On July 2, a federal judge overturned guilty verdicts rendered by the jury against Lori Drew, 50, who was accused of participating in a cyber bullying scheme against 13-year-old Megan Meier, who later committed suicide.
This case demonstrates why we need federal laws to stop cyber bullying, harassment and abuse.
The facts in the case were agreed upon even by Drew. She set-up a MySpace account under an assumed name, “Josh Evans,†that was used by her daughter and an employee to harass, bully and abuse 13-year-old Megan Meier. It is not clear what other actions Drew took to use or promote the use of the site. After many attacks on Megan, the fake identity eventually encouraged her to commit suicide. The three perpetrators would not admit who sent that message.
While that sounds straightforward and obviously wrong, and most people react with outrage, there are no Federal laws to prevent such attacks. Since there are no laws making the cyber bullying, harassment and abusive actions of Lori Drew, her daughter and her employee a felony, prosecutors had to bring weak charges based on unauthorized computer access under the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act.
Despite difficulties in stretching the application of these laws to cover the cyber bullying, a jury found Lori Drew guilty of three misdemeanor counts in the case. However, the judge overturned the jury and acquitted Drew of the charges. Some of the arguments for the defense were:
- The three bullies didn’t know the terms of agreement for setting up their MySpace account because they hadn’t read the MySpace contract they agreed to.
- Stretching the laws to cover their actions could set dangerous legal precedents.
Even though we can follow the legal arguments, the sense of outrage still remains.
This situation makes an obvious case for the need for strong Federal anti-cyber bullying laws. If there were clear laws and stiff penalties against, for example, using sites to defame, embarrass, harm, abuse, threaten, slander or harass third parties the case against the three people would have been different. In addition, we must not offer people anonymity or secret identities to attack other people online.
Of course these laws would infringe on free speech and some people’s desires to create secret identities online. Which is more important, protecting adults and children against anonymous attacks or free speech?
In the case of the suicide of Megan Meier, had Lori Drew’s daughter accosted Megan in person, laying forth whatever complaints she had, saying whatever vindictive and nasty things she wanted to say, the situation would have been very different. Megan would have been able to face her accuser. She would have known her accuser’s personal agenda. She could have argued or ignored the attacks. But online attacks through a false identity are a very different matter.
Of course lawyers debate legal precedents. But we all know the protection we’d want against anonymous people who put signs or graffiti on our homes or burn crosses on our lawns. We clearly see the need to regulate these actions, even if they aren’t direct attacks with a deadly weapon. Cyber bullying, harassment and abuse require the same regulation.
Lori Drew and her attorney are trying to drum up sympathy for her. They say that she’s had to pay legal fees and move from Missouri due to the publicity and anger her family has faced. They may not have envisioned the final consequences of their hoax, but once we go down the pathway of harassment, bullying and abuse, we can’t control the results.
As parents, this case also should make us question our children’s use of social networking sites like MySpace. I always recommend drawing firm lines that encourage face-to-face friends and prohibit virtual friends, who, by definition, aren’t real friends.
Resource Cited: http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2009/07/drew_court/
Ben Leichtling, Ph.D. is author of the books and CDs “How to Stop Bullies in Their Tracks,†“Parenting Bully-Proof Kids†and “Eliminate the High cost of Low Attitudes.†He is available for coaching, consulting and speaking. To find practical, real-world tactics to stop bullies and bullying at home, school, work and in relationships, see his web site (http://www.BulliesBeGone.com) and blog (http://www.BulliesBeGoneBlog.com).
8 users commented in " Judge Acquits Lori Drew in Cyber Bullying Suicide Case "
Follow-up comment rss or Leave a TrackbackWell said Ben.
The bottom line is that something needs to be done. If it comes down to a matter of laws being created, well, just look in the mirror for someone to blame. The self-esteem movememnt, helicopter parenting, and general lack of concern for anyone but ourselves has paved the road for bullying to get as bad as it has.
Something needs to be done…
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Use PC Pandora computer monitoring software to keep your kids safe from Internet predators, cyberbullies and other threats online (www.pcpandora.com)
We do not need more laws that limit free speech. It would be helpful if all adults acted like adults and stopped bullying in their tracts, but this idea is against human nature.
The best thing we can do is shame these adults for their absolute stupidity and moral obtuseness, which appears to have happened in this case.
A local community website devoted to all adults who condone bullying might be helpful for the shame effect.
But consider the idiot vice-principal in the recent Supreme Court case who had a student strip searched based on the word of another little girl. The student was an honor student who had never ever been in trouble for anything, but the word of her ex-friend caused her to be strip-searched.
Is this not bullying? Did the responsible adult participate in this bullying? If this vice prinicpal had used actual adult rational judgement would the strip search been necessary? I think not. Remember this is an adult, who you would assume, since he works with children everyday would understand the minds and motives of children. The bigger question is why is this adult still employed by his or anyone’s school district. I wouldn’t hire him for any job that required mature judgement and understanding of pre-teen and teenage children.
