Amanda Todd and anonymous is a unique case with unique aspects to be considered before deciding whether the offender can be legally prosecuted. Cyber bullying can be conspired and may also happen without any conspiracy where the offender does not even know that whatever he or she is doing is causing harm to another person. According to the law, conspiracy happens when two or more individuals agree to commit crime and execute the crime. This is an immature crime since it does not demand that the illegal act to be done in the actual sense. First conspiracy needs a demonstration that two or more individuals were in any form of agreement; oral or formal, to commit an offense. Any kind of common understanding to conduct an offence is considered in this case. In addition, all conspirators need to have unique intent to commit the conspiracy objective. This implies that a person who is fully unaware that she is taking part in a crime cannot be accused of conspiracy (Justia, 2018).
Conspiracy offenses are hard to argue in the court. One of the main reasons is that conspiracy happen in secret. It is mostly a secret plan between two or more persons to commit crime. This becomes even harder when handling online crimes since it is not clear whether the offender even intended to commit crime or they were only having fun. An act started by one person can be amplified by another person just for fun. In Todd case, it is not clear whether the act was done by one person or a group of people. Todd only reveled that she sent her picture to one person and ever since, that picture has been sent to her family, friends and school mates. The anonymous followed her even in new schools that she transferred to as an effort to evade prejudice (Dean, 2012). The most challenging part is that, the offense cannot be considered as conspiracy if it was conducted by one person, since there can never be an agreement without two or more people. Moreover, the main intention may not be committing crime. The act could have been done by some teenagers whose main intention was to have fun, see Todd’s reaction. They may not have anticipated pushing her into depression or suicide. They may have been unaware of the harm they were causing to her. Moreover, the matter was aggravated by the reaction of those who received the picture. This may make it hard to prosecute the offender based on conspiracy. Nevertheless, in case where the anonymous is a an adult, then the intention to do harm is clear since an adult understand that circulating half-naked picture of a minor to her peer s or associates can cause harm. Taking advantage of Todd’s trust and lack of knowledge to defame her is a crime (Justia, 2018).
The aspect of defamation is considerably clear in this case. The anonymous individual asked Todd for her half naked picture with intention of sending it to her friends, family and peers. The picture would definitely make everyone who sees it to have a different perception of Todd than they had before. They would question Todd’s intention of having such a picture and why the source had it. This would change their perception on Amanda Todd character and moral values. Based on Amanda’s reaction, the anonymous clearly managed to defame Amanda and trouble her, causing emotional, psychological, social and physical harm to Amanda. This clearly shows that there was intention to cause harm or to defame Amanda in school, among family members and her friends. Although it is not clear on whether the act of done by a group or an individual, it is clear that whoever did it intended to cause harm. The anonymous is therefore prosecutable based on defaming Amanda Todd pushing her to a point of committing crime (Packard,2013).
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