptop, especially when you post, email, or upload damaging messages to this device.
  • Tablets, smart devices, and any system linked to the Internet 
  • Popular social networking websites like Facebook, Instagram, X (formerly Twitter), TikTok, and Reddit. These serve as platforms for distributing and sharing harmful content.
  • Emails and online messaging services. It is illegal to send malicious content from any unidentified email address.
  • Websites, forums, and blogs. Creating targeted content online through websites, blogs, and forums violates PC 653.2.
  • Online gaming platforms such as Discord, Twitch, and Xbox Live. Gamers may face charges when they perform actions, including doxxing and threats.

All devices with Internet communication through electronic networks qualify as digital communication systems. Above all else, the device's actual utilization determines its status under the law.

Elements of the Crime of Posting Harmful Information on the Internet

A conviction under California Penal Code 653.2 requires the prosecution to establish specific elements beyond a reasonable doubt for your prosecution to succeed. The legal criteria for indirect electronic harassment can be determined through these elements. The lack of evidence proving the elements in a case can result in charge dismissal or reduced charges.

You Used an Electronic Device to Send or Post Harassing Information

The prosecution's proof shows you transmitted damaging information through an electronic communication device. Electronic devices transmit digital content, including text messages, emails, social media posts, online comments, or shared hyperlinks with damaging content.

The method of transmission becomes irrelevant because using any electronic device makes it a punishable offense.

The Victim Did Not Consent To You Sharing or Distributing the Information

The second vital component requires that the information be distributed without obtaining permission from the victim. Publicly distributing authorized content can result in criminal prosecution even when the content remains truthful, depending on its personal or sensitive nature.

Online sharing of private messages, personal information, and explicit photos becomes illegal without the affected party's consent. The law shields people from electronic privacy violations regardless of whether the accessible information exists elsewhere.

Additionally, consent must be explicit. Distributing details or messages without permission from the victim, especially when they explicitly request privacy, violates the law.

Your Actions Were Intentional

To prove a conviction, the prosecution must show that you deliberately distributed the information and did so with purposeful intent. You must have purposely chosen to disseminate this information because it was done intentionally rather than accidentally or mistakenly. Your act of distributing information must have been deliberate while you were aware of what you shared and its possible adverse effects.

You possess a solid defense when you unintentionally share private information in group chats without understanding what the message contains. The prosecution will make a case for intentional actions when you purposefully post defamatory content online to humiliate, threaten, or damage someone.

The requirement to prove intent is a barrier against convictions when people lack control or awareness about what they share. The prosecution will find it harder to establish your intentional actions if someone else posts malicious content through your hacked social media account or using your device.

Your Purpose to Cause Harassment or Unwanted Bodily Contact Was Achieved

The prosecution needs to demonstrate two elements: 

  1. Your deliberate attempts to cause distress and harassment or unwanted physical contact
  2. These actions would probably lead to this outcome.

A reasonable person in the victim's position would experience threatening or harassing feelings and fear because of the posted content. This requirement does not depend on actual physical harm or harassment happening. Online harassment can lead to dangerous outcomes, according to the law, because it may transform into physical assault or stalking or create emotional distress for the domestic violence victim.

According to the court, someone who posts a private address and instructions for others to visit the addressee in person might face legal consequences. This evidence becomes stronger when the post results in threatening phone calls, harassment, or physical appearances at the victims' homes.

You may establish legal grounds to defend yourself against the charge when your statements were based on opinions, satire, or failed to present any realistic danger. Courts evaluate three main factors, context, purpose, and effects, to establish whether this requirement is fulfilled.

The Relationship Between Domestic Violence and Posting Harmful Information on the Internet

Domestic violence appears beyond physical confrontations that occur inside homes. The digital world provides abusers with new ways to harm victims by using the information as a weapon against them. Electronic harassment of spouses, ex-spouses, cohabitants, dating partners, or parents of children can qualify as a domestic violence offense.

People in hostile relationships use cyber harassment and digital stalking, along with public humiliation, to gain control over their targets. People who experience this form of harassment see their details exposed alongside explicit images shared without approval and their private messages exposed, as well as false accusations made online.

The intention behind these acts usually involves inflicting intimidation, humiliation, and psychological abuse, which results in emotional damage to the victims, jeopardizes their reputations, and sometimes endangers their physical safety.

Social media links containing your home address or phone number and threatening messages against you could result in PC 653.2 charges against your ex-partner. Digital domestic violence can be established when someone distributes personal information or intimate content to harass or shame another person.

