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Woman Indicted In MySpace Suicide Case
longacre writes "The Associated Press is reporting an indictment has been handed down in the sad case of Megan Meier, the girl who committed suicide after receiving upsetting MySpace messages from someone she perceived to be her boyfriend. It was later determined the boy, Josh Evans, was a fictitious identity created by a neighbor of Meier's family. Lori Drew, of a St. Louis suburb, has been charged with 'one count of conspiracy and three counts of accessing protected computers without authorization to get information used to inflict emotional distress on the girl.' Interestingly, despite the alleged crime having occurred strictly in Missouri, the case was investigated by the FBI's St. Louis and Los Angeles field offices, and the trial will be held in Los Angeles, home of MySpace's servers. Wired is running a related story about the potentially 'scary' precedent this case could set."
If you can get punished for inflicting emotional distress, I guess Vista really was illegal...
Really I do not think theres anything scary about what will happen in this case. An adult should be semi responsible for there actions.
How can an adult feel like toying with a young girl with an over self conscious image of herself when they live near them?
I can understand that there could be other circumestances when this could be scary but in this case i thought it was just HORRID what the person did.
Mod me a troll if you want. But i think most people when they read this case realize that what that person did was wrong. And i believe that in most circumstances driving someone to suicide is a crime. I don't care if you say that the person was to emotional, thats a reason that you should be semi understanding and not go out of your way to mess with them.
You're not giving the whole picture.
This was an emotionally abused kid who, because of various problems, was unable to make friends at school. Haven't most Slashdotters been there? Then, she turns to someone online in search of companionship. That person, for months, is her best -- and only -- friend in all the world, commiserating with her, sharing her deepest, darkest fears, and generally being with her in a way that her parents (for all their good intentions) can't be.
Then, in the blink of an eye, it's all taken away. The friend is revealed to be someone malicious, someone manipulative enough to string out this child for months at a time before pulling the rug out from under her. She's now left alone, with no one to turn to. I've never (thank God) been that alone in my life, but reading her story makes me understand school shooters all the more. Eventually, she reached a point where the only thing left to do was escape -- permanently.
This isn't a suicide issue. It's an abuse issue. There would be no suicide in this case without the willful, malicious intent to construct a false friendship created by a knowing adult. There was no reason for it. This was murder, plain and simple. Who knows what Ms. Meier might have done with her life. She could've become a doctor, a pilot, or even a Slashdotter. But we'll never know.
I think that prosecuting this case in this way is shady at best, and liable to be used as a precedent for something that people here will be up in arms about.
Then again the woman in question _CANNOT_ be allowed to get away with what she's done. I'm sure that there is mental health legislation that can be used to put her out of circulation for a very long time. The fact that the prosecutors in the state where this happened decided that they couldn't chase this speaks more about their competance than anything else.
This woman deliberately waged a premeditated campaign of psychological violence against a vulnerable child that ended in her suicide and they think that there is no reasonable chance of successful prosecution? What rock did they find these incompetant idiots under...?
'Don't worry' said the trees when they saw the axe coming, 'The handle is one of us.'
If the perp had have been a man, he would have been arrested. More importantly, we're not talking about a 13 year old harassing another 13 year old, we're talking about a 40-odd year old woman who knew the victim deliberately crafting a fake persona and instigating it into her life. Knowing that the target - a child - had mental issues, this deranged pathetic excuse for a human being nevertheless persisted in her campaign to deceive the child, involving as many of her own daughter's friends as possible.
This is one of the most twisted things I have heard, and your logic echoes that of the sociopathic, fat, middle aged woman who felt the need to do this "I don't feel bad about this because she had issues with depression".
The woman deserves what is coming, and I will laugh happily every time I hear her family has suffered misfortune - losing their business, pulling their daughter from school and hopefully soon being forced from the community. She acted without remorse and deserves to suffer consequences.
Would the situation be any different if it weren't a hoax?
