Town to vote on online harassment after girl's MySpace suicide

Town to vote on online harassment after girl's MySpace suicide

www.usatoday.com

The tragedy of Megan Meier will take another twist tonight when officials in her home town vote on whether to make online harassment a local crime.

Meier is the 13-year-old suburban St. Louis girl who met a cute 16-year-old named Josh Evans last year on the social networking site MySpace. They became close, but suddenly he turned on her, calling her names, saying she was "a bad person and everybody hates you." Others joined the harassment — the barrage culminated in Megan's Oct. 16, 2006,

(visit the link for the full news article)

This story is very sad, that adults manipulated this girl into suicide, and by law won't be held accountable. I'm not one for new laws, but in this case, I think it's needed.

The family that did this to this girl, should be ashamed, and publicly humiliated, what in the world were they thinking?

www.usatoday.com
(visit the link for the full news article)

reply to post by LDragonFire


I heard about this last night on the news and found myself at odds with myself.

What I mean is should we really become draconian enough to pass laws about bullying people on the internet? Wow that would really be a difficult law to really enforce or many people could end up in the stockades so to speak. How often do people get insulted over the internet when no insult was meant, how many times do people let their tempers flare a little further because they are on the internet? This could be a very bad law if passed because who is going to judge how far to take it and what will be considered punishable?
On the other hand I can see why these parents and many others would want this sort of law passed. Maybe this girl was just fine and this somehow worked its way over her to make her break down mentally. I wonder if they might also try to push some sort of “online predator” type of law at the adults responsible for the “game”.

Another part of me wonders just how stable this young girl was to begin with. I understand that many teens’ especially teen girls are more sensitive about the goings on around them and in turn likely to become depressed and commit suicide.

We do have to remember though the dangers of passing a law that might punish certain acts. It will be a narrow road that would need to be walked in order not to fall and possibly be punished. Or it could be a road so wide that those who should be punished would never have a word said to them.

It could be that these adults might be feeling extremely bad as they surely had no intention of this sort of thing happening. It is hard to blame someone for another’s actions all the time. I am sure that many of us have said something to someone at some time that really hurt a person possibly someone we had never met before and never seen again. I am sure the adults responsible are getting a few threats to their lives now too or at least threats of harm coming to them their family or property.

It is sad though that some adults could not see how devastating this might be and how childish it really is. I hope they are thinking about this nightly now as they lay down to sleep and throughout their day as they go through their workday.

Raist

Boy, this is a tough one.

The very medium that enabled this irresponsible adult to harass this susceptible young lady is also the medium whereby they were outed.

The term, "Hoist by their own petard," comes to mind...

A local law to dissuade such behavior would, IMHO, be very difficult to enforce, since the internet is such an international endeavor.

But I think the parents of the victim may have recourse through civil means, since they may be able to make a case implicating the actions of the adult, through their egregious act of impersonating a minor.

It's just amazing to me the level to which some idiots will stoop to intentionally hurt a child these down and sorry days.

Pathetic, and oh so sad...my heart goes out to the parents of this young lady.

Teen suicides is a problem that is not new and we had it when I was growing up before I was born and will be a problem when I leave this earth.

Parents are responsible for the well being of their children, but we are a busy society that has not time more often than not to notice when something is wrong with our children.

I think that the responsible party is the adults in the situation that brought this girl to kill herself.

But I wonder if she would have done it anyway because emotional and mental undetected problems.

Passing laws are nothing more that to cover up the stupidity of the adults when they are guilty of irresponsibilities toward their children in this case.

[edit on 20-11-2007 by marg6043]

If this girl had a family support structure that provided her with the love and security every human being needs, then nothing said to her by anyone online would have meant anything important to her.


Society has a lot of problems, but let's not solve them all by hacking at the branches, when the more effective thing is to attack the root.


This competitive, artificial scarcity-driven, dog-eat-dog every man for himself working-class trying to pay the bills can't keep up no time to pay any attention to my family because the rug is being pulled out from under me kind of lifestyle is killing us all in direct and indirect ways.


Society needs honest, well-intentioned, transparent, participatory reform. Not leaders colluding in secret "for our own good". This world sucks, and it's their doing.


I see this as a terrible tragedy, but a symptom of a society that has a cancerous influence rotting it from the inside out.


