WARNING: Cyberbullies will be prosecuted
May 19th, 2008 by Kim
I’ve been following this story because I believe it could have some major implications for cyberbullying and fake profile pages on social networking pages like MySpace.com and Facebook … or at least the potential to start some interesting discourse about such things.
In 2006, 13-year-old Megan Meier (pictured) befriended who she thought was a cute, flirtatious 16-year-old boy on MySpace. Megan, who was suffering from attention deficit disorder and depression, thought she had finally found a friend in “Josh Evans,” when he suddenly cut off their friendship and started sending her hateful messages, including one that allegedly said the world would be better off without her.
Megan hanged herself in her bedroom closet shortly after.
It was later discovered that the “Josh Evans” MySpace account was fake, allegedly created by a mother and her daughter to find out what Megan felt about the daughter and other people. On Thursday, a Los Angeles federal grand jury indicted Lori Drew, 49, the woman who allegedly created the MySpace account, on a charge of conspiracy and three counts of fraudulently accessing someone’s computer.
Why should we care? Forget kids meeting face-to-face and beating each other up at lunchtime — now they can do that AND post the evidence on YouTube. Besides videos, sites like MySpace, which essentially allow anyone to create a profile as any person they wish (real or not), have enabled catty teenagers to take their cattiness to cyberspace and, often, inflict far more psychological and emotional damage. It’s one thing to endure a bully at school when you can call in the principal or go home after class. It’s quite another when bullying reaches the internet and it’s impossible to escape.
There’s another reason, of course, which a Los Angeles Times op-ed today lays out nicely:
[As] hard as it may be to feel sympathy for Drew, what the Justice Department has done should alarm anyone who uses the Internet. The legal theory underpinning this case could just as easily be used to attack other kinds of anonymous speech online, including whistle-blowing, or to enforce dubious contracts that websites impose unilaterally on their users.
…Terms of service online are routinely breached, sometimes unwittingly, sometimes deliberately. Violations include checking work e-mail from home (most residential broadband services forbid business uses) and submitting fake personal information when posting comments online. If a terms-of-service violation were all it took to bring federal charges, overly zealous prosecutors would be in a position to indict just about anyone who used the Internet.
Of course, the use of the statute in this case could be challenged, but just THINK about the implications.
It’s hard not to think about how Megan’s parents would feel should the people involved in tormenting her daughter be sent to prison. It’s also hard not to think about what such a conviction would mean for everyone who’s ever posted anonymously on the internet.
Tags: blogs and new media, cyberbullying, Facebook, Megan Meier, MySpace
May 19th, 2008 at 8:21 am
good for Lori Drew, she deserves to be punished. if it was just her daughter and a few friends messing with Megan then it’d be a little different. kids are immature and don’t always realize the implications of their actions. this woman is 49 years old…the fact that she would take part in this to a 13 year old girl is disgusting. teenagers are teenagers, some are moody, some don’t get along with others and thats just what its like. when parents get involved especially the way Lori Drew did is sad and just uncalled for. when i first heard about this story, i thought that Lori Drew lady must’ve been picked on alot as a teenager to do what she did. it won’t bring Megan back, but it’s still some justice for her family.
May 19th, 2008 at 8:50 am
You know, when I first heard about this story I was just like everyone else in saying we should throw the book at this lady. However, this blog/post/column does bring a new angle to this story that I think is rather interesting that kind of gives a scary sidebar. On the one hand we do want the Justice Department to punish this woman for what she did, but at the same time they are basing their case on rules that a lot people disregard and break all the time that any of use could be accused of. I know I’ve checked my work email from home or other places and I have no idea if this violates my workplace usage(although I don’t think so).
This is one of those things where we need to be even more careful/responsible/sensible than ever with what we do on the Internet.
May 19th, 2008 at 8:57 am
myspace is the devil…”adults” with myspace pages are pathetic.
May 19th, 2008 at 9:11 am
I hope she goes to jail and they throw away the key.
