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Politicians and the Cyber-Bully Pulpit
Regular Slashdot contributor Bennett Haselton has cyber-bullying on his mind; that and the laws proposed to deal with it. His article begins: "The authors of most of the recently proposed anti-cyberbullying laws have been invoking the tragic case of Megan Meier, the 13-year-old girl who committed suicide in 2006 after being harassed online by an adult neighbor posing as a cute 16-year-old boy. Unlike the bluster of politicians grandstanding to outlaw swearing on the Internet, the outrage and frustration of lawmakers in this case is at least understandable, especially after the FBI announced that the family that created the phony profile and caused Megan's suicide could not be charged with any crime. But the focus on Megan's case raises two questions: (a) whether it is fair to invoke Megan in the name of passing the laws, and (b) whether the laws are a good idea in general." Read more below.
For once, the invoking of the teenage victim of online stalking is probably not completely cynical. Sometimes, it is. In 2002, after 13-year-old cheerleader Christina Long was apparently killed by someone she met online, politicians purported to honor her memory by passing the "Dot Kids Implementation and Efficiency Act" to create the .kids.us domain space exclusively for content aimed at children 12 and under. Nobody with an ounce of sense could have truly believed that the existence a .kids.us domain would have prevented Christina Long's death (and certainly not the people who knew the facts of her case, since the police found that she had been actively looking for older sex partners online). In Megan Meier's case, at least the proposed laws are on-topic, and the authors probably really believe they will help. But will they?
Consider two laws proposed by state senators in Megan's home state of Missouri. Senate Bill 762, introduced by Sen. Yvonne Wilson, would require schools to adopt anti-cyberbullying policies. Sen. Scott Rupp has introduced Senate Bill 818, which would prohibit "cyber harassment" defined as conduct which "serves no legitimate purpose, that would cause a reasonable person to suffer substantial emotional distress, and that actually causes substantial emotional distress to that person", with increased penalties if committed by an adult over 21 against a minor under 17. Obviously the Wilson bill would not have applied in the Meier case, since the harassment was not committed by a real school student, but the bill could have still been inspired by an attempt to prevent future incidents caused by real students. The Rupp bill could apply to any teen-on-teen or even adult-on-adult harassment. So what actual effect would they have?
The Wilson bill punts the question by simply requiring school districts to set up anti-cyberbullying policies, but not specifying what would be prohibited or what the consequences would be. This is not to say that the state legislature should have micro-managed what school districts should prohibit, but there's no way to find fault with a bill that leaves the decisions up to someone else. However, any policy that attempts to regulate off-campus conduct would run into constitutional problems, as most cyber-bullying occurs outside of school (since Facebook and MySpace remain blocked to most students).
That leaves the Rupp bill, which is far more detailed, but still less than specific as far as people being able to read it and know in advance what kind of conduct is prohibited. Would it really criminalize any messages sent between teenagers that led to hurt feelings? The bill says that it does not apply to "constitutionally protected activity", falling into the general category of bills that say "This bill prohibits XYZ except that anything protected by the First Amendment isn't prohibited", supposedly so that people can't say the bill violates the First Amendment, but which really means that nobody knows what's allowed. The bill helpfully explains that "such constitutionally protected activity includes picketing or other organized protests", but since most cyberbullying does not take the form of tormentors sending their targets pictures of picket signs reading "ERIC IS GAY", this still doesn't help to determine what is permitted.
But there's something much more worrisome here. The conduct prohibited in the bill doesn't depend entirely on the message itself; it is restricted to content "that actually causes substantial emotional distress". Presumably this seemed like a good way to target the kinds of messages that caused Megan Meier to kill herself, without also outlawing all the other thousands of "You suck and I don't want to be your friend any more" sent between teenagers every day. But consider from the point of view of a message's recipient: At some point in the future, a victim of cyberbullying might know that other cases of cyberbullying have been prosecuted, but only in cases where they caused the victim "substantial emotional distress". So the law says to the victim: You can strike back against your tormentors, you can ruin their lives and let the world know what they did to you, but only if you harm yourself to prove they really hurt you.