The judicial system demonstrates strong condemnation of these acts because they emerge from abusive relationships. Enhanced sentencing and increased penalties, as well as restraining orders, can be imposed by the court for violating domestic violence protective orders and when the conduct continues. Law enforcement utilizes digital evidence found on social media platforms and electronic messages to construct their prosecution against defendants.

Penalties for Posting Harmful Information on the Internet

California PC 653.2 considers internet posting of harmful information a misdemeanor. A conviction for this offense attracts substantial consequences that restrict freedom and damage one's financial status and reputation.

If convicted, you could face:

  • Jail time of up to 365 days based on the case severity, criminal background, and any harm caused by harassment.
  • Fines reaching $1,000. These do not encompass court fees, restitution payments, or
  • Legal bills.
  • Informal probation instead of jail time through misdemeanor summary probation for a determined duration. The terms of probation usually demand:
  • Counseling sessions
  • Restraining orders for the offender
  • Imitations on Internet use
  • Compulsory community service

Courts grant criminal protective orders and domestic violence restraining orders to victims, which restrict you from reaching out to them or sharing online content about them. Violating restraining orders established by the court system results in new criminal charges against you.

Misdemeanor convictions create permanent marks on your criminal record, which surface during background checks. Thus, these records impact hiring decisions, professional licensing, and housing eligibility.

Legal Defenses for Posting Harmful Information on the Internet

Different legal arguments exist for defending yourself against PC 653.2 charges. The legal system demands prosecutors show evidence proving every crime element beyond a reasonable doubt. Your criminal defense attorney can cast doubts on the prosecution’s case. Many defenses may apply to specific situations, such as denial of guilt, proof of involuntary intoxication, challenges to coerced confessions, demonstration of lack of criminal intent, and police misconduct or duress.

Innocence

The greatest defense against an internet posting charge depends on showing that you did not perform the illegal action. When you show innocence, dismissed charges and not-guilty verdicts may result from insufficient evidence, false accusations, or mistaken identity.

In most cases, digital footprints and electronic records are essential evidence for the prosecution team of online harassment. However, showing harmful content alone does not automatically create responsibility for its posting. 

The current age of hacking, identity theft, and account spoofing makes it possible for an attorney to argue that another person uses your email, social media, or online account without authorization. When the prosecution fails to show that you posted the content, the strength of their case diminishes substantially.

False accusations occur frequently in situations where people are emotionally involved in divorce cases or workplace or breakup conflicts. To dispute the credibility of revenge-based or strategic claims made by an alleged victim in family law or custody battles, an attorney can demonstrate inconsistencies in their statements, missing evidence, and contradictory testimony.

Involuntary Intoxication

Under California law, involuntary intoxication is a legal defense used by defendants who consume drugs against their will, leading to judgment and action impairment. You successfully defended against PC 653.2 charges by demonstrating involuntary intoxication during the time of the alleged offense.

Your defense should show that you were affected by an intoxicating substance, which made you unable to develop criminal intent. The law makes a distinction between drinking alcohol voluntarily and being forced to drink against your will because the defense is possible if intoxication leaves you unable to understand your actions or form criminal intent.

If someone administers a powerful sedative to your drink or provides you with substances through deceptive means, then you would lose control of your actions. You would not be held legally accountable for posting harmful content through social media, email platforms, or other electronic platforms if you accessed them while in a state of unconsciousness. Medical records combined with witness testimony and forensic toxicology reports would allow your attorney to demonstrate that you were not mentally aware during the period of offense.

Unforeseen side effects from prescription medication that you received from a doctor or trusted person, including hallucinations along with confusion and motor control loss, would establish a potential defense. Uncharacteristic behavior and memory loss combined with decreased capacity often emerge from psychoactive drugs as well as sedatives and strong painkillers, thus rendering it challenging to show criminal intent.

The defense of involuntary intoxication cannot be used when you consume alcohol or drugs knowingly, even if you incorrectly judge their strength. The defense of involuntary intoxication receives judicial backing when evidence shows that you were either tricked into drinking or forced to drink or unknowingly given drugs, but not when it stems from personal choices about your alcohol consumption.

Coerced Confessions

A person should confess only when they do so willingly and with no influence from intimidation, manipulation, or psychological pressure. Law enforcement officers sometimes resort to coercive tactics for extracting statements from individuals even though no concrete evidence shows their involvement in criminal activities. Your attorney could use the coerced nature of your Internet posting confession to exclude it from court evidence if you revealed it under pressure from threats or deceptive questioning methods.

