BlogHer - Technology & Web - Comments

I agree.

Asianmommy — Fri, 16 May 2008 21:22:12 -0500

It does set a precedent, and I'm glad that someone is taking it seriously enough to press charges. In a time when we are exposed to violence and rude language every day on TV, some people seem to lose sight of what's acceptable behavior in this world.

Going to toss...

nelle2nelle — Fri, 16 May 2008 15:29:54 -0500

this url on the board, and then ask a question.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/24670474/

Are we coming to a time when an online site - such as BlogHer - will have core and equired registration information that is standardised by statute, and wilful misrepresentation will constitute a violation of law?

nelle

the more I realize that

nelle2nelle — Fri, 16 May 2008 14:19:01 -0500

the more I realize that technology is not morally neutral.

Technology is a tool we use to interact, whether passively (television) or more actively (like here.)

People will always find ways to use the tools developed to suit their own purposes. I would guess Lori was living in the myopia of her child's world, so intent on satisfying her child's wants that she left her brain away from the keyboard and mouse.

Picture a child who is getting beat up every day on the way home from school. If a parent beats up that child in order to protect their own, well... we won't look very favourably upon that act.

Cyberspace carries so many wonders, including the ability to interact with relative anonymity, that it becomes almost like video game abstract/disconnect. We don't see and feel the real consequences of an action that a real time physical presence all of our senses might otherwise trigger in our minds.

And to compound it all, there is no law against internet surfing and consumption of mind altering substances. So who the hell knows if she just had 4 martinis before acting stupid?

We have to remember to keep our brains relatively close to our actions. We have to remember the whole 'it takes a village' thing. (even if you curse the day Hillary wrote it.) I have a responsibility in society to do no harm to a child.I have a responsibility to mitigate disputes between children and adolescents, not fuel them. I have a responsibility to teach my own children how to interact responsibly with others.

And I wonder... is Lori out there now, pondering why she was so damn stupid and dysfunctional? Lord knows I know that feeling.

nelle

This is why

heivilinj — Fri, 16 May 2008 14:13:17 -0500

"Drew's conduct may have been reprehensible, but state prosecutors in Missouri could not conclude that it was criminal."

This is why I tell people I'm not from Missouri, I only live here.

I read of this when Nordette reported it initially and I'm glad this woman will be made to pay for her Evil behavior. I worry for her daughter and hope that nurture will trump nature and she'll turn out to be a decent person.

Jim Heivilin

Makes me think about the ethics of technology

Ronnica — Fri, 16 May 2008 13:38:35 -0500

I hadn't heard of this story yet. So sad. What kind of a world do we live in that a 13yo kills herself? That a mother of a classmate harrassed the girl? Such a petty thing that had huge consequences.

The more time that I spend learning about the moral consequences of technology (I wrote a paper about the ethics of virtual worlds specifically), the more I realize that technology is not morally neutral. Not all of it is bad (I love blogging, facebook, and email), but not all of it is okay either.

Gossip and Innuendo Goes Viral

Writer-Mommy — Fri, 16 May 2008 13:38:30 -0500

I posted about this story here when I was discussing the boundaries we bloggers have to create when sharing our private lives in the very public manner that is blogging.

I'm glad to see that Lori Drew, an adult and a mother who should have flat out known better, will face charges for her irresponsible and slanderous actions.

What will come of those charges - who knows? No matter what happens to Drew, a child is dead because she believed she had no value in this world. A prison term pales in comparison to the loss of Megan Meier and the the suffering her family will endure for the rest of their lives.

My hope is that there will be more discourse and discussion on the power of words. The right words can inspire and uplift us as humans; the wrong words can erode and destroy our very humanity.

Now, in the age of www.everything, everywhere, all-the-time, we as humans can combine those two opposites - one awesome and one fearsome - with the power of the internet to reach every corner of the globe.

We're treading on new ground...

"The big, bad wolf liveth..."

rocksinmydryer — Fri, 16 May 2008 13:00:20 -0500

Yes. Well-said.

Shannon @ Rocks In My Dryer
www.rocksinmydryer.net
BlogHer Contributing Editor, Mommy and Family

One of the ugliest stories of the decade

nelle2nelle — Fri, 16 May 2008 12:09:44 -0500

There is precedent to be set here, and in more than one way.

Words alone aren't usually sufficient to warrant charges unless libelous or slanderous.

Yet an adult for heaven's sake - a parent - knowingly bullied an adolescent. Excuse me? Would we be kewl with this if she got in the child's face and screamed indignities at them? Can you say 'restraining order?'