And that's the basic Catch-22 of cyberbullying legislation: You can't prohibit meanness that causes someone to harm themselves, without also prohibiting the basic meanness that many teenagers put up with every day — unless you make the crime contingent on the victim actually harming themselves, in which case you've created hugely perverse incentives for them to do so.
I admit I don't have an easy answer either. The National Crime Prevention Center lists tips for teens to deal with cyberbulling: "(1) Refuse to pass along cyberbullying messages; (2) Tell friends to stop cyberbullying; (3) Block communication with cyberbullies; (4) Report cyberbullying to a trusted adult." Sorry, I'm sure they don't mean well, but if you're a teen and your problem is people saying hurtful things about you online to your friends, this is so unhelpful as to probably leave the victim feeling worse. 1 through 3 don't even address the problem, and "report it to an adult"? Most cyberbullying is not illegal.
So I would take the efforts that schools put into preventing cyberbullying — which may not deter the worst bullies, and which could be unconstitutional as applied to off-campus activity anyway — and reinvest them into teaching kids to deal with it: the self-esteem building programs which are much derided as political correctness run amok, but which can be judged a success if they help build resistance to bullying. Above all, put as much emphasis on tracking the results of esteem building programs, as on tracking the results of regular academic programs, so that statistics can be used to determine after the fact what kinds of programs are working best, rather than going in with preconceived notions. Learning how to deal with catty bitches ought to be treated as at least as important as learning the date when the Treaty of Ghent was signed. Out in the real world, there are still catty bitches, but nobody ever asks you about the Treaty of Ghent.
For once, the invoking of the teenage victim of online stalking is probably not completely cynical. Sometimes, it is. In 2002, after 13-year-old cheerleader Christina Long was apparently killed by someone she met online, politicians purported to honor her memory by passing the "Dot Kids Implementation and Efficiency Act" to create the .kids.us domain space exclusively for content aimed at children 12 and under. Nobody with an ounce of sense could have truly believed that the existence a .kids.us domain would have prevented Christina Long's death (and certainly not the people who knew the facts of her case, since the police found that she had been actively looking for older sex partners online). In Megan Meier's case, at least the proposed laws are on-topic, and the authors probably really believe they will help. But will they?
Consider two laws proposed by state senators in Megan's home state of Missouri. Senate Bill 762, introduced by Sen. Yvonne Wilson, would require schools to adopt anti-cyberbullying policies. Sen. Scott Rupp has introduced Senate Bill 818, which would prohibit "cyber harassment" defined as conduct which "serves no legitimate purpose, that would cause a reasonable person to suffer substantial emotional distress, and that actually causes substantial emotional distress to that person", with increased penalties if committed by an adult over 21 against a minor under 17. Obviously the Wilson bill would not have applied in the Meier case, since the harassment was not committed by a real school student, but the bill could have still been inspired by an attempt to prevent future incidents caused by real students. The Rupp bill could apply to any teen-on-teen or even adult-on-adult harassment. So what actual effect would they have?
The Wilson bill punts the question by simply requiring school districts to set up anti-cyberbullying policies, but not specifying what would be prohibited or what the consequences would be. This is not to say that the state legislature should have micro-managed what school districts should prohibit, but there's no way to find fault with a bill that leaves the decisions up to someone else. However, any policy that attempts to regulate off-campus conduct would run into constitutional problems, as most cyber-bullying occurs outside of school (since Facebook and MySpace remain blocked to most students).
That leaves the Rupp bill, which is far more detailed, but still less than specific as far as people being able to read it and know in advance what kind of conduct is prohibited. Would it really criminalize any messages sent between teenagers that led to hurt feelings? The bill says that it does not apply to "constitutionally protected activity", falling into the general category of bills that say "This bill prohibits XYZ except that anything protected by the First Amendment isn't prohibited", supposedly so that people can't say the bill violates the First Amendment, but which really means that nobody knows what's allowed. The bill helpfully explains that "such constitutionally protected activity includes picketing or other organized protests", but since most cyberbullying does not take the form of tormentors sending their targets pictures of picket signs reading "ERIC IS GAY", this still doesn't help to determine what is permitted.
