Last week a new precedent for punishing cyberbullies was set as Missouri mom Lori Drew was convicted of three misdemeanors for violating MySpace’s terms of service in a complex hoax that led to a young girl’s suicide.

Megan Meier was thirteen when she had a falling out with Drew’s daughter, Sarah. Drew took it upon herself, with the help of a teenaged employee (who was given immunity for testifying against Drew), to set up a fake MySpace page under the name Josh Evans, complete with fake photos and a fake life story as to why this “new boy in town” couldn’t call Megan on the phone or why she’d never seen him at school.

This went on for weeks, and Megan, who had a history of depression and ADHD, started to care about the boy online who told her she was pretty and made her feel special. Even though her parents closely monitored her online activity, she still grew attached.

Drew and the others used “Josh Evans” to flirt with the girl, telling her she was “sexi,” the indictment charged.

Around Oct. 7, 2006, Megan was told that “Josh” was moving away, prompting the girl to write: “aww sexi josh ur so sweet if u moved back u could see me up close and personal lol.”

Several days later, “Josh” urged the girl to call and added: “i love you so much.”

- Chicago Tribune

Eventually Drew decided the ruse had gone far enough and the tone of the messages started to change. So, suddenly “Josh” heard Megan was mean, a bad person, someone who treated her friends badly. He didn’t want to talk to her anymore. The last thing Megan told “Josh” before running up to her room and hanging herself in the closet was “You’re the kind of boy a girl would kill herself over.”

At the time, there weren’t laws in place governing whether what Drew and her accomplice did was a crime, but Drew was convicted by bloggers before the courts ever got to her. The case stayed quiet for a year as the FBI sorted through the story, but slowly it gained more and more exposure.

There are no pictures of Megan, and the paper doesn’t name the family responsible for all this torment, out of “respect” for their daughter, nor does it name the single mother, out of respect for her anonymity and community decorum, which on one hand is understandable but on the other hand, actually f*** that. F*** your community, f*** any hope for cordial ties with those people, and ex-friend of Megan’s, f*** your parents. One age group’s peer pressure is another age group’s “I don’t want to be the b**** who talked to the newspaper.”

- Jezebel.com

When the police wouldn’t release her name to the public after the stories came out, a blogger named Sarah Wells did her own detective work and posted her name and address. The tidal wave of outrage grew and the Drews were shunned by their community, but the police’s hands were tied – mad as the nation was, there was still no legal basis to punish Lori Drew.

Federal prosecutors in Los Angeles thought otherwise as they believed they had jurisdiction over the case because MySpace is headquartered in Beverly Hills. On May 15, 2008, Lori Drew was indicted on one count of conspiracy and three counts of accessing protected computers without authorization to obtain information to inflict emotional distress under the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act. On November 26th, she was convicted of three misdemeanor offenses of accessing protected computers without authorization to inflict emotional harm, reduced from felonies. Drew faces up to three years in jail and a fine up to $300,000 if she receives the maximum sentence.

So what now? What can we do to safeguard our social networks? MySpace issued a statement condemning cyberbullying after Drew’s indictment, but how can this be prevented? Children and adults alike need to be taught that bullying on the Internet is just as harmful as physical abuse – what is the role of the Internet professional to help prevent cyber harassment, and where do our responsibilities lie? Should violating a social network’s terms of service be a crime? Should Drew have received stricter punishment? One can only hope this outcome will quell any ideas of potential Internet bullies, but in between now and then, hopefully a real solution will arise.

This entry was posted on Friday, December 5th, 2008 at 1:58 pm by Lauren Perdue and is filed under Blogging, Current News, MySpace, Social Media. 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.