My question involves criminal law for the state of: MS
This question involves a satirical profile on social media. I doubt this is even worth a post, but I told the ones involved that I would ask, for purposes of knowledge.
Hypothetically years ago during a military deployment some guys other than me, established a Facebook page using random images from the internet and used image altering applications to portray an iconic " southern redneck ". The page was developed to poke fun of the stigma given to this genre of lifestyle, as the guys that designed the facebook page were of the southern states. The Facebook page was designed solely for fun and to give the ones with the password a bit of humor while in between missions in the sandbox( Iraq ).
At any rate the profile states that it is just for fun and the vernacular used by this profile is hard to understand and uses severely misspelled words and southern dialect, very similar to a Jeff Foxworthy comedy show.
The Facebook profile gradually became a hit with members of the Armed Forces and gained a huge following. One of the attractions of the profile is that most of the images were photoshopped of a person's face and another image to make a statement with implied humor, i.e. the mayor of a city back in the states face transposed on the Incredible Hulk, with the caption " mayor XYZ vowed to personally take on crime in the city of ABC last night during the press conference." This is what the Facebook page basically comprised of; post that most any reasonable person would deduct as satire and for the purpose of humor. As time progressed the Facebook page progressed with friends and followers for the humor that the page provided to the troops.
Here's where the legal questions arise. In an unfortunate event a female troll began making derogatory statements on the Facebook page in comments about the troops, and the mission that they were fulfilling, as ordered by their Commander and Chief. In the name of humor the guys with access to the satirical facebook page began to transpose the female into images with the images of random things, as simple as her image in a truck hauling pigs or chickens, never publishing her name, and never giving a way to contact her. The majority of comments illustrated that friends and followers thought the images were hilarious. The images in no way portrayed any lewd, obscene, or harmful acts, the randomness and ridiculousness of the images is what drew the comments from anyone who viewed and chose to comment as the Facebook profile was set to public.
Long story short, the female's father has since then sent messages to the Facebook profile stating he knows where the profile is being logged in from, and he is pressing charges for bullying and harassment as well as cyber stalking for using the female's image without permission, and repeatedly using her in images.
My understanding is that there may be an issue of copyright as far as the images go, but once an image is transformed/ photoshopped to a point that the original is no longer recognized, that the amended image could be considered " art ", and fall under protections of the 1st Amendment. As far as the criminal charges the father wishes to pursue, I would think the actual female, an adult would be the one that would need to make a report. I am not sure how harassment or even bullying would be construed as the images in no way publish the female's name or a way to contact her, other than her image being transposed into images of people doing ordinary everyday things, it's just the crowd in the images that draws the humor. Anyway I think it is just this individual female that has her feelings hurt and embarrassed, although she initiated the contact with the Facebook page. Just told these guys I would run this across the board for discussion, to get opinions, and to keep them out of " hot water ".

