I heard about this a few days ago over at Dan Savage's blog. As the people in the comments said there, adults gleefully joining in the bullying of children and teens has always been happening, and it's always been disgusting. Reminds me of what we hear about British boarding schools.

It's a very important point that what happens online is real.

Some people go through the hell of being lied about and attacked and think "Dude that sucked, I'm never going to be that big of an ass" and some people think "Dude that sucked... And now it's my turn."

Posted November 18, 2007 1:04 PM by Madeline F

What makes me sick about this story is that it was the parents who did this. Grown adults. They wanted to check up on what Megan was saying about their daughter, thinking that Megan was talking smack about her on the internet. (It's my understanding that it wasn't a question of keeping tabs on their own daughter; it was that Megan and the other girl had had a falling-out, and they were angry at Megan.)

I think the only laws that could possibly be applicable don't need to be new internet-specific laws. How about harassment?

Never commit suicide if you can do something else (e.g. move to Lubbock and get a job in a hardware store).

Megan was thirteen. Thirteen year olds don't have a lot of autonomy. They don't see a lot of options. Especially not thirteen year olds with depression. At thirteen, you're pretty much trapped in your social circle and in your school, and there aren't many ways out.

The only reason I'm here typing this is that, once I laid out all the sleeping pills on my dresser when I was thirteen, I found that I was too afraid to start swallowing them. If, at that moment, someone I thought was my friend had told me that the world would be a better place without me -- well, I might have overcome that fear.

I have a lot of sympathy for the people who want to see these parents punished for something. It would probably make a bad law, yes. I don't know if you can really send someone to jail for simply being lower than dirt, for treating another human being cruelly even if you don't physically harm them. But I want them to lose sleep. I want them to know that they hurt someone who was vulnerable, and I want them to feel guilty for it.

I guess this is why we don't, or shouldn't, codify revenge into law.

Posted November 18, 2007 1:21 PM by Caroline

There's this saying we used to have in the Fleet: "Payback is a motherfucker."

Others here may talk about karma, or the law of three-fold return.

Believe me, I really, really know about depression. And I do know, down deep, how attractive suicide can look. I'm just laying out, as a general principle, don't do it. A lot of people you don't even know, including the EMTs, will have a lousy day because of it.

For me, suicide calls are some of the hardest.

Posted November 18, 2007 1:33 PM by James D. Macdonald

I think it's murder, the same crime Nancy Grace committed against Melinda Duckett.

Posted November 18, 2007 1:36 PM by Earl Cooley III

I just spent a couple of days untangling a legion of sockpuppets who were harassing a couple of my friends. (sordid story here, if you care) I can only conclude that there are some people who really think that anything they do is reasonable and proportionate, or possibly, that since everything online isn't 'real', it couldn't possibly be unreasonable or disproportionate.

Posted November 18, 2007 1:37 PM by Betty

Caroline,

Thank you for not swallowing the pills. I was nineteen when I found the reality of cutting my wrists to be substantially less comforting than the abstract idea. No amount of catastrophic depression has brought me back to that point, not after the beautiful sunrise that next day.

One of the many reasons that adults should not get too involved in the lives of their children (or their chidren's friends) is that adults can rarely remember the way that teenaged life feels. Not just the ways that a teen is effectively unable to change her life completely*, but also the essential loneliness of the age.

I wonder if the mother should be evaluated to see if she is fit to have care of her own daughter? There is certainly a case to make that the reckless endagerment of the emotional health (and life) of another teenaged girl is a sign that she is not.

I must also say that I admire and respect the parents of the dead girl, who seem much more interested in prevention than revenge in the courts. The relatively trivial damage to property is, in my book, completely understandable and well restrained. I am sorry their marriage did not survive.

-----
* My confessor at college called it "white suicide"

Posted November 18, 2007 1:48 PM by abi

#6: Reminds me of what we hear about British boarding schools.

From someone who spent a year as a day student at a British boarding school: American schools are far more violent.

Posted November 18, 2007 1:49 PM by Jon Meltzer

I agree with Earl Cooley. I want those two parents in prison for, at least, willfully negligent manslaughter. I want anyone who had access to the account's logs - and didn't say anything about it - to be imprisoned for conspiracy to commit.

Failing that, at the least, I want their children permanently taken away from them - forbidden to ever know anything about them, who they grow up to be, who they marry, etc. - and I want those parents under an injunction to never interact with anyone under the age of twenty, ever again. Because they clearly are incapable of interacting with minors in a responsible fashion.

Posted November 18, 2007 1:56 PM by Scott Taylor

Jon Meltzer @7:

Huh?

Posted November 18, 2007 1:56 PM by abi

In the UK they could be convicted under the harrassment and stalking laws, which were passed in part to try and tackle this kind of thing. They have mostly proved quite successful (in that unlike some other laws, they don't seem to have led to malicious prosecution, and they do seem to have headed off some rather nasty situations).

