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An alleged Facebook founder has lost a lawsuit in which he complained he was deprived of his day in the sun.
Aaron Greenspan, a former Harvard classmate of Mark Zuckerberg, had filed suit in federal district court in Boston charging his name was changed when Ben Mezrich wrote about Facebook in his book “The Accidental Billionaires” and left out altogether when Columbia Pictures filmed the 2010 Oscar winner “The Social Network,” according to an article in The Hollywood Reporter.
Mr. Greenspan had claimed “defamation by omission,” charging that by leaving his name out of the film it was suggested that he was irrelevant to Facebook’s origins.
The judge didn’t buy his argument. In a ruling last week U.S. Magistrate Judge Robert Collins, of federal district court in Boston, said it is not reasonable to infer Mr. Greenspan would be held up to scorn, hatred, ridicule or contempt.
“Essentially, Greenspan contends that the harm resulting from the omissions was that he was robbed of his proper recognition for his role in the origins of Facebook; that is not a claim of defamation,” said Judge Collins.
In fact, although hardly a household name, Mr. Greenspan has not gone entirely unremarked upon. He was once profiled in The New York Times, and his autobiography, “Authoritas: One Student’s Harvard Admissions and the Founding of the Facebook Era,” is cited as a secondary source in Mr. Mezrich’s book.
Mr. Greenspan reached a confidential settlement with Mr. Zuckerberg in 2009 after Mr. Zuckerberg attempted to trademark Facebook.
Suffice it to say even if he had been successful in his suits, any reward would have paled against the estimated $18.7 billion Mr. Zuckerberg’s Facebook stake is expected to be worth when the company has its initial public offering this week, according to the New York Times.
Clicking that “like” button Facebook can get you fired. At least that is the experience of a worker in the sheriff's office in Hampton, Va., who clicked on the like button of an opponent to Sheriff B.J. Roberts' 2009-re-election bid, according to news reports.