What if Josh Evans really existed, and was true to what was spoken? Because then it would be a freedom of speech issue.
You're again assuming that everyone makes choices like a robot and has a completely unclouded judgement and complete freedom of will all the time. Have you ever been experienced people slipping into clinical depression (and I don't mean feeling somewhat "blue" or "depressive", but the real thing) ? They're not acting like the person you've known anymore. Same goes for many other psychological disorders. Scrap the notion that the human brain is a perfect, computer-like decision-making machine all the time. It's not.
Except half of slashdot didn't create the profiles to terrorize a little girl and cause her to kill herself. In this specific case, a life was lost because of the actions of this woman.
Not a Twitter sockpuppet... but I wish I was.
I'm not sure I'm saying it properly, but it seems to me that this is going beyond calling somebody nasty names into an entirely new game. The case apparently centers on the manipulation of a minor through cold-blooded deceit and willful misrepresentation. It's the difference between beating somebody up during a fight and torturing a helpless prisoner.
I'm not sure a law covering something like this wouldn't wind up being a cure worse than the disease. However, if this woman actually did what she's alleged to have done, she's a sadist at least and probably a sociopath. People like her wind up getting caught with dead people chained in their basement.
I've calculated my velocity with such exquisite precision that I have no idea where I am.
Sorry kid, but you have a lot to learn about life. The older you get, especially if you have kids of your own, the more you will understand how wrong you are about this. A child - and trust me, a 13 year old is still a child - doesn't have the emotional stability, strength of character or experience to rationally make the kind of "choice" you're talking about. The human brain continues to physically develop sometimes as late as age 25. I stroggly suspect that you are still developing, too.
A brain can do all sorts of bizarre things; thinking that suicide is a good idea is only one of them. Thinking that there is no value to human life is another. If you really do believe that the sanctity of human life is baseless, I can only feel sorry for you since it's the cornerstone of the family, society, civilization and the species.
Megan was deliberately manipulated by an adult. She was set up like a bowling pin. The person who CHOSE to do so knew what buttons to push so Megan would fall all the harder. I could do the same to a 13 year old by the same methods, but I CHOOSE not to do so, since not only do I value human life, but because I thoroughly understand and *respect* exactly how emotionally fragile a 13 year old can be. The basis of morality is understanding the difference between when you *can* do something and when you *should* do something.
What happened wasn't murder but there was deliberate intent to harm. It's an abuse case that deserves to be prosecuted because it ended in the child's death. All this is cut and dried. The really scary thing is the way it's being prosecuted.
I have mod points. The reign of terror begins now.
Genuine question. Why not?
I was on the receiving end of a somewhat similar attempt to drive me to suicide when I was in my teens. It's far too long to explain on slashdot, but I had a middle-aged guy threatening and abusing me, while convincing others that my mental illness was making me delusional. (It wasn't, I'm a neurotic, not a psychotic.) I did much later find out that it was deliberate. After he died, one of his friends admitted to being a bit disturbed about "the time they made that freak off himself". (I aten't dead. But I did basically just walk out of the city and become homeless for a while.)
One thing I have carried with me ever since then is the utter certainty on the part of everyone who knew about it that he had no responsibility for what he did whatsoever. As long as the violence was mental, and not physical, all the responsibility was mine.
What I have carried away from that, is that the human race is a cold and savage race. I can count the number of friends I have on one hand without using binary. Only when I am alone am I safe.
Nonetheless, I have never been able to find any convincing argument why someone is responsible for the way another person reacts to their behaviour. Every argument I've ever presented as to why what was done to me might be wrong has been shot down.
So, on a personal level, I'd like to see one of these self-centered bitches face some consequences for what they've done. I just think that the only reason it's happening is because there was a media frenzy manipulating people into it, not because people believe there was anything inherently wrong with what she did.
The worst thing is that you can't see what he's done to you. Mental abuse is abuse just as bad as physical - the scars may not be so obvious but they are there, and harm to the body fades a lot quicker than harm to the mind. His abuse of you has caused you to cut yourself off from an essential part of being human - our community.