But there's something much more worrisome here. The conduct prohibited in the bill doesn't depend entirely on the message itself; it is restricted to content "that actually causes substantial emotional distress". Presumably this seemed like a good way to target the kinds of messages that caused Megan Meier to kill herself, without also outlawing all the other thousands of "You suck and I don't want to be your friend any more" sent between teenagers every day. But consider from the point of view of a message's recipient: At some point in the future, a victim of cyberbullying might know that other cases of cyberbullying have been prosecuted, but only in cases where they caused the victim "substantial emotional distress". So the law says to the victim: You can strike back against your tormentors, you can ruin their lives and let the world know what they did to you, but only if you harm yourself to prove they really hurt you.
And that's the basic Catch-22 of cyberbullying legislation: You can't prohibit meanness that causes someone to harm themselves, without also prohibiting the basic meanness that many teenagers put up with every day — unless you make the crime contingent on the victim actually harming themselves, in which case you've created hugely perverse incentives for them to do so.
I admit I don't have an easy answer either. The National Crime Prevention Center lists tips for teens to deal with cyberbulling: "(1) Refuse to pass along cyberbullying messages; (2) Tell friends to stop cyberbullying; (3) Block communication with cyberbullies; (4) Report cyberbullying to a trusted adult." Sorry, I'm sure they don't mean well, but if you're a teen and your problem is people saying hurtful things about you online to your friends, this is so unhelpful as to probably leave the victim feeling worse. 1 through 3 don't even address the problem, and "report it to an adult"? Most cyberbullying is not illegal.
So I would take the efforts that schools put into preventing cyberbullying — which may not deter the worst bullies, and which could be unconstitutional as applied to off-campus activity anyway — and reinvest them into teaching kids to deal with it: the self-esteem building programs which are much derided as political correctness run amok, but which can be judged a success if they help build resistance to bullying. Above all, put as much emphasis on tracking the results of esteem building programs, as on tracking the results of regular academic programs, so that statistics can be used to determine after the fact what kinds of programs are working best, rather than going in with preconceived notions. Learning how to deal with catty bitches ought to be treated as at least as important as learning the date when the Treaty of Ghent was signed. Out in the real world, there are still catty bitches, but nobody ever asks you about the Treaty of Ghent.
I feel sorry for the girl, but ultimately it was HER DECISION to commit suicide. You can't blame somebody else for your own actions.... there are a lot of assholes & bullies out there, and learning to deal with them is a part of life.
If the girl has been wiser, she could have
(a) mark the hate mail as "spam" so they'd go straight to trash
(b) ask her parents for help, if she didn't know how to do that
The government is not your daddy. Its purpose is not to raid middle-class neighbors' wallets and give it to you.
The inability/unwillingness to stand up for yourself does not necessitate a new law.
Just think of this scenario:
You begin a conversation with someone, and all of a sudden you start talking politics. The other person completely disagrees with you and decides to completely slam you, saying you are ignorant, and that you should kill yourself.
BOOM, you have a case! You take that person to court and clean up because they say you are a worthless human being. And guess what, they'd probably right!
IMHO, the only way to prevent this sort of thing from happening is for parents to take responsibility for their children's actions and time online. When I was growing up, my parents were very controlling of what I was able to do online (not the the Internet was widespread - it was more limited to BBSs), and they continued this trend with the rest of my siblings (all younger). The end result was that we all had no issues with cyber-bullying, or any other online-related issues. Sure, we all got in trouble for trying to do things we weren't supposed to, but the end result was that we were better people because our parents took an interest in what we were doing and tried to make our time as constructive (read: not wasteful) as possible. So when I read something like this, all I can think is "What is a 13-year-old girl doing on the Internet?" When I was 13, if I were allowed to connect to an online service (I did use Compuserve at one point), I was under direct supervision. I was not allowed to keep my actions secret, and I am grateful for it!
