A small suburb of St. Louis has been making national headlines the last few weeks, regarding a teenager who committed suicide after being emotionally harassed on MySpace.  The story goes something like this: 

A 13-year-old named Megan wanted a MySpace page.  All the kids are doing it, dontchaknow.  Now she had some emotional issues, and had even previously attempted suicide.  But her mother allowed her to have the page, which she monitored closely.  All seemed well.  Then Megan met a 16-year-old boy on MySpace named Josh. 

 He just recently moved to the area and was being home schooled.  He was very nice to Megan, which spurred her self-esteem and confidence.  Then one day, he told her that someone told him that she was a mean person.  He wouldn’t tell her who, and was not very nice to her himself.  She tried finding out from other people she knew on MySpace, many of whom were quite nasty back to her.  People were saying things about her, like how she was fat and she was a slut.  Some of these comments were being attributed to Josh.  Getting more distraught, Megan again turned to Josh to find out why he suddenly turned against her, and he told her “Everybody knows who you are. You are a bad person and everybody hates you. Have a shitty rest of your life. The world would be a better place without you.”  Megan then went and hung herself in her closet.

Sounds like the end of the story, but that’s only the beginning.  Turns out there was no such person as Josh.  You see, Megan had this friend, Sarah Drew, who lived 4 houses down the street.  The families were friendly with each other.  Megan and Sarah had a falling out, as teenagers are wont to do.  The Drew family had a home-based business selling advertisements, like you get in your mailbox.  An 18-year-old female employee of the Drew’s named Ashley created a fictitious MySpace page with Sarah, with the approval of Lori Drew, the mother.  They did so with the intent of trying to gain the confidence of Megan, and see what she might be saying about Sarah behind her back.

Eventually, Sarah and/or the Drew employee Ashley gave the password to the “Josh” MySpace account to anther teenage girl, who sent out messages (as Josh) saying that Megan was mean and that Josh didn’t want to be her friend anymore.  Ashley logged into the account and sent some nice messages to Megan, and Megan responded, wanting to know why Josh was suddenly being nice again.  The employee then started sending out negative messages, as Josh, to Megan as well.  After a flurry of messages with other “friends” on MySpace, which were largely negative, Ashley sent the “world would be better off without you” message that prompted the suicide.

The story gained internet traction mainly from the fact that nobody was charged with any crime in conjuction with the suicide.  Lori Drew, the mother down the street, was on record with the police as having “instigated and monitored” the Josh MySpace webpage, as well as sending messages on it.  She even said in the official police report that the communication “turned sexual for a 13-year-old.”  Yet this stellar Mother of the Year is not liable for anything, according to the county prosecutor.  In fact, the county prosecutor says there was never any sexual content in the MySpace conversations.  I guess Lori Drew just likes making up incriminating things about herself on official police documents??  I guess an adult female posing at a potential boyfriend to carry out an online relationship with an underage female is ok?  Think if it was a male that did that to an underage female!  He’d be properly labeled a child predator and probably be headlined on Dateline.  Lori Drew was quoted as saying that when she found out that Megan had tried to commit suicide before, she didn’t feel “as guilty.”  What a saint.  It remains to be seen whether or not this is actually her blog, but from what I’ve read about the case, I wouldn’t put it past her.

And how about Lori’s daughter Sarah.  That her mother, supposedly a grown, responsible adult, would condone and even participate in such actions doesn’t give you much hope for her.  And the 18-year-old employee, Ashley?  Well according to the county prosecutor, they have never interviewed her.  Seems she’s been hospitalized and is under psychiatric care.  There appears to be a plethora of lives lost and ruined in this story, perpetuated by an adult who has no remorse and no regrets.  Truly sad. 

Why “internet harassment” is not legally harassment is something I don’t understand.  According to the prosecutor, the Drews did not start the Josh MySpace page with the “intent to cause her emotional harassment.”  But the fact is, that’s what happened.  Just because that supposedly was not the reason that the page was created shouldn’t absolve any responsibility for what happened.  The 4 people who shot and killed Washington Redskins safety Sean Taylor are being held responsible for what they did.  Even though in that case the police said “They were certainly not looking to go there and kill anyone.  Their obvious motive was to go there and steal the contents of the house.”  But what they intended to do doesn’t absolve them for what they did.  Why does it in poor Megan’s case?

I have to say I’m not looking forward to the day when my kids start wanting MySpace pages (or Facebook or whatever will be trendy in a few years).  You hear a lot about social networks these days… heck even the Xbox Live service is starting to get into the act.   But all of that isn’t always rosy.  Treat others how you would like to be treated, whether it’s face-to-face or online.  The world will be better for it.