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MySpace Suicide Charges Threaten Free Speech
Naturalist recommends a piece up at Ars about a friend-of-the-court brief filed by the EFF, CDT, Public Citizen, and a group of 14 law professors in the case of Lori Drew, who posed as a teenage boy to harass another teen online, eventually driving her to suicide. (We've discussed the case a few times.) "[The amicus brief argues] that violating MySpace's Terms of Service agreement shouldn't be considered criminal offense under the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act. The groups believe that if the mother, Lori Drew, is prosecuted using CFAA charges, the case could have significant ramifications for the free speech rights of US citizens using the Internet."
The facts in this particular case point to a truly twisted individual, but this individual is unable to be prosecuted for major jail time under current, non "novel" interpretations of law. The proper thing to do is to note this case, and realize the perpetrator is not guilty of a felony, and create a new law to handle this case, rather than trying to find some way to twist the law to put this person in jail "for something", which will open the floodgates of abuses.
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in my opinion. You do not have the right to torment an individual like this anymore than you have a right to yell "Fire" in a crowded theater or "I have a bomb" in an airport. AT some point, the safety of others does override your right to "free" speech.
There should be nothing that compels this case to be brought up under ANY modern legislation pertaining computers. Computers and social networking were the means of the harassment... this does not mean there are any new concepts here.
Harassment and emotional abuse can be performed in person or over the Internet, and I've got to imagine that charges for wanton malicious actions against a minor will have much stiffer penalties than a simple ToS violation.
I don't mean to be too jaded here, but it doesn't much sense to me to be bringing an uncertain case against someone with a new law, unless the prosecuting attorney is seeking a landmark decision to put on a resume.
Certainly there must be a better choice than a new law when the actions of one lead another (esp. a minor) to suicide?
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You clearly don't have kids - most teenagers these days won't let their parents into their life. Not because the parents are bad, but because society (advertising?) encourages teenagers to be self-sufficient and live their own life.
Sometimes, all the parents can do is be supportive and listen when their kid doesn't want to talk. If the kid won't talk to his/her parents... what did you want the parents to do? Tie them up and force them to speak?
Anyways, my point is that Good Parents don't always have good kids. And parents (unfortunately) can't always get their kids to open up and talk to them.
I guess your mom would kick you out of her basement if you were rebellious, so I can't expect you to understand.
The girl's family should sue this woman in Civil Court for the wrongful death of their daughter. The burden of proof is much lower in civil court than in criminal, and they could ruin this woman for the rest of her life -- which is a hell of a lot more than she deserves, because she still gets to draw breath, but their daughter doesn't. And there daughter would still be alive today if not for this woman's depraved actions.
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If someone harasses you IRL, who do you blame? The... air that carried their words to your ears?
No, you blame the person who's harassing you, which is exactly what's going on in this case. Like it says in your own quote, the case is against the woman whose harassment drove this girl to suicide, not the web site she used as a medium.
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There are plenty of laws that prohibit harassment. Here is an experiment you can try right in your own town/city. Go down town. Find some old lady walking down the road, and follow behind her calling out "fucking hag", "stupid bitch", "go die", as loud and as often as you find it within your power of free speech. No do this for most of the day, randomly switching out people (try to find the most pathetic persion you can, elderly, children, invalids, etc..) You'll quickly learn that there are plenty of laws that prohibit this type of behavior.
Besides, have you even bothered typing "harassment laws"?
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The point isn't that the lady said bad things that drove a kid to suicide, or that the lady used the internet to do it. The lady should be subject to ordinary liability for that--just like any person who did the same thing on the street, or in the mail, or whatever. That's not the issue.
The issue is the terms of service agreement! That thing you click on and ignore so many times. That thing you send phony information so that the corporation doesn't get too personal on you!
If you type in phony information, (FRAUD, daddy), and then hurt somebody's feelings while on the account procured by fraud, the Federales can prosecute you for a crime. Think about the slippery slope this affords . . .
You gotta love the ingenuity of those federal prosecutors!
This is Slashdot. I bet 90% of us here would have come into contact with bullying or emotional harassment. Sure we've gotten our own back, but when you're a kid things are different. While I think the OP is being a little insensitive, I don't think you can draw a line from "Internet boyfriend acting like a dickhead" to "Ok I'm going to commit suicide".
Suicide is not a natural response to bullying, especially when that's not even face-to-face, which is what we experienced. If it was, most of us wouldn't be here. Either the girl had other problems which lead to her suicide (likely) or she was simply mentally unstable. In either of those cases the medium through which the straw that broke the camels back travelled is not relevant.
You have the right to say anything, and be heard, however, what you say can get you into trouble.
