The range of things that the Internet enables us to do, so to speak, is vast. And not all of them have to be perfectly legal. Well yes, it is obvious that there are actions on the internet that are already known to be illegal. For example: Hacking a bank account, selling or buying illegal products on the deep internet and I could go on naming more obvious things.
But as the title of the article suggests, here I will be talking about things that you do and people do in general on the internet, without knowing that they are breaking the law.
Obviously, these types of actions that we will be seeing here do not pose a risk to the authorities. That is, you will not go to jail or the police will knock on the door of your house. It is worth the clarification so that you stay calm.
The idea of the article is to inform you that although there are not many regulations on the internet, there are certain things that are illegal. Surely when you finish reading you will be surprised because perhaps you have “committed a crime on the Internet”.
Without further ado I will show you a series of things that many people do on the internet without knowing that they are illegal.
Create a fake profile on a social network.
Obviously it is not very well seen to create false profiles on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram or any social network. But it is one thing that it is not well seen and another thing is that it is illegal, they are very different concepts.
Therefore, and in case you did not know, creating fake accounts on social networks is illegal. And so that it does not lead to confusion, it is one thing to create an alternative account with a name that you like or a nickname, for example, with which you want to be identified on the networks and another thing is to create an account on a network social copying or pretending to be someone else.
The latter if it is illegal, creating a fake account including photos, videos and the name of another person is not allowed by law.
In any case, fake accounts on social networks are denounced by other users, leading to the closure of the account. In the event that the fake profile is of a politician or an important public person, you could have legal problems.
In short, and according to the law, creating a fake profile and pretending to be another person on Facebook or Twitter can lead to a sentence of 6 months to 3 years in prison. Although I reiterate that when this happens, it is normal to resort to reporting the account on the social network that was created. As in most cases the account ends up being closed, it is not necessary to reach legal terms.
Now you know, creating a fake account on any social network is considered a crime.
Assault, insult, degrade and harass online. (Cyberbullying).
It is very common to observe in forums or social networks how users express themselves freely. Well, behind a screen for some it is easier to express their ideals or give an opinion on a specific topic. Obviously, there is nothing wrong with this, quite the contrary.
However, things change when you mess with someone over the internet, accusing or denigrating them. To clarify this, it is one thing to have a discussion in a forum or social network with grievances or insults involved. In this case, nothing happens since it is something very common and it is not illegal.
What would be illegal is more than anything making false accusations about a certain person through the internet. And if there are also insults, degradations and harassment involved, even worse.
So you have to be careful who you mess with. Since in the event that you start making grievances and false accusations against a politician, you could have serious legal problems.
And you don’t have to be a politician either, if you mess with someone on the internet with the sole purpose of denigrating, insulting or harassing them, they can calmly take legal action against you.
Upload videos to YouTube or other platforms without owning the copyright.
A very common habit within YouTube is to upload videos without owning the rights to it.
It is also not valid to add a disclaimer in the description attributing the rights to the owner of that material.
In that case, if you want to monetize with some type of material and it is protected by copyright, you have to pay for them. Or agree with the author some kind of agreement or contract.
A very clear example is the typical videos of recitals or plays. Well, recording a recital and uploading that content to YouTube to generate money is supposed to be illegal. The same goes for images that you can add to videos and music.
In any case, even if this is illegal, you will not go to prison, but surely YouTube will take care of deleting your video. In this regard, the platform is very demanding due to the claims and complaints they receive from important producers and firms.
In other words, if you upload content to YouTube or other platforms that you do not own, you are “breaking the law”. It’s basically like stealing someone else’s content for personal gain.
In addition, today there are many sites where you can find videos, music, images and royalty-free content. In other words, they are intended for free use. In some cases, royalty-free content creators only ask for attribution. For example, if you upload an image to your website, you only have to provide a link to the author’s profile or web page.