May 19th, 2008 at 10:07 am
To me Megan’s parents are also responsible for her death. First of all they did not provide supervision for the girl when she surfed the net. Second, how long was it going to take for them to notice that their kid own was in emotional distress? It’s pretty obvious Megan’s parents neglected her, which is also probably why Megan was successful in hanging herself in her own house. They most likely did not bother to look for Megan until the very end.
All I can say is that when you got parents who don’t give enough love and guidance to their kids, you end up with a bunch of kids that don’t know how to deal with petty things like rejection.
May 19th, 2008 at 11:41 am
Although this is an unfortunately incident, it begs the bigger concern for internet privacy. Harvard University law professor, stated “An application of a general statute like this might result in chilling a great deal of online speech and other freedom.”
Bullying and harassment in all forms on the internet should not be tolerated. However, I don’t agree nor condone the prosecution of individuals because MySpace terms of use called for using “real names” as opposed to fictitious is absurd.
Prosecutors really wanted to make an example. Now, they can prosecute for breach of any and all terms of use clauses on the internet, even if you use Joe Spam to access restricted content.
May 19th, 2008 at 11:45 am
You might want to, y’know, actually read up on how her parents treated her and the kind of rules and supervision they subjected her internet use to, because you couldn’t be more wrong.
I’m perfectly fine with the Justice Department electing to use minor ToS violations as a basis for determining guilt and punishment, the same way I’m perfectly fine with cops giving jaywalkers tickets. Just because you don’t usually get caught/punished doesn’t mean it ain’t against the rules.
May 19th, 2008 at 11:54 am
Don’t believe everything you read and only half of what you see and Do not take the internet too seriously
May 19th, 2008 at 12:13 pm
I think people are looking at this through the wrong-colored glasses. The fact is that everyone wants someone to pay for the death of a young child. This has less to do with online restrictions/policy/privacy/violations and more to do with the fact that a mother helped her child have access in harrassing another child that influenced her to commit suicide. Whether she gave her access to a Myspace account, paid for her cellphone with the intent to send text messages to Megan or gave her stamps to send letters, she participated in the death of this child. They’re going to charge her with whatever they can come up with, and that is fine with me.
May 19th, 2008 at 1:15 pm
if you all read more carefully, the mom is not charged with causing megan’s death. she is charged with conspiracy and fraud. this is important to remember because there is no nexus between megan’s death and what this lady and her daughter did, according to the prosecution.
the internet website companies need to be held to some accountability as well as the users and megan’s parents. the companies always hide behind the first amendment, but free speech can’t lead to someone getting hurt or abused in any way. companies like myspace and facebook need to filter all this cyberbullying and hate-email stuff out. how? i don’t know. but i bet some tech-geek out there can figure it out and patent the software and make buku bucks off it.
change will only come by the users of the internet. something that was once deemed lawless (the internet) is now being policed more and more by the authority, companies, and users. that’s how it should be.
May 19th, 2008 at 1:31 pm
I got the best idea. Pull the plug on Myspace. Make people meet each other the ol fashion way, in person.
May 19th, 2008 at 2:25 pm
Megan was taking anti-psychotic medication for depression and was obviously walking around unsupervised by her parents. You just don’t dope up your kid with anti-psychotic medication and not monitor your kid for side effects from the drugs.
May 19th, 2008 at 3:06 pm
Love it or hate it and like it or not, Myspace and all these new types of social networking sites are the new reality. I’m not saying meeting people in person is bad or has no place anymore, it’s just that for young people that is their environment.
May 19th, 2008 at 5:21 pm
I think the LA opinion is making a stretch from creating and using false information that ended in a death (intent to harm probably) to the end of anonymity on the interwebs.
Age does not define maturity… I believe certain older children should be denied certain rights (as according to their behavioral age) to prevent this kind of stupid crap from happening.
June 7th, 2008 at 5:02 pm
Megan needs more justice
August 12th, 2008 at 5:43 am
I found your site on technorati and read a few of your other posts. Keep up the good work. I just added your RSS feed to my Google News Reader. Looking forward to reading more from you down the road!