http://www.nypost.com/seven/07032009/ne ... 177431.htm

Jist: Two nine year old girls have some sort of fight or disagreement at school. They are both in the same class.

So the mother of one child exacts revenge. She takes out an ad in Craigslist..."I'm cute, blonde and need some attention"...then gives the hordes of males interested THE CHILD'S NAME AND PHONE NUMBER (without her age).

Fortunately the kid's mom fielded the first call, then screened all the calls thereafter so the kid didn't actually talk to anyone. The mom said her daughter usually answers the phone, it was unusual she got it first that day.

Two days later, Mom had to change her number.

So the Evil Mother (who put up the ad) is now being charged. The kicker? She's a social worker. A state licensed social worker, meaning she's someone who SHOULD know better.

Seriously, just...unbefuckinglievable.

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that's just unbelieveable. I know you just said that but damn...

I thought this was going to be an update on skycrasher's life.

It's funny you posted that Tarot, because that federal judge in California overturned the verdict for the cyberbullying case.

Such horseshit.

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"I'm the best there is at what i do, bub, and what i do isn't very pretty"

Lesson learned.

Don't fuck with a social worker. They read about how to fuck with someone in the most messed up ways everyday...

No shit? I hadn't seen that on the news. That's pretty fucking irritating, that woman deserved prison time for that crap.

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That goes beyond just "cyberbullying", that's just sick.

A federal judge has overturned three guilty verdicts against Lori Drew, the woman who created a fake MySpace account which she then used to bully 13-year-old Megan Meier, a former friend of her own daughter.

Zoom
The L.A. Times reports that a federal jury convicted Drew in November of three misdemeanor computer crimes, but deadlocked on a felony conspiracy charge that would have carried a sentence of up to 20 years in prison. The prosecutors were essentially relying on the fact that Drew had intentionally set up a fake account, and in doing so, intentionally violated the site’s terms of service. U.S. District Judge George H. Wu threw out the verdict yesterday, claiming that if the convictions stood, anyone who violated MySpace’s terms of of service could be convicted.

The case dates back to October 2006, when 13-year-old Megan Meier hung herself with a belt in her bedroom closet after a friend on MySpace began to send her negative messages.

Megan began speaking to a 16-year-old boy by the name of Josh Evans through the social networking site. The boy claimed he was new to the area, was home-schooled and did not yet have a phone number. After a couple of weeks, the messages to Megan turned nasty, with the last allegedly telling the girl, "the world would be a better place without you." Meier was found later that day hanging in her bedroom closet.

It then emerged that "Josh" was a fictional character apparently made up by a neighbor living four doors down the street. Lori Drew allegedly made up the account to see if Megan would gossip about her own daughter (a former friend of Megan's) to her new friend on MySpace.

A former employee of Drew's, 18-year-old Ashley Grills admitted to setting up the account and sending some of the messages to the young girl. Grills admitted to sending the final message but only in an attempt to cut contact with the girl, as she felt the hoax had gone too far.

Read more about Drew's acquittal on the L.A. Times.

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"I'm the best there is at what i do, bub, and what i do isn't very pretty"

Unfortunately there just really weren't laws to cover what that woman did at that time. So they got creative about it...but ultimately I'm not surprised it was overturned on the basis of law. As a human being though I'm sorry she won't face more prison time, though I'm pretty sure she'll be a pariah the rest of her days.

As to this new case...I must admit I am honestly shocked. I cannot imagine doing that to an *adult* I hated, let alone to a child! What the fuck is wrong with some people?!

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It is sick, but hard to determine how responsible someone is. For example, haven't people on here told people to kill themselves? I cannot cite an incident, but I want to believe I've seen it.

Also, I vaguely remember someone using a sig or something that showed wrists being slit that was captioned "Remember kids, up and down, not side to side." Or something like that.

So I dunno... it's tough to say what the punishment should be. I guess when it's a situation like this where you have an adult preying on a kid (or in the suicide case), it SEEMS so obvious.

At what point does a group of vigilantes go up and throw a firebomb through her window? Errr, disgregard that sentence

You said it yourself, though. On here. No one got pissed at you and gave your phone number, etc, to anyone specificlally to fuck with you. I'd say it crossed the line into real life harassment and a potential threat when she gave out their phone number knowing what would happen.

People can say whatever they want on messages boards, and that's one thing. When you post something here and vent everyone forgets about it, or should, when they walk away from the computer. Plus, this is a bad example to give about that, because this place is sort of like a family in the regard that we can mouth off to each other all we want, but bring an outsider in here and everyone dogpiles him no matter who he picks on.

Setting up an ad like that and giving out another person's phone number, however, is harassment at the very least. She knew it would bring about those calls. She isn't stupid. So, yeah, she knew it would harass the little girl and her family.

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There is no such thing as right or wrong; only pleasure and pain.

