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May 15, 2008
Social Media Evil: Lori Drew and the Dark Side of MySpace
The U.S. government charged a mother who allegedly used MySpace in a deadly hoax that drove her daughter's 13-year-old classmate (pictured here) to suicide with conspiracy.
Missouri resident Lori Drew, after her daughter's schoolgirl fights with neighbor Megan Meier, 13, created a fake MySpace account to pose as a boy and flirt with Meier. When Drew began using her online identity to taunt Meier, the girl hanged herself.
The boy Megan had been corresponding with on MySpace unexpectedly began calling her a fat slut. He wrote "the world would be a better place without you." It turns out he was a hoax created by the mother of a former friend.
Drew was indicted today for conspiracy and accessing protected computers without authorization to inflict emotional distress. She faces 20 years in prison, the maximum penalty.
"Any adult who uses the internet or a social gathering website to bully or harass another person, particularly a young teenage girl, needs to realize that their actions can have serious consequences," Los Angeles federal prosecutor Thomas O'Brien, who brought the charges, said in a statement.
The case was filed in California, where MySpace is headquartered.
The suit goes a long way toward establishing and enforcing the boundaries of acceptable and illegal behavior on the Internet in general and social media sites in specific.
Posted by Kevin Heisler on May 15, 2008 5:05 PM
Comments
Drew was indicted today for conspiracy and accessing protected computers without authorization to inflict emotional distress. She faces 20 years in prison, the maximum penalty.
Lori Drew's actions are condemnable but far worse is the indictment of Los Angeles federal prosecutor Thomas O'Brien, who has stretched federal criminal law in a way that was unlikely to be foreseen by Congress.
Drew is charged with "unauthorized" access to the MySpace computers because she violated the user agreement--such agreements are routinely violated by users of services such as MySpace, Google, and newsforums such as LibertyPost.org. The proper remedy is for the account to be terminated by the service provider or at most a civil action brought.
Drew did not hack into the MySpace computers, did break in and access propriety data, did not upload a virus or malicious software: She used it in an on-line drama of the sort long seen on AOL and Compuserve chatrooms, and the more modern Web2.0 social sites.
The US Constitution never intended for the federal government to have general police powers and enforce criminal laws--now federal persecutors have almost unlimited power to use a broad array of elastic laws to bring charges against whomever they dislike, or find it likely to enhance their careers to take action against.
Drew is deservedly condemned, but O'Brien and his ilk are a far greater danger to our society.
David M Brooks May 15, 2008 7:19 PM
I guess this pretty much goes back to the good old days where the rock stars were hunted for promoting people to kill themselves?
I believe that while this is a terrible scenario the worst should be a telling off for being mean and as a protest all ISP's should refrain from ever servicing Drew.
Robert May 26, 2008 7:38 AM