Trust me, I know what I'm talking about - after suffering horrific bullying at high school I went through a phase for about 4 years where I withdrew to the point that the only people I talked to were my family and only them if they badgered me into actually interacting with them.
'Don't worry' said the trees when they saw the axe coming, 'The handle is one of us.'
I hate it when people pull that shit. "My childhood was so rough, no one else has any room to complain." My childhood was hilariously rough, I mean like a joke. You name, it I had it. Seen a parent killed in front of you? Check. Have an alcoholic parent? I had three counting various step parents. Broken home? See above. Physical abuse? I got shot by stepfather #2 when I was 13, and it didn't even seem that bad in comparison to some of the other stuff.
I didn't come out of that thinking everyone who didn't have it rough was a pussy. I've seen people completely ripped up by stuff that I saw so commonly it wouldn't have even registered.
Everyone takes things differently. Some people will fold under a hit that other people won't even notice. That's just a fact, and there's no special virtue in being the sort of asshole who can just shrug it off. In my own case it makes me extremely angry when someone goes out of their way to smash up someone who can't take it.
In this case there is no question that this girl was intentionally persecuted, and that that persecution lead to her death. Obviously she wasn't mentally tough, but that doesn't mean those who persecuted her deserve to get off.
ad logicam Claiming a proposition is false because it was presented as the conclusion of a fallacious argument.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
This hits close to home, as my sister-in-law is mentally ill and unable to properly care for herself, so she is currently living with my wife and me. And her parents absolutely do not understand that this is a real illness -- they have repeatedly told her that she just needs to "snap out of it" and pull herself together, and that she just needs to exercise some willpower and stop feeling the way she does.
And of course every time they have a conversation like this she is left in tears and feeling completely worthless, which is great for somebody that's going through some serious problems to begin with. She has repeatedly said that she wishes she had some kind of gaping wound instead, because at least then people would take it seriously.
Mental illness can be frustrating -- I'm frustrated with her myself sometimes. But I have never doubted for a second that she is truly ill, and she is taking her meds and going to therapy and everything else she needs to do in order to get better. And it's working; just not quickly enough for her parents, evidently.
ZFS: because love is never having to say fsck
"It takes a village, and when that village fails it needs to be prosecuted."
And preferably burned to the ground, as an example to all the other villages.
trolling is like taking a paper bag of crap and throwing it into a crowd and revelling in the screams if disgust
1. its anonymous, not personal
2. its temporary and short
3. its done amongst a group of equally aged and emotionally mature people
4. the target is a crowd of people, a community, not a single person
what this evil woman did is more like stalking: purposefully targetting and manipulating one person over an extended period of time
furthermore, most disgusting, this was the actions of an adult against a child. there is no understanding of trolling that assumes that an adult is picking on children
and to go even further into disgust, the adult KNEW the child had emotional and suicidal issues when she set about this plan of decpetion and emotional manipulation
so this case cannot set a precedent against trolling
it can only set a precedent for:
1. prolonged one-on-one stalking
2. manipulating the emotions of a minor
3. manipulating the emotions of someone you know to be suicidal or otherwise emotionally fragile
all of which, in fact, deserve to made criminal
this is not just trolling, what this evil woman did
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
"I can sue you because it's Friday. All I have to do is show why it being Friday hurts me, and why I think it's your fault, and it becomes an actionable 'offense'."
You could certainly try.
Such a case would lack "standing" http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Standing_(law) (since I didn't "make" the day: "Friday") and other tort requirements. The case would be thrown out or summarily dismissed and you'd be left vulnerable to a counter suit for frivolous litigation http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frivolous_litigation. By me.
You'd probably lose, too.
Yes, Yes, I understand your point about there being too many lawsuits. Do you think Ms. Meier's family would be frivolous to sue here?
uR iGn0ranc3, Their Power