Megan Meier, MySpace, Bad Parents and Sick Adults: When should cyberbullying be considered a crime?

This morning, BlogHer Karoli (Life in Odd Time Signatures ( http://www.drumsnwhistles.com/ )) has a heartfelt post, drawing on her own family's destruction, on Lori Drew's character. ( http://www.drumsnwhistles.com/2007/12/05/lori-drew... ) She also recommends that we read danah boyd's post on Overprotective parenting and bullying ( http://www.zephoria.org/thoughts/archives/2007/12/... )

Deceiving children is problematic to begin with, but doing so by tapping into their emotional weaknesses is outright deadly. At a gut level, Lori knew that she could capture Megan's attention by creating a male character that showed interest. In other words, Lori knew how to manipulate Megan's attention and emotions. She capitalized on that knowledge, self-justifying it as responsible parenting. She knew how to have the "perfect" relationship with Megan, to gain her trust. This is knowledge that adults have because we've had our mistakes and learned how to negotiate social interactions. The reason that Megan's relationships were so fraught was probably not because she was evil but because she and her peers were struggling with how to appropriately interact with one another. It's clear from Megan's reaction to Josh that she was fully capable of positive interactions in a social context not strife with miscommunication and the confusion of school status. If she were truly as messed up as Lori assumed her to be, she would not be capable of this.

The take-away message: if you are a parent, look in the mirror. Are you doing too much for your child?

Liz Ditz
I Speak of Dreams ( http://lizditz.typepad.com )
More Joy in Your Family ( http://lizditz.typepad.com/more_joy_in_your_family... )
lizditz@gmail.com

First of all, i feel sad... just sad.

It goes beyond my understanding that these kind of persons even exist. I mean... how can you get so far in life and be able to do that? Do you have no heart? How can anyone do this and still be able to act like nothing happend.

second,

Its hard to have an opinion because you simply dont know who you are talking about, but ill give it a try.

i dont think it was a bad thing letting Megan have a my space account, even though she was a fragile person. When closely monitored it can even be a safer place to socialize. Simply because you dont have direct contact with your connections. Its easier to say no and its easier to neglect mean people. Also , as mentioned before, myspace was a positive factor in Megan's life. She found someone who she could talk to and share her feelings with...someone who was really nice to her.

The parents of Megan do NOT share ANY blame. How can you protect your child from such evil. Thats what it is, pure evil. Who in their right mind would ever spend so much time in destroying a 13 year old girl life?

I dont think we should judge the victims, we should judge the offenders of our morals and our dignity. They might not have violated the law, but they violated the dreams and feelings of a young child. I could not imagine a bigger crime then that.

We cant do anything to the people who have done this and we shouldnt. Let them be and lets hope that everyone knows what they are like now. Life will deal with them.
We should however think of ways to prevent this from happening ever again. But then; Why did this happen again?

I guess im lucky i dont know........

I read those words and it makes my skin crawl. I live near the community where this has occurred, and the neighborhood has been picketed, the home vandalized, laws passed without thought.

We'll have to disagree Nordette. I wrote my thoughts ( http://burningbird.net/technology/cyberstalking-of... ) on all this public shaming in my own space.

I think everyone in the media and public should not lose sight of the fact that a 13 year old girl will not have the opportunity to grow up and liver her life. We will never know what kind of contribution this girl would have made to our world.

It is sad that the internet has the ability to exploit our deepest fears and feelings. We should all treat it with more respect and responsibility, especially where our children are concerned.

This family's tragedy is a learning experience for us all. Unfortunately!

Jenn

Jennb's Blog ( http://meaninglessrandomchoiceofwords.blogspot.com... )

I didn't comment on the specifics of the case or disagree with Nordette, as I don't know the specifics of the case well enough to do so. I think you may have confused me with another commenter.

Thanks!

Laurie

odd time signatures ( http://drumsnwhistles.com ))

You know, webloggers suck when it comes to a true sense of justice

It's unhelpful to respond to what you perceive as a misrepresentation of facts with a sweeping (and offensive) statement that couldn't possibly apply to all of the millions of bloggers. Any possible value in your correction is lost in your tone. This is why I don't understand angry comments. What is the use?

But to your point about Megan's parents, you're right that parents don't always understand social networking sites, but it's so difficult to police adolescent behavior, especially on something so widely available and popular as MySpace. Want to freak out an emotionally fragile child? Take her MySpace away. I'm not a parent, but it seems like a pretty hard gig to me. The blame should rest squarely on anyone above the age of reason who toyed with this child's emotions. You can always go back and blame, but the triggers came from people who didn't have her best interests at heart, bottom line, first or second mother, or whoever it was. That's left to the courts to figure out, not bloggers or anyone else.