In this case, how could one eliminate the contact, when the threat was in disguise? My gosh, the big bad wolf liveth. How could any parent reasonably interfere and protect their child, when their awareness might have been only on a level of peers are mean to peers?

IMO, this opens the door to looking at law from yet another adult/child perspective. We have to presume greater ability to deal with issues, greater knowledge, greater responsibility to an adult. If it isn't already written under paedophilia laws around the nation, we need to address the adult/child interaction on more than just a sexual level. Should it be ok for an adult to *ever* misrepresent themselves to a minor? I think not.

When it comes to being pragmatic and prescient in writing such law, what an incredibly difficult line to invision, to walk. Something tells me we will be setting precedent in this regard some distance into the future.

nelle

Being that cyber-bullying is

lilmommythatcould — Fri, 16 May 2008 11:20:40 -0500

Being that cyber-bullying is new & no clear boundaries have been set up, to me this falls under the idea of common sense law. It is one thing for a young man to do this to a young woman, it is something entirely different for a grown adult and mom to do to a teen.

My daughter is only two and I find myself wondering all the time where do I draw the line between being the mom and being a friend. There is no question here this mom crossed it!

http://lilmomthatcould.com/

I think the hardest thing to

Kel — Fri, 16 May 2008 09:59:54 -0500

I think the hardest thing to accept in this story is that it was a grown woman, a mother, who was behind the acts that led to this girls suicide. In reference to what MindOh! said "what if the boy's identity hadn't been a hoax" then perhaps it wouldn't have been as big of a deal, it would have still been harrassment and cruel and her death would have been senseless but it wouldn't have been done by a woman who should have known much better than that.

Love Etsy

jacquebraun — Wed, 14 May 2008 10:59:52 -0500

After trying our own website (unsuccessfully) to sell our handmade and original items, we thought we'd give Etsy a try. We joined at the end of February and we've been pretty successful so far. We are also looking into selling wholesale, but nothing beats the community there. The sharing of ideas and inspirations has been invaluable. We love Etsy!

www.mostlymagnets.etsy.com

oh no, another one!

washwords — Tue, 13 May 2008 13:45:14 -0500

washy || http://washwords.wordpress.com || washwords.dc@gmail.com

Hi there.. interesting post and new development. I find I am sooo overwhelmed by all the media options / social networking sites out there. eek.

I probably WON'T add this to my blog, for a few reasons, namely

1) While I loved a lot about blogging through google (blogger), when you get advanced and use their draft blogger system and have ANY issue, whether your fault or theirs, you can easily get blogged out for life! my site went "down" and while you are given an error code there's NO person to send said code to, or easy way to find help. That's why I switched to wordpress, which I like MUCH better, except

2) that certain super cool features (like google analytics) and I'm betting this new "friend" thingy don't work on wordpress. Similarly I find google reader about the most cumbersome tricky thing to read regularly and follow. I get sooo overwhelmed by it and it seems like it could/should be easy (what happened to bulletin board threads? that worked great!) .

3) I like to be (relatively) anonymous on my blog, so I don't want to confuse this with my "real" gmail account which is waaaay too easy to do on google.

Don't get me wrong. I love google for lots of things and I HEAR google analytics is great. For me right now though, it's a non-entity.

P.S. Facebook is adding something this week that will let you link your "friends" from other sites (like twitter, myspace, etc etc.) - eek...

washy || http://washwords.wordpress.com || washwords.dc@gmail.com

If you're more interested

Virginia DeBolt — Tue, 13 May 2008 12:05:44 -0500

in contributing good content than in fame and fortune, then adding social networking features to a site might not be anything that would help you with your mission. Good point.

http://www.webteacher.ws/ http://first50.wordpress.com/

I'm a slow adopter

Vered — Tue, 13 May 2008 11:55:12 -0500

So I won't pass any judgment on this, but will wait and see what others are doing, then act accordingly.

It sometimes seems to me that more time is spent on figuring out how to
make money from interaction on line, than on discovering better ways
to interact!

I completely agree. In blogs too, the issue of posting valuable content vs. blogging "for fame and fortune", as Jenn so eloquently put it, is giving me a headache and a split blogging personality.

Vered DeLeeuw
www.momgrind.com

Thanks for pointing out the connection

Virginia DeBolt — Tue, 13 May 2008 08:09:07 -0500

between the "free" services and content we get that are powered by ad money. You know, we've been getting free TV and free radio that way for so long, we sometimes forget that the cost of it has to come from somewhere.

http://www.webteacher.ws/ http://first50.wordpress.com/