The problem is that the order of events is sometimes:
Person a: "i swear in court under penalties that person B poses a risk of harm to me and I want the court to prevent access"
Judge "person b must not contact person a at all. This is a temporary order until we get a full hearing. Serve the papers so that person b knows about this because their not here for this meeting."
Person b: "my life sucks. I need some friends to support me. I'll join this social network", clicky clicky friend request sent to everyone in person b's list
Papers served
Person b: well, fair enough, i wont contact them.
Police: arrest.
Sadly this is yet another topic being distorted by deranged MRAs.
>clicky clicky friend request sent to everyone in person b's list
The person with the restraining order has the responsibly to remove that person from their lists. Email, phone, etc, so they don't accidentally press a wrong button, butt dial, etc. I know once or twice I dialed the wrong contact. They also have the responsibility to drive a different way home so they don't go by their house. They didn't take the proper precautions.
It is a shame that the law doesn't distinguish between people maliciously breaking the order and people who because of stress and distress forget to remove all old. Ontacts from all old lists and accidentally sends, via an automated service, a boiler plate message.
Wait, so you think putting a person in jail for accidentally forgetting to uncheck a "Send requests to all my contacts" box is a perfectly reasonable thing, and the MRAs are deranged?
I think you need to empathize more with people who are not as familiar with the web as you are. Spotting dark patterns in webapps and avoiding them is a far, far more difficult thing than, for example, not accidentally pressing a speed dial button. Judges should take cognizance of this fact and not treat these actions as "contact".
Perhaps you didn't read it yet, but i have already said that there should perhaps be a single exemption for auto generated boiler plate text.
But still, breaking a court order is never a good idea. Saying that you broke it inadvertantly isn't enough. The court order is a clear bright line and you're expected to take special measures to avoid breaking the order.
If you want me to have any sympathy you'd need to find numbers of people caught by this, broken down by temporary and full orders, and by consequences (police chat, arrest and chat, arrest and prosecution, arrest and prosecution and punishment, arrest and prosecution and jail).
I've heard of a few instances of people getting into trouble after this kind of auto contact. Either it's rare enough to not be a problem, or it's so common that it isn't reported. I'd agree that if it was happening to tens of people a year that it would be too many.
Finally, use of prison for people who do not have a history of violence is not suitable, so i only support it if it's only a week or so.
The problem is that the order of events is sometimes:
Person a: "i swear in court under penalties that person B poses a risk of harm to me and I want the court to prevent access"
Judge "person b must not contact person a at all. This is a temporary order until we get a full hearing. Serve the papers so that person b knows about this because their not here for this meeting."
Person b: "my life sucks. I need some friends to support me. I'll join this social network", clicky clicky friend request sent to everyone in person b's list
Papers served
Person b: well, fair enough, i wont contact them.
Police: arrest.
Sadly this is yet another topic being distorted by deranged MRAs.