Posted November 18, 2007 2:01 PM by Farah

As Caroline said, the fact that the parents were accomplices makes the case particularly vile.

I wish I could say that, when I was a child, I never did anything as cruel as what was done to poor Megan. But I'm sorry to say that I did. When I was a child and pre-teen, I participated in the bullying of mentally disabled and weaker kids. It is the nature of children to be cruel. But adults are supposed to know better.

Posted November 18, 2007 2:02 PM by Mitch Wagner

I saw this sickening story a day or so ago. It hurts to think about somebody that callous. Would that karma worked like in the movies and comic books (and that it spared me somehow for my sins).

I've tried to be careful to the point of paranoia online, though probably not careful enough. Just the thought of those unexploded copies of my apazines out there is enough to keep me watching my step.

Posted November 18, 2007 2:04 PM by Kip W

I want to ask the parents who created "Josh" -- "What were you THINKING?" What a wretched, awful event. The fact that it involved an online persona is essentially trivial; some variation of the event could easily have been designed without involving MySpace. Social manipulation, bullying, teasing, teenage nastiness have all been around a long time. But the moral cluelessness, and the narcissism of the parents who created the Josh persona is stunning. Where did this mother and her friends get the idea that it is okay to play around with other people's heads?

One wonders what sort of damage these people have done to their own kids.

Posted November 18, 2007 2:12 PM by Lizzy L

I want to ask the parents who created "Josh" -- "What were you THINKING?" What a wretched, awful event. The fact that it involved an online persona is essentially trivial; some variation of the event could easily have been designed without involving MySpace. Social manipulation, bullying, teasing, teenage nastiness have all been around a long time. But the moral cluelessness, and the narcissism of the parents who created the Josh persona is stunning. Where did this mother and her friends get the idea that it is okay to play around with other people's heads?

One wonders what sort of damage these people have done to their own kids.

Posted November 18, 2007 2:13 PM by Lizzy L

Is there no law against inciting someone to commit a crime? Add to the betrayal of trust that comes with creating a false persona with the specific intention of messing with someone's -- a minor's -- head. I realize there is no real expectation of trust on the interwebs, any more than there is one of privacy, but these people are in so many ways worse than the most genocidal monsters I can recall. They knew their victim. They encouraged others to torment her. They knew that this wasn't something they could admit, let alone be proud of.

I'm glad they have been outed. And I hope three-fold payback is not too long in coming.

The fact that they called the cops about the busted foosball table is pretty rich: were they that caught up in their own morality that they felt property crime outweighed killing that girl?

Posted November 18, 2007 2:13 PM by paul

The sad thing is, elementary school teachers see this kind of parental escalation of girl fights all the time, though not generally on this scale. Usually it goes something like this:

Megan and Brittany have a tiff at school over some perceived slight. Megan gets all her friends to gang up on Brittany. Brittany is in tears.

Brittany goes home and tells her mother all about it. The story may or may not be embellished, but Brittany is, of course, entirely innocent of any wrongdoing.

In the meantime, Megan goes home and tells her mother the story. In this version, she is innocent of any wrongdoing, and Brittany is an evil witch who deserves what she got.

Brittany's mother calls Megan's mother and demands that Megan apologize to Brittany. Megan's mother is incensed. Why should her innocent daughter apologize to that awful child who started it all? The phone conversation ends in a screaming match.

Both mothers, unable to let go of their own fifth-grade girl fight mentality, encourage their daughters to snub one another, and coach them on mean things to do to each other. They both call the school and insist that their daughters be removed from the classroom they are in because, "I don't want my daughter exposed to THAT child!"

The outcome varies. Sometimes everyone makes up. Sometimes the girls make up, and their mothers carry on the battle. Sometimes the battle continues for years. It's all very sad. You just want to smack them all and yell, "Grow up!"

Posted November 18, 2007 2:17 PM by Writerious

Something I personally find incredible is that the parents behind the hoax had it in them to file property destruction charges after the event. Not that I'd have perpetrated such a hoax, but if I had and something like this had happened, I'd felt the general impulse to hide in a cave for the rest of my life.

Posted November 18, 2007 2:18 PM by Per CJ

Appalling.

Posted November 18, 2007 2:19 PM by Greg London

@11: I don't think it's in the nature of children to be cruel so much as to test limits, which often manifests itself the same way. There's a lot more to it -- the dominant culture, how much supervision they have, how the participants were raised -- that can affect the outcome. It doesn't have to be Lord of the Flies. There are cases of children helping their peers and even smaller kids, as I see everyday. But the culture drives that.

I've been in schools where the pecking order outweighs compassion and empathy. They bring that with them, either from home or their earlier educational experience.

Posted November 18, 2007 2:21 PM by paul

"Intent to deceive" seems to be a key element of what the scum did. This wasn't some other young teen adopting a non-attributable identity to avoid potential stalkers. It wasn't toleplaying a character in game-space. This was a deliberate deception of a specific individual.