The huge cost of defending the lawsuit to the school district has not affected his employment status. The local school board and the town appear to approve of his superior moral ethics and knowledge about pre-teen and teen-age children, since he is still employed. He actually broke no laws, but his actions only encourage more bullying by his students.
What law can possibly be passed that outlaws adult stupidity?
Bullying and even harassment or not… free speech is free speech. The real question that should be put to the test is why an emotionally distraught young girl was allowed to use the internet unsupervised and without guidance from her parents? Why is it that THEY are not being held 100% accountable for their daughter’s actions? If their daughter had caused direct harm, physically or financially, to another person… it most certainly would have been her own parents who were held accountable. Why is this not the case when the young girl hurt herself?
What if someone’s honest opinion to someone else is “you should just kill yourself”? Obviously, people should use some modicum of self control in expressing themselves, but on the other hand, they have every right to state an opinion as nicely or harshly as they desire regardless of the content of their opinion or any actions it may directly or indirectly cause. It is, after all, just an opinion. Words are not weapons, and individuals on the receiving end of a verbal attack are not without the ability to ignore, rather than empower, any words they may hear. We have laws against violent crimes for good reason, but I believe this is just nonsense, as it is not the users’ responsibility to babysit children, that responsibility should fall firmly and solely on the child’s parent(s).
I fail to see anything but relevance between this girl and the many, many teenage suicides that happen every year. I myself was feeling suicidal at one point in my life, and many of my peers in fact suggested I “should do it”. They were kids, just like I was, and can’t be expected to have the “right words” for my unique situation anymore than the internet at large should be. Had I done it, how in the hell would it be anyone but my own(and my parent’s) fault if I had? Not everyone is a caring emotional crutch for the public at large, nor should we be expected to be either.
Really, I don’t think children should be allowed on the internet anymore than you would allow them in an adult bookstore or bar/lounge. If you do allow it, it’s *at their own risk* and any results, no matter how benign or horrific, should be considered a result of that risk. If someone dies in a skydiving accident, should we charge the pilot/charter service with murder despite the fact that the death is a result of taking a huge, well-documented risk?
The internet is a place free of most restrictions and is really not, never has been, and probably never should be for children. I don’t want to see that changed either. Free speech and reason should prevail over this “the internet is our babysitter and the babysitter killed our baby” rubbish. If a parent is not willing to allow their children to be subject to the risks of using the internet, then the child should be forbidden from using the internet. Simple as that.
The real problem is that most parents themselves don’t even realize the full, unbridled power of the net, only what they know of the handful of sites they personally use. If you don’t seek out the bad stuff on the internet, you could last quite a long while without ever knowing half of the stuff that is even out there.
What a shame that a beautiful girl was convinced to commit suicide. This mother and her daughter look like hogs, obviuosly they were very jealous. They should have to wear their clothes backwards for ten years so everyone knows what they did.
Hi Ken,
Maybe if Megan Meier’s mom had PC Pandora she’d have seen it earlier and been able to protect her daughter.
That would have been good.
Best wishes,
Ben
Sorry Rebclay,
Shaming doesn’t stop real predators. They don’t care; they’re convinced they’re right.
We still need the laws to stop bullying parents like Lori Drew. Her shame hasn’t stopped her from fighting to avoid any consequences.
Only stopping bullies with good laws, well-applied stops them. New bullies will sprout up, they always have and always will, but at least we can get the ones we know about.
Of course there are over-reactions like the principal you pointed out, but that’s not the fault of the law. That’s the fault of the vice-principal – lack of judgment so bad he shouldn’t be a vice-principal.
Laws aren’t made to work cleanly in 100% of the time. If they work 90% of the time, that’s a miracle. But we need them for that 90%. Because people have free will and will continue to do stupid things.
Best wishes,
Ben
Hi Jebadiah,
Yup. Adults going after kids is always ugly. Kids going after kids is also. Including what Megan Meier might have said and done.
Lori Drew elevated it from an ugly kid fight into terrible adult-going-after-a-kid fight.
Best wishes,
Ben
I read a post above and felt sick at my stomach. Freedom of speech is the weakest defense a bully could ever use. With every action is a consequence. If you say slander an adult in 90% of the cases it is a crime,unfortunetly when it comes to children those laws don’t apply since their is no loss of money. If you verbally attack someone in public it can be simple assault or peace disturbance. SO the proverbial freedom of speech truely doesn’t exist even for adults,and for children it is even worse util laws are passed to protect them especially from adult attacks And without those laws then you will see more violence IN schools and with parents having to take the law into their own hands and that isn’t solving anything. Another thing to consider is civil cases as well eg. verbal abuse from a parent can warrant family services to remove a child from the home to keep the child from being emotionally damaged to the extent that they will take their own life to escape the abusive words. You said you was suicidal at one time but didn’t go through with it. Studies and psychologist will tell you that most people that announce they are suicidal are only asking for attention because they are lacking in something in their life because most that are truely wanting to take their own life don’t announce it, because if that was the case then their would be no suicides. I am thankful you didn’t take your own life I would hate to hear anyone doing such a thing. I would also be willing to give up my freedom of speech in order to save a childs life because you never know the child you save may be your OWN.
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