We have to work together and fix this.


Poor girl. She shouldn't have felt so profoundly affected by what a bunch of nobodies online think of her. She did to herself far worse than what anyone else could have done to her.


Sad...

Why is one of the most common knee-jerk reactions "That should be illegal!" ?

Is it so hard for people to simply take care of their own?

Had these parents known every keystroke typed and every word read by their child while on MySpace, homicidal child rapist central, she would still be alive.

If there should be a law against anything, it should be to harm or kill a child through neglect.

Oh, there already is a law against that.

Blame the parents? Why not blame the schools instead? Many of them are uncaring ghettos for children, suicide factories even. And how come it is always the smart and sensitive children who kill themselves and not the dumb mean destructive bastards who deserve to die?

Originally posted by apc
Why is one of the most common knee-jerk reactions "That should be illegal!" ?

Is it so hard for people to simply take care of their own?

Had these parents known every keystroke typed and every word read by their child while on MySpace, homicidal child rapist central, she would still be alive.

If there should be a law against anything, it should be to harm or kill a child through neglect.

Oh, there already is a law against that.

I agree that the girl could've probably had a better support system with her parents, but I don't think it's right for them to moniter whatever she says. They knew about the relationship she had with the boy, and that is more then I'd let my parents know at that age. She was 13, she had the right to that sort of privacy. It was their choice to let her use the website, but do you think that they really expected her ex-friends mother to impersonate a cute guy, and play with her daughters emotions for what seemed like months, eventually driving her to her suicide? The fact was, the girls mother knew that the "boy" started saying mean things to her, and the girl killed her self anyways! The parents thought the MySpace profile was as legit as their daughter thought it was.

I think it's unfathomable that an adult would actually manipulate a 13 yr old girl like this, being over the internet or not.

From other stories I've heard about this, the adult responsible has not seemed that remorseful. They should atleast charge her with something, such as impersonating a minor, as someone else said.

P.S. I honestly think that websites such as MySpace should be 18+. If people (teens, parents, other adults), cannot excersice maturity and use the websites in the way that they were intended, then none of this would've happened, along with other sad cases as well (those places are breeding grounds for pedophiles).

People need to be held accountable for their actions and I have no problem with a crack down on people with intent to deceive, they are cancerous. This isn’t really something that can be misconstrued. A middle aged lady pretended to be a 16 year old boy with the intent to deceive a minor. They are lucky all the girls parents did was break their foosball table or whatever it was.

Don’t blame this on the girl being depressed, every rational person that has to put up with other people(especially teenagers) is depressed. Adults are too much smarter than 13 year old girls to go around paying with their heads like that.

Over monitoring children is a new and dangerous theme, so don‘t blame it on that either. It was pure ill intent on the part of a grown women against a teenage girl who already suffered from depression. Blatant inconsideration should be a crime. A good lawyer or worthwhile politician could define this case in a manner as to not let it be manipulated in the future.

Well, as sad as this story is. The neighbor is not responsible for this girl committing suicide. She is.

What the neighbor did was stupid, inmature and cruel. But there was no way of her knowing that her childish actions would cause this girl to kill herself.

Where were the parents and why were they not monitoring their child? They should have known that this child was in such a horrible emotional and mental state, that she was on the verge of killing herself.

If it hadnt of been this childish prank, it would have been something else.

I think the neighbors are horrible and dont condone what they did....but they are not at completely at fault



[edit on 21-11-2007 by greeneyedleo]

Common sense would tell you nothing good for the minor would come of it. The neighbor is absolutely at fault. She wasn't dead before, just depressed. It’s not first degree murder but it’s a very serious societal problem, it has to do with people’s perceived self importance. The self importance that allows them to go as far we will let them. A new policy, or at least a conviction of some kind, would only affect those cancerous, selfish minded people.

It would not have necessarily been something else. She probably would have went on being a normal depressed teenager until she met a real 16 year old boy and got over him like every other teenage girl. She was slammed with something that made no sense and was not mature enough to handle it. I doubt her peers would have been smart enough to pull it off that believably.

This is just what I think, I think the last comments sent to her were probably from the kids that had access to the account, but she never would have trusted “Josh” if the Parent didn’t create him. The neighbor opened an account purely to slander and deceive a minor in front of her peers, anyone whose made it to adulthood should know better. It is entirely the fault of completely inconsiderate and malicious behavior on the part of an adult against a minor.

