p2pnet - rss feed: Megan Meier’s mother starts foundation
p2pnet news | P2P:- Tina Meier, the mother of 13-year-old Megan Meier, who killed herself after being bullied online by a fake MySpace user, says she’s quit her job as a real estate agent to dedicate herself to the Megan Meier Foundation.
“Megan is still my daughter, no matter what, and I am going out there and fighting for her still because she is still my daughter,” the Associated Press quotes her as saying.
In December, 2007, a blog went online purporting to have been written by 49-year-old Lori Drew, said p2pnet recently.
It began, “My daughter had nothing to do with this. Everyone needs to leave her alone. None of you can possibly know her involvement, and none of you can possibly know what she’s gone through. She’s just a kid. She doesn’t deserve these brutal verbal attacks. Please stop.”
Drew has now been indicted for allegedly pretending to be Josh Evans, the phony MySpace member, in a hoax which led to the death of 13-year-old Megan Meier.
‘It seems I could face prosecution ……’
Will this lead to a wave of cases against people who have more than one account?
“It seems I could face prosecution for the wide range of user accounts I’ve created on MySpace, Facebook, Googlemail, Flickr and Bebo to support the various projects I’m involved with,” wrote UK journalist Bill Thompson, going on:
“The concern arises because prosecutors in California have just charged 47 year old Lori Drew under the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act for creating a fictitious MySpace account, something which many of us have done in the past and which I do all the time when projects I’m working on require a MySpace profile.”
If the case against Drew is proved, she deserves complete condemnation for bullying a young and vulnerable girl, “and I can’t imagine anyone would defend this behaviour or argue that a right to anonymity or pseudonymity extends to adults who abuse young people in this way,” says Thompson, continuing >>>
But the prosecution raises wider issues that should concern any computer user, especially those who neither read nor take much notice of the terms and conditions of the sites and services they visit, since it opens up the possibility that acts which we thought were insignificant could be used against us in unexpected ways.
As always, we need to be careful about jumping to the conclusion that this is the death of the web as we know it, that every social network site will start prosecuting its users or that we are all under risk of investigation.
All we have is an indictment, which may be thrown out by the court, claiming that an offence has been committed. The Computer Fraud and Misuse Act is being used because the false identity was used to do something much more serious, and the legal argument is that it can form the basis of a prosecution because it constitutes a ‘tortious act’, but this has yet to be accepted by a judge.
Even if it went all the way through to successful prosecution it doesn’t mean that MySpace could throw recalcitrant users in gaol for signing up with false names. And in most cases like that of Lori Drew there would be another law under which to prosecute anyone who used their online identity for something dodgy.
And yet it is a worrying development, because it creates a degree of uncertainty and may, because of that, have a chilling effect on what we do online. I’ve created new profiles and identities with wild abandon, secure in the knowledge that if Facebook or Bebo or whoever didn’t like what I was doing the most they could do was close my account and perhaps try to stop me opening a new one.
Meanwhile, Megan’s mother, seen in the pic with her husband, Ron, shortly after the tragedy occurred, says she wants her foundation to educate and encourage positive changes to prevent bullying and cyberbullying, says AP, adding:
“Meier and the volunteers are working to improve laws. They speak at schools and to parent groups. They hope to begin offering scholarships to children who help other children in some way.”
She’s also working with http://www.stopcyberbullying.org and is encouraging people to take the Megan Pledge, “an effort asking Internet users to stop bullying,” says the story, adding:
“Talking about Megan’s experience to middle and high school students is something Meier said she feels she needs to do. She tells them Megan was a real girl, with real dreams, and talks to them about how taunting other children can have consequences.”
“I’m going to try and do the best I can do to, hopefully, know that no other family goes through this,” she says in the story.
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Associated Press - Mom in Web bullying case turns grief into activism, May 30, 2008
p2pnet - Drew charged in Megan Meier MySpace suicide, May 16, 2008
user accounts - Censoring ourselves online ‘just in case’, May 24, 2008
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May 30th, 2008 at 9:51 am
Soon, If we call some a fucktard we’ll be fined or jailed.
May 30th, 2008 at 10:16 am
then 97% of america would be in jail rather than 1.376%
you cant have that type of crackdown.
not that fast.
May 30th, 2008 at 10:17 am
oh and even then, inorder to catch anyone in the insane amount of webtraffic you would need a centralized web 3.0 with a central hub.
May 30th, 2008 at 3:12 pm
Nah. They aren’t even done with web 2.0 yet. They are working on a RIAA-compliant web 1.9.84 though, still in beta.
May 30th, 2008 at 9:38 pm
There are legitimate privacy concerns which warrant anonymity and different online identities. I don’t think anyone is disputing that. It’s the abuse of this to harass and victimize others, especially children.
“I can’t imagine anyone would defend this behaviour or argue that a right to anonymity or pseudonymity extends to adults who abuse young people in this way”. That is not true. Those indulging in this behaviour would defend it, but only those.
My sympathy to Tina Meier, and Lori Drew must be held accountable in this death.
All are alive in God’s memory, and their future prospects lie with him. His Son demonstrated this when on Earth.
May 31st, 2008 at 3:39 pm
and then jebus ripped a bong toke.
June 4th, 2008 at 4:14 pm
Let’s get all the facts on the table. She was charged in CA by FEDERAL prosecutors because that’s where MySpace has its HQ. The child also violated the MySpace TOS because she wasn’t old enough to legally have an account. Now either the mother allowed this or created the account for the child..either way still a violation and FRAUDULENT USE OF A COMPUTER…the very same thing the woman is being charged with.
What kind of parent allows a 13 year old unmonitored access to MySpace? I am not saying what happened was right. But if the parents knew as they stated that the child had emotional issues shouldn’t they have monitored her computer activities a bit more closely? I personally don’t see this as a criminal case. There are remedies in court in civil law that I am sure the grieving mother will take after the criminal prosecution. This just smells like a parent trying to shift the blame from their indifferent parenting skills to someone else and make a buck off of it.
June 6th, 2008 at 8:08 am
” What kind of parent allows a 13 year old unmonitored access to MySpace? I am not saying what happened was right. But if the parents knew as they stated that the child had emotional issues shouldn’t they have monitored her computer activities a bit more closely? I personally don’t see this as a criminal case. There are remedies in court in civil law that I am sure the grieving mother will take after the criminal prosecution. This just smells like a parent trying to shift the blame from their indifferent parenting skills to someone else and make a buck off of it. ”
This smells of a Drew camp shill trying to shift the blame off of themselves and onto the little girls parents.
What kind of adult hides behind a pseudonym to drive an already emotionally unstable teenager to their death ?
What kind of adult continually tries to shift responsibility for their own actions onto the victim ?
August 7th, 2008 at 2:12 pm
My daughter hanged herself due to Cyberbullying April 22, 2007. She was 22 years old. I say if things are said on the internet and it causes death, they should be held accountable for it. I want to help stop the hate that kills our children. Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will surely kill me. Part of a letter I sent to my daughters female bully. I will help in any way I can. When you lose your only child or any life is never the same. There is nothing worth doing except fighting back and trying to make some sense out of it. Be kind, one of your best friends or one of your children may end up taking their own life one day because of this same kind of thing, and for you, life will change and never be pain free again. How can I help?