It's also a *knowing* battle of unequals. I recently told someone that their shotgun approach (using it with the one meaning) needed work, maybe they should slide it into their mouth and keep trying to toe the trigger until they got it right. It was in context justifiable and it amused the shit out of me. Much like flipping some asshole the bird who just cut you off.

However, if because I'm angry at Bob, I call his child and pretend to be Santa Claus and tell the little kid to go under the sink and drink all the pretty colors...that's a whole other world of depravity, as well as being criminal.

In the original cyber bully case the neighbor knew the child had *severe* clinical depression and was under current treatment for it and had been since she was like nine. They knew it because the girls parents had told them. THey knew it because they had taken the girl on a trip and the mother had to explain the medication as well as potential contraindications as well as her depression.

Everyone who was ever a teenager SHOULD know how batshit stupid kids that age get over 'romance' and interpersonal drama. Do I need to show you fans from a Jonas Brothers concert? I mean c'mon...you know this, everyone knows this. We all get Romeo & Juliet as two dumb kids who just HAD to be together no matter what, and the intense desperation of that love, even though they had JUST met. It's plausable because they're teens.

So the mom makes a cute guy who showers the girl with attention. He becomes very important to her, she obsesses. Then this guy who she's totally in love with at this point, turns viciously on her. A mythical 'normal teen' would have problems dealing with this and it would cause them great emotional pain. It's funny/sad/fucked up what teenagers consider the 'end of the world'. I recall it from living through it, and I've seen it many times over with the children of friends.

But this was a kid with severe clinical depression. An illness that is especially difficult to treat in teens. Her highs and lows are much wider swings, and...that's saying a lot with teens. Teenagers...MANY of them...have a very difficult time looking ahead when it comes to emotions. Everything is the eternal now, and it's partially due to differences in the teenage brain as well as the immense hormonal storm. It's why suicides with teens almost always are over piddly shit that they could have dealt with easily ...if they were 25. =\

It's not a battle of equals. On the internet it may not be either, but it's often an unknown. It's assumed to be a battle of equals so few hold punches.

FWIW on rare occassion I've had reason to believe someone wasn't all there. I'll just use one example because it's been public...Livak's drunken e-mails to me convinced me I wasn't dealing with someone on an equal setting. Once I think that's going on, I simply urge someone to get help and I don't engage them anymore.

And I think that's going to be the response of most individuals. Once you realize you're dealing with someone truly sick, you don't fuck with them because it's cruel. If you're dealing with a child who cannot defend themselves...not really...same thing. And that's when we *suspect* it...both these bitches KNEW IT.

And last thing...when people are flamed online, it's rarely out of the blue. Often they've done something to earn the derision and scorn of others. If not there's plenty of folk who'll leap to their defense.

In both cyber bullying cases, the bullies came to them. They came into their space. They were specifically targetted by these women. They knew who they were dealing with in real life, and knew the playing field was grossly uneven. They did their acts in what they believed was protected anonymity because they knew it was wrong. They acted with severe malice...and in both instances the consequences could have been horrifically severe. In one instance that sadly came to fruition. In the other it did not, perhaps only through luck.

The 'what ifs' of the potential harm though are staggering.

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Let me preface this with - "I get it". On the surface, this whole thing FEELS obvious. I guess what I'm trying to do is get a grip on when it becomes criminal. Also, I get that law is not always clear cut - such as perjury or slander, there is a judgment.

The one where you have an adult engaging a minor, that to me is pretty easy to define, at least as some sort of type of harrassment, but can you hold them accountable for manslaughter. I just don't know - it seems hard.

If someone posts on here "shoot yourself", and the person does, can that person be held accountable. At want point do you draw the line.

I dunno... I hear it and it feels obvious, I'm just wondering how you address it in a legal sense.

This reminds me of that episode of Dexter where the psychologist talks his patients into suicide.

One of my favorite episodes.

Where the law is open to such, that's for a jury to decide really, because in almost any crime there may be circumstances surrounding it which make it either a crime...or not.



There's a concept in criminal law...which dumbed down amounts to this...should you have reasonably forseen the potential risk, even if you didn't want the outcome or weren't remotely trying for the outcome.

An analogy is...bottle rockets are illegal. Someone who fucks around with them and burns down a house, and it kills 2 people...well shit they were just fucking around with fireworks, right? How many people fuck around with illegal fireworks?!

And yet...under the law they're responsible for the deaths. It's not going to be 'murder'. It will fall under one of the lesser charges...but they ARE responsible.

Okay so we have someone's actions here, suicide. Well, in California a few years back there was a case where someone (drunk) hit a car and caused serious injury to a woman. She died. She was a Jehovah's Witness and refused some medical treatment. The guy argued that it was HER CHOICE that killed her, not him! Not a bad argument. One problem with it...but for him, she wouldn't be there. (The main problem with it in that case was that he couldn't prove she'd have lived otherwise, and the medical evidence leaned towards her dying no matter what).

