A Facebook Friend Request Leads to Legal Charges, A Twitter Bet Escalates to $20,000, and “Stocking?”

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Jonathan Hudson, a 22-year-old pizza delivery man, was charged with four counts of contempt of court because of a Facebook friend request. The problem: He was serving jury duty in a car crash case in Texas and had sent a friend request to the defendant! After the defendant Courtney Downing told her lawyer, Hudson was kicked off the jury and charged with contempt of court. Afterward, Hudson wrote her and said, "I'm pretty upset over this… I guess you know what it feels like to be prosecuted too. Good luck with everything." After pleading guilty to the contempt of court charges, Hudson was sentenced to two days of community service. That's not bad compared to the U.K. juror who had to serve eight months in prison after sending a friend request to a defendant in a multimillion-dollar drug case.

A British employee is up for $20,000 after winning a Twitter bet. The employee for the chicken enthusiast website PoultryKeeper.com bet his boss that social media are useful. To prove it, he tweeted from the @poultrykeeper Twitter account, "A bet with my Boss. He says twr is a waste of time. He will give 50p per RT I get but I give him £10 if I don't get 10." Twitter-speak translation: The employee's boss agreed to give him 50 pence every time his tweet is retweeted (i.e., forwarded). But if the employee gets fewer than 10 retweets he has to pay his boss 10 pounds. After sending the tweet, the employee went on vacation. When he returned, he saw he won the bet by a landslide. His tweet was retweeted more than 23,000 times. The original tweet was forwarded so much that @poultrykeeper started trending on Twitter in Ireland. At 50 pence per retweet, the boss owes his employee 11,000 pounds ($20,000). But the boss flew the coop on this one; he's not settling the debt.

First there was "planking," then there was "owling," and now the latest photo-mimicking trend is "stocking." It started on the Tumblr blog Stocking Is The New Planking. To stock, a person or group mimics stock photos, which are generic pictures that represent different situations that are often used in advertising. People find the stock photos on sites like ShutterStock.com and simply re-create the image in real life. We like this new trend so much, we made our own contribution. Make sure you watch today's show to see Trending Now's rendition of a stock photo titled, "Woman Sick at Work." Thanks to our lovely studio manager Grace for snapping the photo. We would love to see your Stocking photos-- post them to our Facebook page!