A Missouri woman accused of contributing to a teenager's suicide by creating a fake MySpace account to taunt the girl pleaded not guilty in federal court Monday, according to Reuters and other media sources.
After she was implicated in the hoax aimed at harassing a teenage neighbor, Lori Drew of the St. Louis area was charged with conspiracy and accessing protected computers without authorization to get information used to inflict emotional distress.
The case captured the attention of the blogosphere and the world.
The story first broke in Drew's hometown paper, the St. Charles Journal, a year after the October 2006 death of 13-year-old Megan Meier.
It was a twisted tale of an adolescent girl who was tricked into believing a boy she met on MySpace was her boyfriend and was then crushed when he turned on her. The article said that one night comments by "Josh Evans" became increasingly cruel, and his statement to Meier that "the world would be a better place" without her may have led to her suicide that evening.
Prosecutors say Drew was behind the fictional MySpace account, which she created to find out what Meier was saying about her daughter. The girls had experienced a recent falling-out. Drew was a family friend of the Meiers' and was aware of the teenager's battle with depression, according to reports.
When the story hit national airwaves, angry bloggers got involved, outing Drew's name, address, and phone number on the Internet. While the online community fought their battle against Drew, Missouri prosecutors discovered there was no state law that applied to the case.
Now, state and federal legislatures are working to make so-called cyberbullying a crime. Although state laws didn't apply, Drew was indicted by a federal grand jury in May, months after MySpace and other witnesses were subpoenaed.
Drew will stand trial on July 26, and if convicted, could face up to 20 years in prison.
Lawmakers and Internet executives are perking up to the growing problem of kid bully fights on the Web.
Legislators are newly arming themselves with laws that will protect kids from being repeatedly harassed via the Internet, text messages, or other electronic devices. In recent weeks, Rep. Linda Sanchez (D-Calif.) and Rep. Kenny Hulshof (R-Mo.) proposed a federal law that would criminalize acts of so-called cyberbullying (PDF). And Missouri Gov. Matt Blunt was scheduled Friday to sign into state law a similar measure, but the event was postponed because of inclement weather in St. Louis.
Both state and federal laws were prompted by the suicide of Missouri 13-year-old Megan Meier, who was the victim of repeated harassment on MySpace.com. An adult neighbor was indicted in the case last month by a grand jury in Los Angeles not on charges of cyberbullying, but on charges of unauthorized access of a computer system with intent to harm another person. (Missouri litigators said they didn't have a law to prosecute the case at the time.)
The case has raised national awareness around the issue of cyberbullying.
"When you see adults preying on kids, we're learning how significant the risks are," said Parry Aftab, an attorney and founder of the nonprofit advocacy group Wired Safety.
Parents, teens, teachers, and Internet executives also came together this week to hash out issues of digital fights at Wired Safety's International Stop Cyberbullying Conference, a two-day gathering in White Plains, N.Y., and New York City. Executives from Facebook, Verizon, MySpace, Microsoft, and many others talked with hundreds of teens and parents about how to better protect kids online from harassment.
In general, the conversation among these groups is moving from a focus solely on sexual predators to the everyday harm that kids can inflict on each other in chat rooms, social networks, virtual worlds, or via text message. Researchers say that anywhere from 40 percent to 85 percent of kids have been exposed to some kind of digital bullying, whether it's a stolen password or being called "fat" via instant message.
Even in adult-monitored virtual worlds for kids, children have been known to get around dictionary controls by naming a virtual room after a peer that he or she wants to ridicule, e.g., "Mary is fat." And while calling someone "fat" is not a crime, parents and legislators are trying to prevent the behavior before it leads to tragedies like Meier's.
"It used to be that adults would pooh-pooh bullying as a phase, but we're seeing increasing violent actions resulting from it," Sanchez said in an interview.
"The problem with cyberbullying is that kids aren't even safe in their own home, because they're being harassed through the computer or cell phones 24/7 potentially," she said.
Lawmakers are seeking to address cyberbullying with new legislation because there's currently no specific law on the books that deals with it. A fairly new federal cyberstalking law might address such acts, according to Aftab, but no one has been prosecuted under it yet. The proposed federal law would make it illegal to use electronic means to "coerce, intimidate, harass or cause other substantial emotional distress."
When signed, the Missouri state law will update existing regulations on harassment and stalking to include instances of those acts over the Internet, text message, or other electronic device. It will make cyberbullying punishable by up to four years in jail.
