Megan Meier hanged herself after being hoaxed and harassed on the popular social network site MySpace. (wiki article) But this wasn’t your typical teen vs. teen angst type thing. The mother of the girl who had been Megan’s best friend up until that point has been charged for having a significant role in her death, because SHE (not the daughter) reportedly created a fake MySpace account pretending to be a boy who liked Megan, and then later turned it around and she wrote the cruel words, “the world would be a better place without you,” that may have pushed Megan over the edge and it resulted in her taking her own life.
I think this is setting a precedent that should’ve been set a long time ago, personally. In this case, it’s really about the loss of the life of a teenager, which is probably the most extreme end result in cyber-bullying. However, we’ve seen bloggers shut down their sites, move to another state, or completely go offline because of other adults. And until now, no one’s been held responsible for this kind of behavior.
The problem in this case? The mother was never charged in regards to the death (neither were her daughter or her daughter’s friend who has now felt the need to take on the responsibility for this to the point of attempting suicide herself), but MySpace has filed charges against her for violating the sites Terms of Service.
I get it all the time on one of my personal blogs. People who feel like they can use the so-called anonymity of the internet to say things to me they don’t have the guts to say to my face. The truth of the matter is that if I wanted to, I could take the IP addresses they left behind and find out who they are. Fortunately for me, I haven’t been harassed to the point where I’m in fear for my life, but I’ve traced IP addresses back to junior high and high schools, which really gets me. Why are these kids so hell-bent on being hurtful to strangers, much less to people they once considered friends? And in this case, WHY would an adult, a mother, perpetuate this kind of behavior?
Parents are supposed to be responsible for their kids’ actions. Not be acting like children themselves, and surely not harassing children. It’s kind of frightening if you ask me. I hope this woman gets some kind of jail time to be honest. She should be put away for as many years as Megan lived.
What do you think?
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May 16th, 2008 at 12:51 pm
From what I have read recently, this woman is being charged. I couldn’t be anymore thrilled. I find it extremely pathetic that a GROWN WOMAN would act like such a child to sabotage a 13 year old girl. Seriously, what is wrong with people in the world???
May 16th, 2008 at 1:26 pm
Michelle - you’re right, she’s being charged, but ONLY for violating the TOS of MySpace. Not for having a part in the death of a teenager.
http://www.thesmokinggun.com/archive/years/2008/0515083drew1.html
May 16th, 2008 at 4:49 pm
I agree that nobody… esepcially a mother… should ever do such a thing. But I have to ask where the victom’s parents were in this? Why didn’t she speak to them? Ask how to handle it? Apparently that door was closed.
It would have to be for a girl to care more what a (fake) young man’s comments were than what her own family thought of her.
My daughter will never have a MySpace.
May 16th, 2008 at 5:01 pm
James - When you were 13, did you go to your parents for advice about stuff like this? Do you think all teenagers WOULD? Maybe she wasn’t supposed to be on MySpace (in which case, the parents should’ve been checking up on her) and she was afraid of what they’d say?
Maybe had she gone to them, and they told her to forget about it and delete the MySpace profile, she’d have hanged herself anyway and the parents would be the ones left feeling 100% of the guilt (not that they’re not feeling like it’s their fault somehow anyway right now).
I don’t blame you for not letting your daughter have a MySpace - but are you prepared to put in all the work to be 101% sure she doesn’t have one? Or worse, are you limiting your fears to MySpace, and not considering that sites like FaceBook, or MyYearbook have similar setups? Wouldn’t it be better to allow your kids room to experiment with sites like that, but require that you have full access, including all passwords, in order for that to happen? Let them know that you’re checking up on them for their safety, and they’ll be too afraid to let things get to this point. Of course, that is unless you’re (general “you” there) a parent like this woman, who encourages crap like this.
I feel like we can’t shelter our kids, because they’ll grow up naive and susceptible later on in life when we’re not there to guide them. But educating them and doing our best to make sure there’s a truly open communication policy is the only way.
May 20th, 2008 at 8:36 am
I saw a story on this on tv a while ago. It broke my hear to think that people could be so heartless.
June 4th, 2008 at 10:07 am
The mother should be charged with something more than terms of service, how horrid! Great article Lara!