Town bans Net harassment following MySpace hoax
Amid continued outcry over the MySpace.com hoax that preceded a teenager's suicide, the town of Dardenne Prairie, Mo., has passed a law banning online harassment.
Although it's only a misdemeanor with a maximum penalty of 90 days in jail or a $500 fine, the law is specifically targeted at the kind of online attack that Meier faced in the days prior to her death last year.
"It is our hope that by supporting one of our own in Dardenne Prairie, we can do our part to ensure this type of harassing behavior never happens again, anywhere," Mayor Pam Fogarty said in a St. Louis Post Dispatch article. "After all, harassment is harassment, regardless of the mechanism or tool."
For those who missed my original posting or the many news reports elsewhere, Meier committed suicide after a falling-out with "Josh," a person she met on MySpace and believed to be a fellow teen in the area. In fact, Josh was the fictional creation of adults, including the parent of a former friend that lived down the street, according to that neighbor's own account in a police report.
Over the Thanksgiving weekend, the community also held a candlelight vigil, organized by Meier's mother.
For more on the community's reaction to the whole affair, check out this Los Angeles Times piece, written by P.J. Huffstutter, a reporter whom I know from my Orange County days a decade ago.
During her years at CNET News, Ina Fried has changed beats several times, changed genders once, and covered both of the Pirates of Silicon Valley. These days, most of her attention is focused on Microsoft. E-mail Ina.
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What these other parents did was wrong, but its not the major act of murder, its a minor act of being somewhat dishonest.
A real 16 year old boy probably would not have behaved exactly in this way, but he could have dumped her...he could have certainly been dishonest too. She may have killed herself, in any event.
I feel sorry for everyone involved, but the town is overreacting and its a great shame on them, that they behaved in this way, instead of keeping above the fray, and acting with some reservation.
We are a country that imprisons more of its own population, per capita, than any other country in the world...this is not the answer, it does no good. It destroys more lives.
Shame on that town, for wanting to destroy another families lives, and with full knowledge they are solving nothing.
to kill herself or not, it was harrassment, it was the creation of a
scam with the single and sole purpose of hurting a young girl.
And I say "whether they intended" because their behavior since
the girl's death has been at least as bad as the act itself. At a
minimum, they owed the girl's parents a deep apology and
expressions of remorse.
Shame on the ones who created this cruel hoax. And further
shame on them for not taking responsibility for it.
morality is so twisted that I wouldn't want you as a neighbor,
either.
people that manipulate little minds for their own sick desires deserve to be burned at the stake.
little girls are especially vulnerable. i'm a former single father of a female child and i know from having a house full of little girls for many years that they can be quite "psychotic" when they are not loved. when their parents get caught up in chasing money and careers their needs get left behind. so they reach out to who ever is attractive to them.
just as grown men who have sex with little girls, even consensual,are preying on a weak and vulnerable mind. that's why there's a law.a girl without loving parents,especially a father are likely to seek masculine attention elsewhere.
what these people did was akin to putting a frog in a pot of water and slowly turning up the heat. then laughing because the frog didn't choose to jump out of the hotter and hotter water. the frog boils to death. they still killed the frog. murder is murder.
even with an adult you can push them over the edge with psychological manipulation. the police kill people every year with their managed agression techniques.
they find someone that is depressed and lonely then, they play their games until they snap. then it's perfectly legal to pump 68 bullets into them and call them a criminal. that's essentially what these adults did.
if that were my daughter i wouldn't physically harm them. as hard as that would be to do. i would make an effort to give them some of their own medicine. a well placed pair of panties or a used condom could cause a lot of marital strife. think about it numbskull.
If I was him I would divorce her.