Stopping harassment
This week at an Internet conference, Scott Arpajan, founder of kids' virtual world Dizzywood, backed up this notion. He said that more than sexual predators, the company needs to watch out for cyberbullying in its growing community of 8 to 14 year olds. Dizzywood hires outside moderators to keep an eye on interactions among children.
"The biggest thing is keeping kids from getting in fights," Arpajan said.
Middle-school kids and teens said this week that they want more technology and response from adults and Internet companies when it comes to these issues, according to Aftab. At the conference, which hosted as many as 200 teens, kids said they want to be able to report instances of cyberbullying online and not have them "go into a black hole." Teens also said that they want Web sites to write easy-to-understand terms of service and privacy policies. That could mean creating policies that are animated or graphical.
To the consumer electronics industry: The teens also said they want new and better tools to stop harassment on cell phones. That would include buddy lists that block anyone besides approved senders from reaching their text message in-box.
As for the industry, more groups are creating Internet safety programs for K-12 kids that address bullying. Microsoft, for example, is sponsoring the Anti-Defamation League's program to train teachers, students, and parents on how to stop cyberbullying. Google also recently sponsored an Internet safety guide from Common Sense Media.
Sites like MyYearBook and Facebook have hosted pages that call on teens to pledge against cyberfighting, in honor of Meier. Wired Safety's group of teen Internet safety volunteers put a page on MyYearBook and there's a similar page on Facebook.
Tina Meier, the mother of Megan, said that change has to start with the kids, but parents need to talk more to their children. "The biggest thing I tell parents is to communicate and know what's going on with their child. They have to know what apps they're using and be on those sites," Meier said.
The school bully isn't necessarily that oversized, physically intimidating kid anymore.
Humiliation by words has become just as popular--if not more so--as children's social lives have migrated online.
Patricia Agatston, a licensed professional counselor and consultant on the Olweus Bullying Prevention Program; Robin Kowalski, professor of psychology at Clemson University; and Sue Limber, director of the Center on Youth Participation and Human Rights at Clemson University, have written a book on the topic.
Cyber Bullying: Bullying in the Digital Age comes out Nov. 14.
The authors of Cyber Bullying: Bullying in the Digital Age, which comes out November 14, interviewed approximately 150 middle and high school students during the spring and fall of 2006. Aside from their own first-hand research, the book includes a plethora of statistics from leading academic researchers covering cyberbullying and real-life bullying around the world.
For example, the most popular medium for cyberbullying in the U.S. and Canada is the Internet, but in the U.K. and Australia it's the cell phone.
The authors also determined that unlike real-life bullying, there is often no witness or physical scar to alert parents or teachers to a cyberbullying situation.
But the biggest problem with cyberbullying is that children will not report it. They try to deal with it themselves for fear of being cut off. Many times parents will overreact and punish the victim by forbidding them to continue using things like instant messaging, blogs, or a social network, according to Agatston.
If parents want their children to come to them, then they need to discuss expectations ahead of time and let their children know they're not going to take away online privileges if something goes wrong, she said.
Agatston recommends parents encourage their children to start exploring their online identities in middle school so they can learn the proper way to behave and gain their parents trust as they get older.
"Instead of saying, 'No you can't have a social networking life,' let them have one as long as they follow some ground rules, such as sharing their password. Later, if you as a parent can't get in, then say 'You've violated your agreement,' and take away rights temporarily," said Agatston.
One positive thing about cyberbullying compared to the usual schoolyard variety is that parents, educators, and counselors have better luck getting through to the parents of bullies.
Usually the parents of bullies have a "kids will be kids" response. If there is evidence available, seeing a record of the actual words their child used makes it harder for parents to stay in denial about their child's bad behavior, said Agatston.
And while educators often like to say that what doesn't happen within their realm is not their concern, cyberbullying can really affect the school day. The school community could be a good place for parents to gather and learn how to supervise their children's online lives, said Agatston.
Children will be able to get around their parents' boundaries technologically, if the parents don't understand the tech. By the time they get to high school, many children know how to get around common filtering and blocking software, according to Cyber Bullying
So where do middle and high school students go online to socialize these days? Agatston says it's constantly changing. When she started her research it was Xanga, then the trend seemed to move to MySpace and now it's all about Facebook.
"You are trying to catch moving targets sometimes, but the dynamics are all the same, it's just which piece of technology happens to be popular at the time," she said.
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