Quarterlife Café » The Meier-MySpace suicide case

The Meier-MySpace suicide case

January 10th, 2008 by Kim

It began as a typical 21st-century romance.

Girl meets boy over MySpace. Girl and boy exchange flirtatious messages over MySpace.

Boy suddenly becomes mean and sends girl cruel comments over MySpace.

Girl commits suicide.

Boy turns out not to be real.

This is the tragedy the family of 13-year-old Megan Meier, who thought she had befriended a 16-year-old boy named Josh on MySpace, are now dealing with.

Megan, of suburban St. Louis, hanged herself with a belt in her bedroom closet in October 2006 after receiving hateful comments from “Josh Evans,” including one that said the world would be better off without her.

A few weeks later, the Meiers discovered that the MySpace page belonging to “Josh” was fake. It had been created and used by their daughter’s former best friend, her mother and a teenage employee to gain Megan’s trust and find out what Megan thought about her friends.

Tomorrow (Friday), the Washington Post will host Part 2 of a thought-provoking (and frightening) discussion called “Privacy, Free Speech and Anonymity on the Internet” about the Megan Meier case.

Daniel J. Solove, a law professor at George Washington University, will be online at 12 p.m. EST (7 a.m. HST) to answer readers’ questions.

Read the Q&A from Part 1 here. Submit questions before the discussion here.

In my opinion, this is a must-read for anyone who has ever put anything on the internet, not just a MySpace page.

Solove even explains how employers can find that silly Xanga site you deleted ages ago. (It’s called the “Wayback Machine.”)

Recent developments in the case have also prompted what may be a highly important future discussion about free speech.

On Thursday, it was reported by the LA Times that federal prosecutors in Los Angeles are considering charging the mother, Lori Drew, with defrauding MySpace by creating a false account. MySpace is headquarted in Beverly Hills.

Drew was never previously charged because local and federal officials in Missouri couldn’t find a law to apply to the case.

Did the person who created the fake site do anything wrong by pretending to be someone else?

Should anonymity on sites like MySpace be regulated? What about comments on the internet in general? How would this be possible?

Should be an interesting discussion.

Tags: blogs and new media, MySpace

This entry was posted on Thursday, January 10th, 2008 at 6:55 pm and is filed under Quarterlife Island. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

7 Responses to “The Meier-MySpace suicide case”

Richard [Visitor]:
January 10th, 2008 at 9:06 pm
Kim: One definition of “manslaughter” is: “The killing of a human being unlawfully, but without malice aforethought.” In other words, to choose one example, if you are drunk and drive, and cause the death of someone, even though you did not intend to kill that person, you are guilty of manslaughter. Wouldn’t this apply to Lori Drew?? For her to get away with what she did would be unconscionable…
John [Visitor]:
January 11th, 2008 at 1:33 am
I saw this story on Today this morning and it also aired the day after it happened… It’s pretty sad that one of culprits behind the whole debacle was a grown woman!

I don’t think there’s really any sure-fire way of regulating what happens on the net. You can impose age restrictions, but children lie. You can enforce stronger terms, but people hide behind their screen names.

I think it comes down to education and parenting. Being more aware of what their children are doing while surfing the net, what they’re thinking or feeling, who they’re talking to or thinking about…

Who’s to say that Megan would still be alive today if her parents taught her not to believe everything she reads on the net, or had better communication with their daughter?

And about cached content found on the net… all I can say is, I Google my name on a regular basis to make sure nothing strange is popping up.

I know whenever I’m going to hire or work with someone, ill do a quick Google to see if they are who they really are… you’d be surprised what kinds of things pop up… even on MYSPACE! Scary…

I’m glad I didn’t pour my teenage feelings into a Xanga page back in the day!! That stuff can come back to haunt you!

BTW, do you remember Asian Avenue!? haha… I’m not even Asian and I had a page on there! LOL.

Have a good one!

- John
lava [Visitor]:
January 11th, 2008 at 7:20 am
Agree with John. Finger-pointing starts with the parents. If the daughter was so fragile, maybe she shouldn’t have been on the net.
jusamee [Visitor]:
January 11th, 2008 at 8:20 am
i also agree with John, its shameful to see a grown woman at least in her 30’s participate in such an immature action. even if megan never committed suicide, the mother of her former best friend should be ashamed for encouraging her daughter to be a sneaky little liar. the outcome of the whole situation is probably worse than what any of them imagined, but if it weren’t so, was the mother going to help spread rumors about megan and this fake boy? or was she going to go back and tell all the other 13 year old girls what megan said about them? how embarrassing!

but again to echo John, parents need to be more mindful of what their children are doing. not just on the net, but in general. kids lie, spread rumors, and play mean tricks…it then is up to the parents to teach them right from wrong. not ignore it or especially encourage it.
meeh [Visitor]:
January 11th, 2008 at 8:29 am
Why oh why would a grown woman create such a scheme, especially towards a teenager?? What kind of example is she being towards her own kids?? That it’s okay to make others feel bad, to be dishonest, and not be liable for your actions?? Seriously, that just makes me sick =P.

LOL @ AsianAvenue…that was pre-myspace/facebook! Goodnes, I really hope my xanga is GONE. I’m gonna try to log in and see if it still works lol.

Here’s a tip when signing up for social networking sites: NEVER EVER put in your full name. I usually use a common name like Mary Smith or my initials. You just never know when all that stuff will come back to bite you on the okole.
hemajang [Visitor]:
January 11th, 2008 at 8:47 am
Truly tragic for Megan Meier…basically a bully tactic by that Drew family on a very vulnerable young person. I don’t think they intended for her to commit suicide but they must be held accountable in some way. Laws are meant to protect the innocent and hopefully justice will be served…life not fair, sad indeed.
MoOgooGuypAN [Visitor]:
January 11th, 2008 at 8:56 am
Sad story. It all comes down to educating and informing kids about the misuse of social sites. There’s pedifiles, sex offenders, ex friends, exlovers, all kinds of nuts people using those outlets just for personal gains. If children are educated about the actual dangers of those types of interactions then maybe some sense of realtiy might kick in. For kids to base all their truths on what some anonomous entity on another computer is saying is scary. On top of that, parents need to get involved with their childrens lives. Even if that means being nosey and pushy and unfair. Too bad. I’m sure parents would rather have that stigma than to find out that something awful has happened to their child. Sad. Very sad.