Hopefully Nordette's post has alerted many, many more parents to the dangers that can exist, if they weren't already aware of them, because people need to pay attention. That's the real service here, I think.

Laurie

I stand by what I wrote, and when I wrote it I knew from reading the story by Steve Pokin that a second girl was involved, another person's child and a neighbor of the family who created the fake page, which is why I made the following comment at the end of the post:

The parents of Megan's former friend involved their own daughter as well as other people's children in tormenting Megan ...

My post gives a thumbnail sketch of events and does not misrepresent Steve Pokin's story. If anyone wants to read the details they can read his well-written article, as I suggested.

Who wrote the last comment does not relieve the mother/parents who created the fake MySpace page of their responsibility in Megan's humiliation, and whether they admit they wanted to humiliate her or not, the fact is that they did. Adults with healthy psyches would have known better than to get involved in playing such a so-called "joke" on a young girl.

As for what Pokin's story tells, it makes it clear that the daughter of the woman you call the "second" mother was invited to join in "the joke." Steve Pokin calls the mother who blew the whistle on the fake page the "single" mother because she did not wish to be identified, and according to his account, this single mother's daughter feels tremendous guilt for adding the last comment that Megan saw on the screen that told her "the world would be a better place without you." Despite her guilt and according to Pokin's account, her mean message was not the only disturbing message Megan received before she took her life.

Megan received other troubling messages from the fake Josh before that one comment submitted by the guilt-ridden girl, and that girl did not say she was responsible for writing all the comments.

Before Tina could get out the door it was clear Megan was upset. Josh still was sending troubling messages. And he apparently had shared some of Megan's messages with others. (St. Charles Journal ( http://stcharlesjournal.stltoday.com/news/sj2tn200... ))

Another bit of information that one can gather from Pokin's story is that the mother who created the fake page called the girl you mention and asked her to keep the fake MySpace account a secret.

"She had been encouraged to join in the joke," the single mother said. ...

The single mother said her daughter feels the guilt of not saying something sooner and for writing that message. Her daughter didn't speak out sooner because she'd known the other family for years and thought that what they were doing must be OK because, after all, they were trusted adults.

On the night the ambulance came for Megan, the single mother said, before it left the Meiers' house her daughter received a call. It was the woman behind the creation of the Josh Evans account. She had called to tell the girl that something had happened to Megan and advised the girl not to mention the MySpace account. (Pokin's story ( http://stcharlesjournal.stltoday.com/news/sj2tn200... ))

Asking people to keep a secret to cover up this type of ugliness is a sign that the mother who created the fake page knew that what she had done was wrong.

There is absolutely no way, in my mind, to defend the actions of the mother/parents who started the page, and given the course of their actions and the result, no purpose you may attribute to their actions justifies what they did. If anything, that these parents involved other people's children makes their deeds more abhorrent.

Furthermore, that it was a "single" mother, someone not responsible for the page, who came forward and reported the activities of the mother who started the page is a fact in favor of the single mother and not beneficial to the mother/parents who created the fake account. The parents who created the fake page would have preferred no one knew they were behind the page. Why is that? If they felt nothing was wrong with starting the phony page or its purpose, then why try to hide it, why call the "second" mother's daughter and ask her to not mention the page?

You say that no where did they say that they wanted to humiliate Megan, yet the other girl involved seems to have been persuaded that it was some type of joke. These types of jokes, in my experience, fall into the category of mean-spirited mayhem. If the originating mother's only purpose was to find out what Megan was telling other people about her daughter, then why involve anyone else? Why not keep it between her and Megan?

But more importantly, as I ask in the post, why impersonate a 16-year-old boy at all? Why was this grown woman so involved in the social lives of 13-year-olds? Why was she encouraging petty behavior, the same type of behavior counselors and teachers try to minimize in schools?

Finally, while I clearly disapprove of the actions of the parents involved in creating the fake MySpace page, the title of this post is not "justice for Megan." It asks the question when should cyberbullying be considered a crime? If you don't believe that the Megan Meier's case falls into the cyberbullying category, then that's fine. I think it does.

Nordette Adams ( http://www.blogher.com/blog/nordette ) is a Contributing Editor with BlogHer.org.

How can you link to a story and then misrepresent the facts in that story?

It was a second mother who blew the whistle on the account, and whose daughter wrote the ugly stuff before Megan took her life. It wasn't the parents who originated the account. What they did was wrong, but there was no indication anywhere that their purpose was to humiliate the young girl. They created the account to snoop on what Megan was saying about their daughter. I would say their daughter, and their daughter's friend did what 13 year olds do -- act like assholes.

