MySpace 'suicide bully cleared'

[naomi.]

not really alliance news or anything, but i found this important enough that i think it should be read by more people.
mind you, i copied this entire thing off of a myspace bulletin, so if you have myspace, and you want to follow the people who posted this, you can go to www.myspace.com/stoponlineexploitation


Hello Everyone



We covered this story when it first hit the news…and you all reacted with the same concerns as we had about the case…and now the conviction has been overturned …



MySpace 'suicide bully cleared'

A US judge has acquitted a Missouri woman over her role in a computer hoax directed at a 13-year-old neighbour who later killed herself.

District Judge George Wu stressed the ruling in the case of Lori Drew was tentative until issued in writing.

Drew, 50, was convicted last year after allegedly creating a fake MySpace page to find out what Megan Meier was saying about her daughter.

After the fake boy "dumped" Ms Meier online, she committed suicide.

Drew was found guilty in November of illegally accessing computers.

But the judge said on Thursday that if she had been convicted for breaking the social networking site's terms of service, "you could prosecute pretty much anyone who violated terms of service".



Posing as "Josh Evans", Drew started an online relationship with her teenage neighbour, before apparently staging a falling-out and sending a message that "the world would be better off without" her.



She hanged herself a short time later in October 2006.



During court proceedings, Drew's lawyer argued that "the government's case is all about making Lori Drew a public symbol of cyber-bullying".

"The government has created a fiction that Lori Drew somehow caused [Megan's] death, and it wants a long prison sentence to make its fiction seem real."

But federal prosecutor Tom O'Brien said he stood by his decision to prosecute.

"I'm proud of this case," he said. "This is a case that called out for someone to do something. It was a risk. But this office will always take risks on behalf of children.




We know that many people create alter ego’s in cyberspace…not just here on My Space but on all the social networking sites…and that it is done for a variety of reasons…not all of which have any kind of hidden personal agenda that is designed to put others in any kind of danger…although in this particular case it WAS designed and targeted at a child who was obviously very vulnerable…and while we can only hope that the line “ The world would be better off without you “ was NOT designed to push this little girl to suicide…it was at best childish, spiteful and irresponsible.



But let us not dwell on the legalities of this…or even the morality of it…but we SHOULD and MUST heed the warning!



Because while we are NOT condoning this in any way…if we as adults choose to create a cyber alter ego…we know we are game playing…we know the rules…and we also know that we could well be in cyber contact with someone who is playing the same game as we are…but we know how to be SAFE while we are doing it…our children DON’T!



Witness the latest case to hit the news…the 12 year old Scottish girl found abandoned at Marseille airport…taken there by a man whom she met in a chat room…posing as a 28 year old who turned out to be 41…and while this of course begs all kinds of questions about why she was talking to a man 16 years older than her in the first place…had she have had a passport it takes no stretch of the imagination to guess where that story could have ended.



Our young people will and do sometimes behave in an irresponsible way…they are children after all…and it is of course our job as parents and carers to make sure that they don’t do anything TOO stupid…and we can tell them over and over again about the dangers of the chat rooms…the risks they are potentially running…and when it comes right down to it…as the case above shows…a 12 year old willingly arranged to meet a man she believed to be 16 years older than herself…and willingly went to an airport with him…and no doubt would willingly have got on the plane with him…despite everything we can do…they will STILL do stupid things.



So, where do we go from here? We can’t keep our young people away from technology…it is part of their everyday lives… we can of course make a point of monitoring what sites they use…the people they have contact with…this should be a routine thing on our part…but can WE be sure who they are talking to….can we KNOW that the 15 year old girl they spend hours chatting to is who they claim to be…the simple answer is NO… we can’t…and that makes the job of parenting even harder than it already is…but surely we must all be WILLING to put the hard work in…because of the risks involved if we fall down on the job are too horrifying to imagine.


We are as always….

Your Friends @ Team SOECT

[AbbieNormal]

This whole thing is really sad. I remember how worried I got about my friend when she was talking to some guy on myspace that she had never met and he wanted to meet... It's just not alright!

[kimmy]

i watched this documentary thing where police oficers talked in chat rooms to pedophiles(however you spell it) and posed as young girls and getting really personal with the pedophiles. they then asked them to come to a certain location- which is where they were chatting from- and when they came, the police arrested them. i saw it years ago but i remember that they would sometimes arrest multiple pedophiles a day!!! smart coppers.