And if they did nothing wrong why did they delete the myspace account immediately after she killed herself? Were they trying to hide something or was their mission just over?

I hope the parents take the neighbors to court and sue the crap out of them. Had it been my daughter I would of ended up being arrested for at least attempted murder after I got ahold of the neighbors.

[edit on 21/11/07 by MikeboydUS]

Being 13 is a very hard time for a girl. Trying to fit in and find their place is very important.

Being unpopular and feeling like your peers are the enemy would be a very private hell for a girl of that age.

You can't just play with someone's head like that.

I am very sad for that girl and for the loss her family has suffered.

The internet harrassement might not be the only factor involved but we shouldn't underestimate the need for approval on teenagers at that time in thier lives.

If it leads to suicide then so shall be it be a crime. Murder.


It was predetermined and low this woman needs to go to jail for life. She was older and messing with a 13-year old's mind.

General bullying is just so passe' in any chatroom you go to I believe it strengthens one character to ignore / retaliate. This, on the otherhand was pre-meditated to get to the root of the poor girl's psyche to lead her unto suicide.

General bullying in chat rooms and such is fine imho but one on one pre-meditated focused and repeated bullying is wrong and should be criminal imho.

Where does one draw the line? Who knows but that's my opinion.

Take care and peace,
- Naz

Whoever the "adult" neighbor lady is...

She is very lucky that it wasn't my daughter that this happened to.... because I would open up one serious can of whoop a$$ on that bit*h! I would make it my duty to make her life a living hell!

Just my .02

You know the sad part is that the only reason this other adult talked to this girl was to see if she would bad mouth them. Perhaps there was reason to bad mouth them, some secret.

From what I understand this girl got up from the computer and went to her room and hung herself. Being a adult is being responsible for your actions, being 13 you are not a adult, but this poor girl was IMO driven to do this act by a adult. The adults action led to this poor girls suicide, and they should pay.

From what I understand when the family did find out they confronted this other family and apparently damaged some property, and they were charge by the police for it...this is nutz. I would have done more, thats a guarantee.

This whole family has been destroyed by this hoax/harassment, the parents are getting a divorce, and one of their children are dead, because of the direct actions of another adult. Justice it seems will not happen for this girl or her family, wow and you think you have problems..


Apparently they will be able to sue this other family, but that still isn't justice.

[edit on 21-11-2007 by LDragonFire]

[edit on 21-11-2007 by LDragonFire]

Originally posted by SegaNerd
I agree that the girl could've probably had a better support system with her parents, but I don't think it's right for them to moniter whatever she says. They knew about the relationship she had with the boy...

Relationship... with a "16 year old boy" whom nobody had ever met.

They were lucky it wasn't some pedophile luring their child to a McDonalds somewhere.

A 13 year old girl who gets killed as a result of her unsupervised activities on MySpace is just like a child standing in the middle of a firing range. Yes, if she dies it is the fault of whoever fired the bullet. But when the parents knowingly let her onto the range in the first place, it's their fault too.

Any parent stupid enough to let their child roam free on the Internet, especially MySpace where EVERYBODY knows what happens to children on there, deserves to have their child's bloody corpse handed to them in a pine box.

She died because of negligence, and I hope the parents spend the rest of their lives tormented by that knowledge.

Again where were the parents when this very trouble girl was thinking about committing suicide.

I do not bite into "She stood up and hung herself after the INTERNET harassment".

This was being in the planning in her head for sometime.

So again where were the parents when the sign of trouble started?

I blame the parents first and then the person that made the last drop on this young girl already made up mind.

Originally posted by marg6043
Again where were the parents when this very trouble girl was thinking about committing suicide.

Where was anybody when they think this?? Like parents know what there kids think? They are supposed to be mind readers??

I do not bite into "She stood up and hung herself after the INTERNET harassment".

Yeah it's only their story to tell, to bad it doesn't fit right with you.

This was being in the planning in her head for sometime.

So now your the mind reader, why didn't you stop this.

So again where were the parents when the sign of trouble started?

Most likely going about their hectic life like all parents do.

I blame the parents first and then the person that made the last drop on this young girl already made up mind.

Do you have kids??? to say this is not right.