After Megan Meier committed suicide because of an incident on MySpace, Dardenne Prairie, MO is proposing an ordinance for child endangerment and Internet harassment.

Where Is The Line?

How far can people go before what is said on the Internet falls under the definition of harassment? Megan’s parents would like to know the answer to that question. Their daughter is dead because of a hoax.

Josh Evans, The Hoax

A family down the street would like to monitor what your child says about their child on MySpace. Solution? Create a fake personality. Josh Evans began communicating with Megan as an entrapment hoax to find out what Megan would say about a neighbor girl. Josh was not created by a12-year-old. He was the fictional creation of an adult and neighbor down the street.

Fictional Personality

Josh’s profile was that of someone new to the community, formerly lived in Florida, 14-years-old, cute, and home-schooled. Josh’s family also did not have a telephone yet. He now had a reason for not appearing at school or calling Megan, which would have revealed that he was not a boy at all. In fact, he didn’t exist. For over a month the created illusion called Josh was Megan’s "friend" on MySpace.

About Megan

Megan was a 13-year-old on MySpace where the age for posting a webpage on the site is 14-years-old. MySpace does not enforce the age limitation. She also suffered from depression and attention deficit disorder or ADD. Megan had been on medication but her relationship with Josh had a positive effect on her. She was quite upbeat until the relationship suddenly ended.

I Don't Like You Any More

After about six weeks of friendship, Josh Evans, who was really the neighbor down the street, suddenly told Megan that he couldn’t be her friend anymore because he had heard she was cruel. This shattered the depressed and impulsive girl. She ran upstairs and hung herself. Her parents rushed her to the hospital where she died the next day.

The following day Megan’s father, Ron, found a message from Josh on Megan’s computer. "You are a bad person and the world would be better without you." Did this sentence push Megan over the edge to suicide? Who wrote the sentence? That is being investigated. Three individuals monitored the fictional MySpace site: the neighbor, her daughter and a third party.

Police Involvement

When Megan’s parents called the police they were told that while what was written to their daughter was vile, it was not covered by current laws. Mayor Pam Fogarty is trying to change that. The city has proposed a new ordinance that would cover Internet harassment.

Hoax Results

This sick joke has left a teenager dead and her parents separated. This occurred because a mother down the street wanted to know what a girl was saying about her daughter after a disagreement. If that was the true intent, why say the world would be better off without you? Perhaps, the time has come for cyber-bullying to be illegal. The Meiers continue to hope that criminal charges can be filed under a federal law passed in January 2006 that prohibits online harassment.

Source: msnbc.msn.com, November 17, 2007

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Copyright article 2007 Barbara Pytel. All Rights Reserved.