Are His Rights Being Infringed Too?

Welcome, to the wonderful world of Internet Memes (Fads). This one in particular is called the Pepper Spraying Cop Meme, in which Officer Pike, known for pepper spraying the peaceful Occupy UC Davis protest on November 18th, is shown pepper spraying some of our favorite art pieces. This meme has literally started over night and spread like wild fire. Officer Pike has been on indefinite leave since the incident, but, of course, someone caught everything on tape and it has now been seen by the whole world. Millions of people, including myself, have witnessed the madly increasing popularity of the meme almost instantly once it had hit Tumblr (a blogging social network). The meme seemingly originated sometime between late last night and this morning.

Does this raise issues with this man's human rights though? It is a picture of him, not something extremely anonymous, and it has been applied to hundreds of photos by now. The most clear violation of his human rights is the invasion into his privacy. His face has been plastered all over the Internet as part of a meme that may not fully express the best aspects of his character. Shouldn't he be allowed to chose whether his picture goes up on the Internet or on television? Of course, now it is on the Internet and will never go away. Also, I would then worry about his security of self, because now people know his face and can easily identify him and possibly cause him harm in retaliation.

I am no defender of the police in their action during these Occupy Wall street put downs, but I cannot help but worry about this man. He made a huge mistake, we all know that, but to put him through this type of ridicule is cruel. His children may see it, his family, the people he works with. It just does not quite seem fair. What he did was horrible and I do not excuse that at all, but that does not mean that people should lower them selves to a level where they subject someone to the most intense form of cyber bullying I can think of.

Was he asking for it? Is there any way to rectify it? What damages could this bring now that it is everywhere?