My point though is even a person's choices may have little impact when it's Hobson's choice for them.

If this child were an adult...eh, much more difficult to prove. A child? Children don't have the mind of an adult, we treat them much differently. And this was a child at medical risk for self harm due to a medical diagnosis that the other adult was aware of.

The factors that the other adult was aware this was a child, knew the potential risks...leads to criminal liability.

Except...it doesn't. There was no law in place at the time. They bent the shit out of some existing laws, but clearly they bent it too far. The outrage was very much a 'we all get it'. What she did was wrong, and there should be criminal penalty for it. HOw much? ...IDK.


We're not dealing with a slippery slope tho. If you have a shotgun in your mouth and I'm all LOL DO EET! that's quite different from me telling you to go shoot yourself in general. A good analogy are those people who watch some dipshit OD on cam and egg them on. Are they accountable? So far...no. Should they be? Again, I don't know. We don't prosecute assholes who scream 'JUMP!' There's also a huge question of accountability. In every OD case that *I*'m aware of (with the online eggers on) the main reason for lack of prosecution is plausible deniability (the person claimed to do it previously and didn't) and the fact that the person doing it had expressed suicidal wishes and attempts OUTSIDE of that sphere previously. In other words the eggers on were more audience than cause. =\





I think there will be enough wiggle room for a jury to get the obvious. I hope so in any event. And there's always civil court, which isn't as much 'justice' but allows at least for a monetary penalty...if nothing else. =\



Haven't seen that episode but I stopped watching Dexter early season 1 (I had read the book).

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What was she charged with?

Fax evasion

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Yeah, the endangering a child part is probably the biggest thing. At least to me.

Harassment is one thing. Or the whole, "omg shoot yourself" stuff on the internet. (Which, by the way, I don't take seriously at all.)

But that lady intentionally pretty much stuck a 9-year old girl in the path of who knows how many freaks and weirdos. That has to count for something, and not just some silly "cyber-bullying" or other internet stuff that's bound to not really be taken seriously.

Tarot, so if you post "shoot yourself", just screwing around and it pushes me over the edge, causing me to do it - are you liable for some variation of manslaughter? You didn't mean to do it, and you certainly didn't know (like the bottle rocket), but I still blew a hole in my head.

Seems a little shaky...

The bottle rocket is illegal, my speech is not. Speech can be limited (fire in the crowded movie theater), but such limitations don't apply there.

I do have a copy (my spouse actually had the copy) of a lawsuit between two lawyers...because one called the other an asshole. Such things occur, but it was a civil suit (and it was tossed out). You *could* sue for insults under specific conditions...but it's difficult.

So essentially your 'it's shaky' is akin to yelling 'FIRE'...it's a matter of where and when. In the crowded theater where someone gets trampled to death, I have criminal liability. Shouting the word as part of a speech...'COME ON BABY LIGHT MY FIRE'...clearly no.

Even still, as I said in my post...screaming 'JUMP' at jumpers isn't illegal (AFAIK, I may be wrong...and it depends on jurisdiction...it might be illegal in some county somewhere ) ...but we all recognize it's pretty fucking shitty. And even in recognizing it's shitty...if someone screams 'JUMP' at a jumper...and they do...we don't blame the guy yelling it. Though again, most people think they're a douche.

And it's not even about criminalizing THAT...rather people who go out of their way to prey on someone (ala these two cases), and potentially people who root someone on while they're gobbling pills via webcam.

As far as what the law should specifically say...as I said, IDK. I'm sure whatever it does say won't be perfect the first time, and it will need retooling.

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This looks like the new fangled version of the "For a good time call Jane Blow 555-1234" that people used to write on public bathroom walls. Surely there is some kind of precedent already in the law books.

Yes, the 2nd woman is being charged under existing laws as referenced in the article I linked AND a post I made in response to that question previously. The original 'cyber bully' case (the MySpace suicide) didn't fall under any existing laws. That woman was eventually tried on some streeeeetched federal shit, and it was overturned.

Many people felt in the original case 'there ought to be a law'...but the big question is...what kind and how far do you go? With this second case, if there were existing cyber laws, it's likely the woman could be charged under them instead or as well. (Though fortunately there are existing laws to cover it).

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This isn't stuff we should toss people in jail for, IMO they should take people like this mom and brand IMATARD or something to that nature on her forehead.

Just equip them with one of those voice boxes, but instead of their own words every time they open their mouth it just yells, "DURRRRRRRRRRR DE DERP!"

It'd probably be an upgrade.

The laws should setup a guilty of child endangerment setting up the personal civil punitive case to take all the bitch has. Sad truth is that if she's trailer and has nothing, there won't be a punitive case. The criminal charge should have a ramification on her social worker career.