.sig
If so, should it matter that the adult who was seducing this young lady online was a woman as opposed to a man?
One of the consequences of the rapid rise of the internet is the clumsiness of the responses to the problems that have arisen as a result. It also has resulted in responses that imagine new phenomenon in "cyberspace" that aren't fundamentally new. Bullying has been around forever. Bullying on the internet is new only because it is on the internet, there is nothing fundamentally different about it that would warrant coining a new term "cyber bullying," but yet here we are talking about it. Are there laws against bullying or harassment? If so, apply them to these cases, it's the message not the medium. The concept of "cyber bullying" among other fad terms will be looked at as quaint even 10 years from now, much like the panic over rock and roll music in the 50's.
Ceci n'est pas une sig.
How exactly would that fit into any law without being completely stupid and arbitrary? If I'm walking down the street and come upon a scene where someone is threatening to jump off of a building, and I yell "Jump!", and he does, does that make me a murderer? As much as people hate to hear it suicide is not murder and hurting peoples feelings isn't and should never be illegal. P.S. Anyone who thinks otherwise should kill themselves.
If congress is so concerned about bullying, why not crack down upon it in the workplace where researchers estimate 90% (Management Communication Quarterly, 16, 471-501) of individuals experience Employee Emotional Abuse at some point of their employment, often leading to lost productivity and increased healthcare costs, where the vast majority of the time, the abuser continues this behavior after the victim leaves the organization to someone else. (e.g. the project leader who takes it upon himself to become everyone in the group's ad-hoc supervisor and foams at the mouth when he doesn't get his way or his arbitrary, non-enforcable preferences aren't met or is in direct violation of the union contract.) If "sexual harassment" is so illegal an unethical, why not any kind of workplace intimidation of a non-sexual (or non protected-class) nature not illegal in any way?
However, in private civil matters between ordinary citizens, Congress is only doing this (I hope) to win the "please think of the children" vote. I'm truly hoping that they don't honestly believe they are going to actually be able to stop it. This is the 21st century version of "Jamie is a whore" written on a bathroom stall.
Does it suck? Yes. Is the guilty party an asshole? Probably (if it was unprovoked). Does it need big government to save us from the mean kids? No. Period.
Forgive my spelling from time to time. I'm often posting during short breaks.
A girl committing suicide because of something she thinks a "cute boy" boy says to her is not a symptom of communication on the internet being harmful, it's the symptom of a girl that needed help. You can ban all the speech you want, but that's not the real problem. People unable to cope with the insensitivity and general rudeness of others is a problem. We should be moving toward a society were free speech is just the natural order because people are able to deal with trolls and jerks.
I don't say all this to demean or mock the girl in question, I personally know little about her. The loss of human life is always tragic, and thus is natural fodder for bleeding heart politicians. The thing they miss though is the simple definition of the problem. The problem is not that people are generally rude and insensitive. It is that people are growing up in a sanitized world where they lack the opportunity to gain real maturity.
I got a catholic block.
You can't hold someone responsible for what somebody does in response to anothers actions that's utter stark raving bonkers.
It's for the individual to take responsibility for _their_own_ actions.
Boo-hoo, somebody who I don't know, have never met, and will never meet, called me a fatty online! Time to become an hero!
Please. When I was a kid I was fat and nerdy, back when being nerdy wasn't cool AT ALL. I was physically assaulted on a nearly daily basis, and if I had access to a gun, I'd have been the prototype for Columbine. So I have zero sympathy for somebody TYPING something mean. If you're that mentally unstable, the gene-pool is well served by your removal.
Don't mod me down, I may hurt myself.
Blame the parents is the mantra around here, and I agree in many cases. BUT, I don't think it is appropriate in cases where a child kills herself. That said, I think the issue here is about the cyber bullying. We can argue all day over whether the bullying caused her death, but this is not really the point. The question is whether we should allow this sort of behavior? I mean, a grown woman disguising herself as a 16 year old boy and then bullying her? Regardless of the outcome that is screwed up.