If you don't like the war, and you protest, and make speeches that the war is bad, and that you think the president is mistaken, that's protected under the freedom of speech.
If you don't like the war, and you protest, and make threats against the president, then you will be held accountable and the threats will be taken seriously.
If you are a psychiatrist whose job it is to help people through emotional problems, and you tell your client - you're fucked up, chances are that not only will the patient not get better, but you will be sued, and if something happens to the patient, like suicide, then chances are you will be prosecuted in some form or other.
If you are a normal person, who, by using a false identity, abuses someone or their character in such a way that it erodes their self-esteem, sense of self-worth, sense of self, to such a degree that they commit suicide, then you are most definitely guilty of abuse, both mental and emotional abuse, and should be held accountable as contributing to the death of said person.
This would be the case regardless of the technology used. The only thing this technology granted was a sense of anonymity that was properly given up due to the bizarre circumstances of the case.
If you were to stand at your fence in your backyard and belittle the child-next-door, calling them names, worthless, pieces of garbage, day in and day out, chances are you'd be faced with at least a law-suit if not a visit by the police. Why would doing this over the internet be any different? Should someone who intentionally abuses another person be protected just because they used the internet to do it? Should they expect a right to privacy or anonymity just because they tried to hide their identity before making those actions? I don't think so, and would hope that you wouldn't as well.
Who is general failure, and why is he reading my hard drive?
The internet does not grant magical anti-emotion powers.
Of course it does. What happens on the Internet stays on the Internet.
You just got troll'd!
Even if this adult perpetrator knew she was unstable? You must've had it rough. I didn't have any adult bullies in high school, just the stupid jock types my own age.
However, if violating the TOS is the only charge, as the summary suggests, then I reluctantly think she should be let off.
Those are my principles. If you don't like them I have others. -Groucho Marx
She didn't know it was an adult bullying her. And it wasn't even a "stupid jock type" in a school environment. It was someone acting like a douche bag via text. Words.
My point is that kids get bullied everyday. Face-to-face. They get abused emotionally, physically. That's not a good thing. It's a terrible thing. But it happens, and only a small proportion actually kill themselves. This girl apparently killed herself because someone she'd never met was writing bad words about her. Bullying is not good and it's not acceptable. I'm not that it is. But it's also foolish to pretend that this one particular case is all that's needed to make someone commit suicide.
That's why I think there were other problems with this girl - be they other forms of bullying at school or some kind of mental illness. If the real problem is bullying or mental illness then THOSE are the issues that should be argued about and debated in the media and in Parliament/Congress. Not things like MySpace's Terms and Conditions.
Imagine your whole life is changed because you met one girl. Everything you thought mattered is irrelevant, and the only thing you want is to be with her, and take care of her. You get comfortable, it looks like you can make it happen, you work so hard, she smiles, she laughs. You start to realize you never really knew joy or happiness, and that you truly understand what life is about now.
That happens to millions of people. Yeah, it hurts for a while, but you either move on, or you get so caught up in yourself that you keep dwelling in something that happens to everyone.
Your life is now nothing. The pain is massive. Emotional pain can strip you of everything; no form of physical torture can compare. It will consume and destroy you; if it passes a certain point and you DON'T kill yourself off, you'll be left a hollow shell incapable of really recovering. You'll live a life lost, where everything seems pale and insignificant, incomplete, and you smile at the simple things when you can but still find no satisfaction in the finer joys of being alive.
What? You're joking, right? That's pretty self-centered, ain't it? To compare something so temporary with actual torture, to say that something so common will take all joy out of your life. If what you say were true, NO ONE would be happy.
When someone's already having emotional trouble, and is going through a hormonal/emotional development stage, and is lacking emotional growth experience to cope, they're ripe for crafting this exact situation. Probably not enough to really trash their life if they survive it, but enough to make it obvious to them that life isn't worth living right now.
No. If someone really kills themselves over that, they were either raised to think they're the only human in existence, or there is something else massively wrong in their lives. I'm not trying to sound cold to the girl, but as far as I can tell, suicide is caused more by self absorption that this 'pain' you speak of. Either way, the parent poster is correct; suicide is not a natural response to bullying.
I think the point is that an adult with a fully developed brain deliberately set out to screw with a kid. Kids may do the same, but they're unlikely to be as competent at the manipulation because they don't have the perspective provided by experience and maturation of the brain.
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Yes that's also a problem. And she should probably be charged with harassment or something like that. But she isn't. Instead we're setting stupid precedents with far-reaching ramifications that won't do anything to stop bullying or punish bullies.