Frankly, Megan's parents have to accept some responsibility -- an emotionally fragile child should NOT have a MySpace account. Still, they may not have known MySpace well.

In other words, we don't have the whole story on this one. I prefer to hear all sides before I get out the tar and match book. And especially before destroying other families in some outraged blogger lynch mob.

You know, webloggers suck when it comes to a true sense of justice.

My 13-year old daughter has had a blogspot blog for 2 years. I headed off any MySpace requests by setting her up on Blogger and letting her blog there. She really doesn't like MySpace much anyway, so it hasn't been an issue, but truthfully, I would have been inclined to allow her onto MySpace with parental control similar to the Meiers. I don't want her to be afraid of the Internet -- I want her to be a power user. At the same time, i would have handled it just like Christina Meier did -- by monitoring what was going on and approving friends, etc.

MySpace is the shopping mall of this generation, the social milieu that they like and understand. I think disallowing MySpace (especially when 13 is the COPPA age) is probably not the best route.

Maybe the real question is why Lori Drew was allowed on MySpace? Obviously she lacked the maturity to handle it properly or appropriately.

karoli (odd time signatures ( http://drumsnwhistles.com ))

My first instinct was to rip Lori Drew's tiny little head off. Instead, I wrote a blog post ( http://www.drumsnwhistles.com/2007/11/23/megan-mei... ) about it.

Beyond the obvious misconduct in normal circumstances, Lori Drew took advantage of a kid with depression and ADHD and hurt her in the most obvious way she could. To me, it's child abuse and should be prosecuted as such.

karoli (odd time signatures ( http://drumsnwhistles.com ))

I don't really have anything to add, but as I'm reading this story in the St. Louis Post Dispatch, I'm shocked nothing is really being done. Cyberbullying should indeed be a crime. That this was an adult, not the actions of another teen is deplorable.

Available Light ( http://kathy-p.blogspot.com ) & Five Dollar Radio ( http://fivedollarradio.blogspot.com/ )

Nordette, thank you so very much for writing about this and bringing it to the attention of so many people.

What happened to Megan is devastating and I still cannot believe someone's mother did this. It's sickening and I truly hope the parents of Megan's former friend receive some sort of punishment -- jail time....something. It's wrong for them to get away with such a horrendous act.

Dana J. Tuszke
The Dana Files ( http://thedanafiles.com )
The Dana Reviews ( http://stuffreviews.blogspot.com/ )
Belly Hungry ( http://bellyhungry.blogspot.com/ )

"Underage on MySpace" -- sounds like a 20/20 shocker piece.

Personally, I think that even at age 14, the MySpace-eligible age, young people would not be prepared for a malicious campaign against them, but I hope the older they are, the better they can handle drama created by immature souls.

I understand the question you have, but Tina Meier is already going through guilt for agreeing to let Megan have a MySpace page mere months before her 14th birthday, and I can tell you have compassion for parents, the Meiers. Sadly, according to the St. Charles Journal story ( http://stcharlesjournal.stltoday.com/news/sj2tn200... ), the Meiers may be heading toward divorce due to the strain of grief on the marriage exacerbated by Tina Meier's guilt.

Nevertheless, it sounds like she closely monitored Megan's access. The young teen couldn't get online unless one of her parents accessed the Net for her or at least accessed her MySpace account.

You're right, Mir. It's a cautionary tale for all parents, driving home concerns and fears most parents have--we can't protect our children every minute of every day. Thank goodness it's not usually other mothers we have to protect them against.

As for letting her meet a boy they knew nothing about, I think it goes back to this idea that "people online aren't real," but as Steve Pokin's piece is entitled "A real person, a real death," we see that our perception is what counts. Josh Evans was real to Megan and he did "real" damage.

I think that if we don't have the time to check up on who our children talk to online or if it's against our parental philosophy to check up on our children's "friends," then perhaps we shouldn't let them be online.

But I think Tina and Ron Meier thought they'd taken all necessary precautions and were giving their daughter some leeway. Tina checked what "Josh" was telling her daughter and it didn't seem to be unseemly. If Tina's a nice person herself, then I bet it never crossed her mind that this unseen person whose words seemed so nice could turn vicious.

I asked my son (because my memory's fuzzy) how I monitored him online before he was 14. He told me that I used something called "NetNanny" or the parental controls in my firewall/privacy software :-) I remember having a rule that he could only talk to people from school. But would I have been able to protect him from a neighborhood parent impersonating someone else?

I still can't get around the impersonator being an adult who chose to harass a child.

Mir, it took me a while to crank out a post on this one. The case is unsettling and bizarre. After I first read the St. Charles Journal story, I just closed the computer and stared into space. I didn't have words.

Thank you for adding to the discussion.