The story mentions the fact that the girl suffered from clinical depression and was on medication. I agree, this is not a case where any kind of new law is needed. All that really needs to be done in this case is to out the cold hearted bitch that did this in front of her family, community, church, and anyone else who might care. The fact that the poor girl killed herself is almost immaterial. What everyone should know is that this woman spent a month of her life just to hurt a vulnerable and mentally ill girl. That alone would make any right minded person want to shun any contact with her.
- None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license. -- John Milton
I know it's generally not good to reply to your own comment, but I thought I'd add a little perspective to my comment. The GP seems to be calling for some form of eugenics, which is ridiculous. If you run the numbers, you find that it'll take multiple generations to effect even a small impact on the gene pool; it's an endeavor that doesn't have a good payoff compared to the loss in human life and the effort put into it. In addition, there are environmental and cultural factors to consider that could be changed without stopping reproduction. Also, we've got to remember that eugenics was one of the primary justifications for the holocaust; I know about Godwin's law, but dammit, eugenics is one of the places that Nazi Germany should be remembered.
Feel free to mod me down now.
The Internet, now matter how you slice it, is not a common space to be policed by this judge, or that cop, or those senators. It is a world stage. Any teen can run into mean comments (we used to call it flaming) from ANYWHERE in the ENTIRE WORLD while they are on the Internet.
Enacting legislation against bullying and even cyberbullying is a criminal act in and of itself. The crime? Stupidity.
Sure, the Internet played a part in that teens death. The same way that electricity did!! It was a medium for the messaging.
The crime in this case, if there was one, is that human compassion and common sense did not show through on anyone's part. There is no law against being mean. If there was half our legislators would be in jail, lets not even talk about judges and bureaucrats OR clergy.
You cannot legislate morality. ever. period. Don't give me the killing is immoral and there laws against that. Life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness are in the Constitution. Freedom from mean people is not.
It's all about education people. Educate the children, don't protect them like fragile little dolls that can't take a joke, or they will become that. Explain to them that the Internet is full of mean people, and the (I know you won't believe this next part) WORLD is full of mean people. If your children, friends, or neighbors are unable to deal with life in general, enacting mean-people-suck laws will NOT save them.
In a lot of ways, we have to look at this like the human species is part of the animal kingdom. That old saying 'survival of the fittest' has more meanings than one, and it is the truth whether you think it fair or not. When diseases hit a population, weak and feeble die first. In fact, during any time of stress it is the weak and feeble that die first. There is only one person that is responsible for her death - she is. Sure, others could have helped prevent it, but lets face it, we might as well blame this on all the young boys that didn't want to be her boyfriend, and this did not prevent her subsequent actions.
I am so tired of this kind of political/legislative rhetoric. If you are seriously thinking about this, why don't we all sit down and work out how to stop corporations from being mean too? Life is not fair, get over it. One case does not create a need for law. Now, if you wanted to have the schools start a group counseling session for people who felt victimized by bullies, go ahead. That is a positive step toward helping, not a negative one toward limiting other people's rights.
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Sooo... the parents of a clinically depressed 13 yr old girl were allowing her to roam unsupervised on the Internet (a known-hostile environment)? I guess you must think they bear no responsibility in this tragedy and that it's somehow society's fault?
If I'm walking down the street and come upon a scene where someone is threatening to jump off of a building, and I yell "Jump!" and he does, does that make me a murderer?
No.
But remember you've been pretending to be that persons friend for the last several months, and then back stabbed her, threatened her, and then told her to jump off a bridge. -And- your an adult and that person is a minor... well yeah, I'd say you are guilty of something. If not murder, then something else, because that was a pretty sick and twisted thing to do.
And because your and adult and should know better, and she is a minor and therefore can't be expected to know better (the whole point of distingushing between adults and minors is to recognize that minors aren't always expected to make mature responsible decisions. So, yeah, then you SHOULD assume responsibility for what you've caused.