Seriously, my only point has been that the problem is bullying. Let's focus on that. If there isn't a criminal charge for the pre-mediated and long-term harassment of a child by an adult then there should be. Deal with that problem before screwing up things you don't understand.
And she should probably be charged with harassment or something like that.
There's an old legal axiom that, "hard cases make bad law." This was a hard case in that an adult deliberately harassed a young girl and that harassment caused a nasty result. Since everyone was up in arms against her behavior, which was apparently not within any state or local laws, the prosecutors stretched to find anything that they could charge her with and thus satisfy the "somebody needs to do something" contingent. However, if this charge continues, the bad law will set another precedent to strip another bit of freedom from the rest of us.
It seems like most of the replies here aren't fully informed about the issues of the case and are looking at the "free speech" in the subject the wrong way, so here's a brief overview.
Originally the prosecution looked to charge her for harassment and/or threatening behavior. However, under the law at the time, her speech was considered protected speech, and the prosecution decided that they didn't have a case for harassment. (The law has since been amended so if she did that now, she could very easily charged).
The prosecution ultimately decided to indict her using an anti-hacking law that prevents "unauthorized access to a computer." The argument is that by misrepresenting herself on myspace, she violated the Terms of Service. Therefore, her access to Myspace's Servers was unauthorized, and she committed a felony by using myspace while violating their ToS. The indictment is not for harassment/threatening behavior. It's for breaking the ToS of a website, which the hacking law has never been used for before.
As the EFF amicus brief points out, if violating the ToS of a site is criminal behavior, this has far reaching implications. Google has something in their Terms of Service that says you have to be 18 to use google. According to the prosecution in this case, anyone under 18 who does a google search is a felon. Facebook's ToS has a provision that says you must keep all information in your profile up to date. If i change my favorite movie and don't update my facebook account promptly, i'm a felon.
This is not an issue of harassment vs. free speech. I think we all agree that Lori Drew is an ass and ideally, she should be punished. However, don't try and get her on an obscure law that will have far reaching implications. Violating the terms of service on a website (which a large majority of people don't even read fully) should not be a criminal offense. That's what this case is seeking to do
If there's anything more important than my ego around, i want it caught and shot now.
1. At a quick googlin, 16.3% of the deaths in males aged between 15-24 is suicide. Way ahead of, say, cancer at 6.8% or heart disease at 3.9%. That was a statistic for 1998, but I don't expect things to have changed too dramatically. Apparently in Australia in 2005, two thirds of the deaths between 12 and 24 years old were suicides. Two thirds. That's immense.
So it's not an entirely unnatural response to stress and depression, either. It happens.
2. Well, yes. And the perpetrator deliberately used that.
Yes, some people are more fragile than others. That doesn't excuse preying on them.
To give some analogies, just because some old lady barely walks to a walking stick, it may make it easier to snatch her purse and run away, but it doesn't make it more morally justifiable. Just because someone is in a wheelchair, it may make it easier to mug him (I mean, it's not like he's gonna dodge or run away too fast), but again it's not more morally justifiable. Etc.
If anything, from where I stand, it just makes the perpetrator more heartless and worthy of contempt.
In this case the lady _knew_ that the neighbour's girl is depressed and suicidal. She had already talked about suicide in third grade, and was seeing a therapist about it ever since. And she just took it as an invitation to try to actually drive her to suicide. I'm sorry, I can't really see her as anything else than a monster.
3. We're not talking just a random forum flame war, or one mean message or two. Lori Drew spent a whole fucking year first gaining the girl's trust, and then mounting a _massive_ online campaign against her. She not only posted all the girl's secrets, but also produced a storm of messages about how Megan is fat and a _slut_.
More importantly, this is the final message that pushed the girl to suicide: "Everybody in O'Fallon knows how 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."
I'm sorry, but telling someone who's already massively depressed and suicidal that the world would be better without her...
It's not just callous or insensitive. The whole thing reeks of deliberately creating the setup and then as much stress as possible, to make sure she breaks down. And spending a year for that. A whole year dedicated to killing the neigbour's daughter.
I don't know about you, but in my book that's premeditated murder. The whole sequence of events served only one purpose and achieved it.
4. You _could_ say that the girl could/should have been tough and ignored it, but that still doesn't excuse the perpetrator.
I mean, seriously, if I were to knife you and take your wallet, equally it could be argued that you could/should have been spry and dodged the knife. You could/should have taken some martial arts lessons and disarmed the attacker. It still doesn't excuse the criminal, either way.
Plus, again, she chose a victim who was already known as an easy target for that.
Pretty much. Regardless of the medium involved, it's still a convoluted case of premeditated murder.
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