Nordette Adams ( http://www.blogher.com/blog/nordette ) is a Contributing Editor with BlogHer.org.

... reading through the news sources related to this story, why Megan's parents allowed her to use MySpace at 13 even though the legal age to have an account there is 14.

Please understand: I have NO desire to put any blame on these already grieving parents. As Professor Kim has already said, it seems like there has to be laws and consequences for people like Megan's tormentors -- although how one goes about that is the question we're now facing -- and I'm not looking to detract from that aspect of this case, at all.

My point is only that I think there's a cautionary tale here, too, about what we allow our kids to do online. MySpace use was so prevalent amongst this underage set of kids that Megan's parents felt okay letting her use it, letting her meet and become involved with a boy whom they'd never met. What can we learn from that, as parents?

There is no end to how tragic this story is. Thanks for covering such a difficult topic, Nordette.

--
Mir from WCS
(BlogHer Mommy & Family contributing editor)

Personal: Woulda Coulda Shoulda ( http://wouldashoulda.com/ )

Having it all with less: Want Not ( http://wantnot.net/ )

It's hard to get past the horror of what these adults did, especially when you know how emotionally fragile teenagers can be, and you know the incredible devastation that occurs when a child commits suicide. I have struggled to wrap my mind around what could possibly have possessed these people to do something so cruel and duplicitous. The newspaper account makes them seem incredibly callous and self-absorbed -- the mother''s claim that she didn't feel guilty because she'd "heard" Megan had tried to kill herself before. I can't fathom what lesson the perpetrators' daughter must be drawing from all of this.

It seems obvious that it ought to be illegal to harass someone the way the creators of the fake "Josh" account did. And yet, how would you craft the law? You can't make laws to suit a special case; you have to recognize that they will be applied more broadly.

There's no evidence that these people intended to drive Megan to suicide. although common sense would tell most of us that this kind of harassment would have that outcome. Even so, it's not like yelling "fire" in a crowded theater, where you can almost certainly predict that you will create a panic. Even Megan's parents didn't anticipate that her response to the online messages would be so extreme. So the law could end up regulating speech without regard to intent -- which has thorny First Amendment implications.

And Myspace allows the creation of accounts with fictitious identities. That's why companies can have accounts, and for some people, iit's part of the fun of online role-playing.

Aside from all of that, it seems to me that the answer lies beyond the law. I don't know how you legislate decency and compassion. The adults who concocted this hoax -- and apparently induced children to participate -- have a seriously defective moral compass. That community needs to come together to figure out how to ensure that its young people don't get mixed messages about how we are to treat each other, especially in times of conflict.
Kim
BlogHer Contributing Editor ( http://www.blogher.com/blog/kim-pearson )|Professor Kim ( http://professorkim.blogspot.com )|

I saw that too, Prof. Kim:
The newspaper account makes them seem incredibly callous and self-absorbed -- the mother''s claim that she didn't feel guilty because she'd "heard" Megan had tried to kill herself before. I can't fathom what lesson the perpetrators' daughter must be drawing from all of this.
Like you, I was stunned by that comment attributed to the adult perpetrator, a woman with children of her own. It seemed to me that she thought Megan was someone you could cross off the list of viable humans or something because she may have been suicidal in the past (Megan's mother says that's not true). And then the audacity of the woman to think she has the power to make such a choice!

What does her own daughter learn from this indeed? Based on the plot against Megan, the only thing the mother seems to be teaching her is how to indulge sociopathic urges.

This story touches on many areas that deserve study and scrutiny about our society's attitudes: how we feel about and treat the emotionally disturbed; what we tolerate when it comes to child abuse; are we making progress in teaching our daughters not to measure their value by whether or not a male likes you; and simple civility. I'd like to think that people like the mother and father who committed the deception are rare among our species, but I suspect the human capacity to be cruel is in surplus.

The mother seemed to be motivated by some sense of avenging her own daughter for something Megan may have said or done. Definitely malicious intent is a factor, and you'd think there'd be some legal recourse for Megan's family, but as you ask, what kind of law could be written to bring justice in similar cases?

I've wondered about the father who went along with the plot. Did he know about the conspiracy before it started or after the fact? He's been mentioned, but it sounds like the mother was the mastermind and instigator. Perhaps she's a frustrated former, mean girl ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mean_Girls ) who still operates as though she's in high school. Most parents, I hope, work to discourage this type of horrible behavior ( http://abcnews.go.com/Primetime/story?id=2421562&a... ) in their children not facilitate it.

Thanks for brining the story to our attention, Prof. Kim.

Nordette Adams ( http://www.blogher.com/blog/nordette ) is a Contributing Editor with BlogHer.org.