It seems that people have forgotten about sticks and about stones. Ooooh, they called me a name and insulted me on the Internet. Oooh I care so much.
People seem to want to think that insults hurt, are dangerous, and are destructive. They really are no such thing. Please stop equating insults with bodily harm.
Incidentally, people seem to want to believe that this only exists in children. I run a business, and there are two kinds of clients that I don't get. The first are the ones that hear my pitch, hate my guts, scream and yell at me, tell me where to shove it, and I leave with nothing. The second are the ones that tell me they'll think about it, are very polite, return my folow-up calls with "we're still thinking about it", and never call me ever again.
I love the former group. The latter, the polite group, have me wasting time with follow-ups. The first group end things in seconds that the second group require months to go through saying goodbye. That's the adult business version of offensive speech. I hate it. But damn it's not illegal and never should it be illegal. Can you say nanny state?
You know, I don't like the idea that two people died as a result. But two is not enough to warrant anything but pity. Has anyone checked to see how many lives have been saved by cyber-bullying? How many teenagers have been satisfied by cyber bullying and as a result have stopped short of actual bullying? I doubt it.
Parents are responsible -- they should be teaching their children to not care about verbal insults. "I'll give you something to cry about."
We can debate all sorts of remedies but it comes down to your world view. Your view of right and wrong. My view of right is that you take responsibility for what you do. If you harm someone or create a problem you should become part of the solution.
A bully is not part of the solution. What defines them is passing their own psychological garbage on others rather than finding a way to take care of it themselves. It's cowardly to put it on someone else when you can't deal with it yourself. Psychological strength is a good trait to practice as well.
Making kids "bolster their self esteem" is like telling a rape victim if only she wasn't wearing that provocative outfit. It's not fair but this is yet another "new world". How much grief can you get in for "joking" at a airport security counter? or mouthing off to an officer for having a bad day? But yet we shouldn't focus on the bullies so much as strengthening the victims.
Sorry. Your view point is flawed.
Having, as an adult, to wrestle with cyber bullying of my wife from her messed up ex of 5 years ago (5 #@%&! years ago). Not only her ex but for some reason his wife as well as is quite annoying. It's taken a good year to get balance on these issues of people who spend several hours out of their day trying to weave chaos in our lives from afar. Realizing you have no resources you can call on until they happen to do what they have been threatening to do for years. It's not easy stuff to take. I wasn't looking forward to "living in highschool" now that I'm in my 30's but having to deal with it is very real.
A 5 minute montage or even a call to the cops offers no solution or even support. This is a very real issue. But it lies with the maladjusted not with "the weaklings" who should just grow a pair. Hopefully this poster will gain some perspective of the issue with which they speak.
Any legislation that concentrates on the flaw of the bullies will go much farther than trying to "bolster" the victim. I don't need any more rights, I need more options in how to deal with those who will not take care of their own problems.
The world is achanging and folks who can't see the big picture and how to deal with their own problems will become yet another part of our burgeoning prison population. It's not fair, just tis.
If you really doubt how serious the consequences of this behavior is then feel free to send your own hateful mail to the president or vice president and see who quickly your world turns. If it's good for the leader of the free world, who in theory is simply a citizen, then why it is not good for the rest of our citizenry?
"Don't fear death... fear not living..." -me
Your own sig - "Agent K: A *person* is smart. People are dumb, stupid, panicky animals, and you know it." - contradicts your faith in mob justice.
According to the summary above, the Rupp bill says..."...with increased penalties if committed by an adult over 21 against a minor under 17."
/.'ers -- how old am I? If you say something mean to me on /. that "causes severe emotional distress" to me, do you know if you are flaming someone under 17? For the record, I'm not, but determining that is not always an easy task.
Okay,
Furthermore, people respond very differently to comments other people make. Something that might make me roll my eyes in irritation might be enough to send someone else over the edge. For example, I once worked as an abuse administrator at an ISP. One night, we received a call from a parent who was threatening everything short of bodily harm against everybody they could think of because their teenage daughter had flipped out while reading her e-mail. Apparently, she had opened a porn e-mail without realizing what the message contained. That might make some of us annoyed, or even somewhat angry, but in this case it made the girl borderline suicidal. As a young child, this girl had been raped and the e-mail had essentially triggered a flashback.