The practice of police coercion manifests through different methods, such as physical threats, extended questioning sessions withholding essential needs, false promises of reduced penalties, and psychological manipulation. 

Officers may force you to confess as the only means to prevent lengthy prison time while simultaneously asserting that they have solid evidence that does not exist. Significant amounts of pressure can force innocent people to submit to police services through false confessions merely to gain temporary relief from the circumstances.

People who lack experience within the legal system, including minors, face an exceptional risk of being coerced into making false confessions. Law enforcement officers will use your fear, confusion, and lack of legal knowledge to tell you that denial of involvement is useless. A defense lawyer could use your denied access to counsel or rumored requests to remain silent as constitutional violations to build your defense.

The case could be dropped when your attorney proves you committed the crime due to forceful or deceptive methods or threats. The absence of that crucial evidence would force the prosecution to drop their case, which might result in charge dismissal. 

Lack of Intent

In every criminal case, the prosecutor must establish beyond doubt your intention to perform the offense. The California PC 653.2 crime of internet message distribution demands a deliberate purpose to frighten someone reasonably or to subject them to harassment or unwanted physical contact or injury. Your conviction depends on showing this mental aspect because lack of intent makes conviction impossible.

The primary motivation that determines criminal activities is intent. A deliberate effort to cause harm distinguishes itself from unintentional actions through the concept of intent. Your attorney can explain to the court how your actions were misunderstood, misinterpreted out of context, and lacked malicious intent. The defense attorney would contest the prosecution's argument of wrongful intent by demonstrating that you shared personal information unknowingly, which led to distress and harassment.

Identifying the wrong person becomes a factor that determines outcomes in internet crime cases. Plenty of hacking incidents, identity theft, and unauthorized account access during the current era allow someone to publish content under your name without your permission. Your defense attorney can establish your innocence by demonstrating that the person who accessed your social media and messaging platforms did not post harmful content; therefore, you had no harmful intent.

Digital content becomes difficult to understand when people fail to interpret it correctly. The absence of tone, facial expressions, and vocal inflection in online interactions increases the likelihood that recipients will wrongly understand messages. The intended humor, sarcasm, or simple comment might get misunderstood as threatening harassment by someone else. The defense of innocent posting succeeds when prosecutors fail to show deliberate intent in instilling fear or harassment in others, thus leading to possible dismissal or decreased charges.

Police Misconduct and Duress

Police officers must perform fair investigations while preserving justice standards, yet misconduct leads to improper charges being filed. Your attorney can exclude your statements obtained by unlawful police methods such as coercion or manipulation from evidence. Police misconduct displays itself in several ways, including forced confessions, fake evidence, illegal entrapment practices, and violations of constitutional rights.

The main problem with internet-related offenses involving posting harmful online content includes improper interrogation methods. The police obtain confessions through methods that include intimidation, combined with deception, plus extended questioning, even though you never planned to commit any offense. Your attorney can establish that your confession should be inadmissible because police tactics used duress when they suggested you would receive reduced punishment or falsely presented extensive evidence against you.

A defense strategy for criminal cases can be built based on police overreach identified as entrapment. Your lawyer can present evidence that you became a target for unlawful police or government pressure to create online content that you usually would not have shared. Under California law, police are not permitted to engineer criminal activity by forcing people who showed no prior interest in such behavior to break the law.

Your defense will be considered strong under duress laws if another person makes you post damaging information through threats or blackmail or forces you with coercion. Under these circumstances, your defense attorney should assert the existence of duress and absence of criminal purpose because you acted under compulsion because of threats. The law of California exempts people from liability when they perform actions that result from compulsory situations.

Find a Criminal Defense Attorney Near Me

An accusation of posting harmful information on the internet requires serious attention since the consequences can be severe. A conviction results in a criminal record, fines, and possible jail time. You need an effective legal defense to protect your rights, challenge the evidence, and achieve the best possible result for your case.

The evaluation of digital crimes requires multiple levels of interpretation to determine criminal intent and consent status while protecting free speech rights. Law enforcement officers and prosecutors frequently base their investigations on circumstantial evidence while misreading online activities and failing to recognize necessary evidence demonstrating your innocence. You require an attorney with experience in cyber-related crimes who can examine and counteract the evidence against you.

Monterey Criminal Attorney understands the extreme stress of facing criminal charges linked to internet activity. Our firm dedicates itself to fighting aggressively for your rights while ensuring your perspective reaches the courtroom and defending your future. Contact us at 831-574-1791 for a free consultation.