Town bans Net harassment following MySpace hoax

Amid continued outcry over the MySpace.com hoax that preceded a teenager's suicide, the town of Dardenne Prairie, Mo., has passed a law banning online harassment.

Although it's only a misdemeanor with a maximum penalty of 90 days in jail or a $500 fine, the law is specifically targeted at the kind of online attack that Meier faced in the days prior to her death last year.

"It is our hope that by supporting one of our own in Dardenne Prairie, we can do our part to ensure this type of harassing behavior never happens again, anywhere," Mayor Pam Fogarty said in a St. Louis Post Dispatch article. "After all, harassment is harassment, regardless of the mechanism or tool."

For those who missed my original posting or the many news reports elsewhere, Meier committed suicide after a falling-out with "Josh," a person she met on MySpace and believed to be a fellow teen in the area. In fact, Josh was the fictional creation of adults, including the parent of a former friend that lived down the street, according to that neighbor's own account in a police report.

Over the Thanksgiving weekend, the community also held a candlelight vigil, organized by Meier's mother.

For more on the community's reaction to the whole affair, check out this Los Angeles Times piece, written by P.J. Huffstutter, a reporter whom I know from my Orange County days a decade ago.

[rdupuy11]

looking for blame

There is misplaced blame here in thinking these parents killed this girl. She killed herself. She had problems with depression. <br /><br />What these other parents did was wrong, but its not the major act of murder, its a minor act of being somewhat dishonest.<br /><br />A real 16 year old boy probably would not have behaved exactly in this way, but he could have dumped her...he could have certainly been dishonest too. She may have killed herself, in any event.<br /><br />I feel sorry for everyone involved, but the town is overreacting and its a great shame on them, that they behaved in this way, instead of keeping above the fray, and acting with some reservation.<br /><br />We are a country that imprisons more of its own population, per capita, than any other country in the world...this is not the answer, it does no good. It destroys more lives.<br /><br />Shame on that town, for wanting to destroy another families lives, and with full knowledge they are solving nothing.

[GadgetDon]

The other parents deserve blame

What the parents did was cruel. Whether they intended the girl <br />to kill herself or not, it was harrassment, it was the creation of a <br />scam with the single and sole purpose of hurting a young girl.<br /><br />And I say "whether they intended" because their behavior since <br />the girl's death has been at least as bad as the act itself. At a <br />minimum, they owed the girl's parents a deep apology and <br />expressions of remorse.<br /><br />Shame on the ones who created this cruel hoax. And further <br />shame on them for not taking responsibility for it.

[bottomline]

Blame People Like You

So if this girl was on a ledge and these adults kept telling her to jump, that is "somewhat dishonest?" You say "she had problems with depression" so apparently it was known by the adults she had issues and it's ok to exploit them? Obviously you have never had kids and if you do, with your mentality, I am sure they enjoy the "no one gets hurt" practice of child pornography.

[nicmart]

Twisted morality

I don't think that your comment deserves a retort. Your sense of <br />morality is so twisted that I wouldn't want you as a neighbor, <br />either.

[nedmorlef]

children are vulnerable to mental manipulation

this is why you are wrong. I agree the prison system is over run but, that is because it's full of non violent potsmokers. whose only crime is their choice of poison,medicine or relief. <br /><br />people that manipulate little minds for their own sick desires deserve to be burned at the stake. <br /><br />little girls are especially vulnerable. i'm a former single father of a female child and i know from having a house full of little girls for many years that they can be quite "psychotic" when they are not loved. when their parents get caught up in chasing money and careers their needs get left behind. so they reach out to who ever is attractive to them.<br /><br />just as grown men who have sex with little girls, even consensual,are preying on a weak and vulnerable mind. that's why there's a law.a girl without loving parents,especially a father are likely to seek masculine attention elsewhere. <br /><br />what these people did was akin to putting a frog in a pot of water and slowly turning up the heat. then laughing because the frog didn't choose to jump out of the hotter and hotter water. the frog boils to death. they still killed the frog. murder is murder.<br /><br />even with an adult you can push them over the edge with psychological manipulation. the police kill people every year with their managed agression techniques. <br /><br />they find someone that is depressed and lonely then, they play their games until they snap. then it's perfectly legal to pump 68 bullets into them and call them a criminal. that's essentially what these adults did.<br /><br />if that were my daughter i wouldn't physically harm them. as hard as that would be to do. i would make an effort to give them some of their own medicine. a well placed pair of panties or a used condom could cause a lot of marital strife. think about it numbskull.

[sjoh]

@rdupuy11 <- YOU

you made me sick! you must be 16 years old boy and don't know anything about parent-hood! well, get off the computer and go out more often and make real friends.. please!!

[inachu]

All the blame is the wife who did this.

I wonder what the husband of the wife who did this thinks.<br /><br />If I was him I would divorce her.

[etroyer68]

remember Virgina Tech

It is abuses like this that happen to teens that lead to school shootings. To purposely hurt someone like this is very irresponsible. Doing it after the Virgina Tech shooting and all of the reports saying that things like this are part of the reason there are school shootings shows that they are part of the problem.

[Andy kaufman]

Yeah I recall reading

that the Cho boy was harassed at high school, then college, and then over the Internet. When he couldn't take it anymore, he went on a shooting rampage against the teenagers he claimed harassed him, and then shot himself.