Point being that it's essentially impossible to know for certain what stimuli might trigger any given person, particularly when conversing with strangers without the benefit of the feedback we get from body language. The tone of an e-mail or post can be mistaken. Cultural differences can cause someone to take offense at what was intended to be innocent. We can do our best not to offend others, but in an electronic world that does not know national borders, there's no way to be certain that we aren't going to seriously upset our on-line neighbors.
MCSE? No, sir...I don't do Windows. Yes, I am an idealist. What's your point?
It's for the individual to take responsibility for _their_own_ actions.
The child but not the adult?
Insightful? Hell, no.
The woman maliciously targeted a 13 year-old girl with the unmistakable intent to cause emotional distress.
She may very well have known - almost certainly did know - something of her victim's unique vulnerabilities. This was a deeply detailed and extended impersonation. To call it a "prank" is pure idiocy.
In any event, her conduct went far beyond mere negligence, far beyond mere recklessness and irresponsibility as the jury of your peers generally undrestands it.
I see no intelligible reason why she should not be judged legally responsible for the girl's death. The purpose of such a finding is, after all, to take private vengeance and mob violence out of the picture.
There can be no forgiveness for misconduct where there are no consequences for misconduct.
By all account, the parents knew she was clinically depressed and apparently did little to monitor that condition. That's negligence. This girl is a statistical aberration. People get trolled on the internet every minute and don't kill themselves. Mean words and backstabby behavior don't make normal teenage girls kill themselves, otherwise we'd have 14 year olds killing themselves in epic proportions.
We do not need to be making laws that restrict speech, that are based on the idea of protecting outliers who represent the subset of humanity who are depressed from themselves. That way leads to all sorts of really bad things.
Bennett,
You're a geek. You've got above average intelligence and a deep desire to make things, everything, better. You've done some great things so far. You've got more ideas that you're pretty sure will help. You want to share these ideas with the world. Trust me, we all know how you feel. However, the rest of us have little ego blogs and post our ideas there. That way, if they're bad ideas, as they frequently are when one dabbles in fields one only has a shallow knowledge of, they can be quietly ignored. If they're good ideas, someone else can submit it to Slashdot where it will be reported. There are two levels filtering the good from the bad: readers who do submissions and the Slashdot editors. It's imperfect, but seems to work.
You, however, are buddy-buddy with Slashdot's editors, so you skip those important filters. Random Slashdot readers aren't acting as a filter. Furthermore, at last some of the editors are chummy with you, eliminating them as reliable filters. The result: you get an artificial level of visibility and respect that you simply haven't earned.
Please, go post your ideas on a blog like the rest of us. If your ideas are really all that, they'll be back on the Slashdot's front page in no time. If not, you'll just have to learn to live with only being famous for your security and freedom of speech work.
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Physically speaking, a 13 year old is only a few months from being a biological adult. (In other words, capable of making babies.) For all we know, she may have already reached that stage. POINT: You don't treat a young adult the same way you treat a child. Instead you need to teach them how to "get along" in the world, including how to deal with the trash found on the internet, rather than hide from it.
And so:
I'm sure the parents told this young woman many times, "If you need help, or you need to talk about problems, come to us." If she chose to ignore that advice, that's HER fault, not the parents' fault. They made themselves available to help; she simply chose not to go to them.
Don't blame others for your poor choices.
I've been online since age seventeen, but it's certainly not the first time I've been bullied, because bullying happens in the real world too. I was bullied as early as 2nd grade, and I could have killed myself to "solve" the problem, but chose not to. Instead I listened to my parents' advice to "come talk", I told them about the bullies, and they helped guide me in the right direction.
That's what this young lady should have done:
talk to mom and dad about the hate-mail.
The government is not your daddy. Its purpose is not to raid middle-class neighbors' wallets and give it to you.