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If you are like us, at the office we enjoy televised court cases for the hilarious and bizarre situations that are brought to trial. Now, there is a new syndicated court show to choose from, and you can get involved.

Judge Faith will cover cases that involve social media. The judge, Faith Jenkins is a litigator and prosecutor. Earlier this year she became a political analyst for MSNBC. Besides being a legal-whiz, Jenkins is also a former beauty queen. In an interview with Cosmopolitan, Judge Faith reveals what viewers can expect from her day time show, how women can protect themselves when sending nudes and catfishing.

Her Most Memorable Case

“I had a case out of Atlanta where a 58-year-old guy sued a 26-year-old college student; he said, ‘We had an arrangement; I paid her $160 so she would have sex with me — and she didn’t follow through.’ He actually files this lawsuit in small claims court in the Atlanta area; this is crazy to me. I told him, you do understand this is prostitution? Because I thought there was perhaps going to be some other element to the case, but no. It was,’ I paid her $160 for services,’ that’s what he told me, ‘and she did not deliver so I want my $160 back.’ I’m thinking, I cannot believe (1) that you filed a lawsuit over this, (2) that you would come on my show to talk about it in front of the entire country. So I dismissed that case because obviously judges don’t get involved in illegal contracts or transactions.”

On Nude Photos Being Released Without Permission 

“Well, a lot of states passing legislation to make, for example, revenge porn illegal. Which means someone leaking your photo [is a] criminal, and our cases [on the show] are civil — but if I were to get a case where someone sued because they feel like they’ve been damaged because someone else leaked their photos, the question really is, what is the expectation of privacy if you share a photo on Twitter? Or if you post it to your Facebook? It could end up on any blog, on the Internet, get passed around anywhere. The difference is, of course, if you share that photo privately with someone and then they choose to disseminate it widely, well then I think we’re looking at a real breach of privacy issue. It’s all about invasion of privacy, and there’s no real expectation of privacy when you share those things on social media or a public forum.”

Legal Issues of Catfishing 

“Catfishing is really interesting. The Internet really allows you to be whoever you want to be, right? And some people choose to be someone else, [so] basically when you are interacting with people on Twitter or Facebook, it’s kind of ‘buyer beware.’ You have to do your due diligence. This is not really a legal issue unless someone is pretending to be me, and they’re falsely impersonating me has caused damage to my image — then I would have a legal claim. But if you’re just out there on social media meeting people and wanting to get to know people and you find out that someone is pretending to be something that they’re not … there’s not much I can do. You just have to be careful these days because people love being someone else on the Internet. Some people just live in a fantasy world.”

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