How is this different from the 40-year-old perv? Under-age sex is bad, but it isn't the same as being dead.

Posted November 18, 2007 2:24 PM by Dave Bell

abi @#9: Sorry for the confusion & typo. I should have typed #1 (Madeline F.) as my referred-to comment, not #6. Ouch.

Posted November 18, 2007 2:28 PM by Jon Meltzer

At the very least, it sounds like a wrongful death lawsuit would seem to be in order.

Posted November 18, 2007 2:32 PM by Earl Cooley III

FWIW, Poynter has a discussion about the local paper's refusal to identify the offenders by name.

Posted November 18, 2007 2:38 PM by Lis Riba

This is yet another story that makes me so glad that the internet didn't exist when I was a teenager. I'm not sure I could have survived it any better than poor Megan did. I so want to see those parents pay. One can only hope their daughter is more mature than they are.

Posted November 18, 2007 2:39 PM by Jennifer Pelland

I wonder if MySpace has grounds to file legal actions against the people who created the malicious/false profile?

Posted November 18, 2007 2:43 PM by Lis Riba

#20 How is this different from the 40-year-old perv?

It isn't.

Had Megan or her mother asked me, when Josh first showed up, I'd have said, "It's probably a forty-year-old perv sitting around in his underwear," and I'd have been darned close to right.

The forty-year-old pervs who get caught are the ones who send photos of naked eight-year-olds to their new cyber-chums, or who discover when they go down to the bus station to meet twelve-year-old Cindy that "Cindy" is thirty, has five-o'clock shadow, and is holding an arrest warrant. The rest of 'em? Scot free.

Posted November 18, 2007 2:57 PM by James D. Macdonald

You know, I can't even get to the property damage complaint.

They asked the Meiers to store their foosball table?

Geez, it's not enough that they actively covered up that they triggered the death of a disturbed kid, they asked her parents for favors?

Posted November 18, 2007 3:01 PM by julia

It strikes me that stalking laws, sexual harassment laws, and perhaps child abuse laws apply. If "josh's" messages had a sexual content, well, perhaps we've found a use for child-porn laws after all. It seems to me appropriate for the prosecutor to subpoena the relevant logs and archives and depose everyone involved, as fast as possible. I suspect examination of the logs would show some very nasty stuff; it's possible that the harassers deliberated incited the suicide and are therefore accessories.

Posted November 18, 2007 3:05 PM by Randolph Fritz

Eeeesh....this brings back memories about being teased unmercifully in school. I escaped in sixth grade with a school transfer. If the internet had existed then, and people had spread the rumours to my new school, I'm not sure how I would have survived.

I don't blame the internet though, not in this case. I blame the screwed up adults who should have known better.

...

Writerious @ 16: That's not just "girl" fights. I've seen that escalation in other situations too. I hope you weren't trying to attach that to gender.

Posted November 18, 2007 3:38 PM by Pixelfish

Never commit suicide if you can do something else (e.g. move to Lubbock and get a job in a hardware store).

The thing that makes being a kid or teen so tough, IMHO, is the knowledge that you cannot do this. It's also one of the things that makes being a teen so different from being an adult. Your world is your world, and in most cases you're stuck with it.

If you're lucky you understand that you can wait until you can get out--that that day will come. But time passes slow when you're 13, and finding the resources to do that sort of waiting--when an adult could and maybe would just take off under such circumstances--is tough.

The fact that most teens make it anyway tells me that teens are way, way stronger than most adults remember.

Posted November 18, 2007 3:51 PM by Janni

You know, I wish I had a dime for every time in my childhood that my father said to me, "When are you going to learn to think before you do something like that?" In addition to (eventually) teaching me to consider the possible consequences of my actions before acting, he left me with the sense that one of the big differences between children and adults is that adults do think before they do something, do take into account what the outcome might be, and even consider how that might impact on other people.

It's scary to think that there are people out there, who have to be close to my own age, who not only don't think about the consequences of their actions, but who genuinely don't care.

And it's even scarier to realize that they're raising kids themselves.

Posted November 18, 2007 3:53 PM by Emmelisa

I read this story early last week, and have been unable to get over being horrified.

One aspect that I find worth noting is that Megan Meier fat, always a factor to look for in cases of bullying and harassment of girls and women. ("She was heavy and for years had tried to lose weight. ... She had shed 20 pounds, getting down to 175. She was 5 foot 5½ inches tall.")

Posted November 18, 2007 4:02 PM by Debbie Notkin

It's sad. When I grew up in the 90s, the internet was a better place. Mainly because "mainstream" adults weren't around.

Nowadays, incidents like these will be only be used to justify new attacks on online anonymity and privacy. Sad.

Posted November 18, 2007 4:03 PM by Giacomo

I'd think the mother could be charged under Intentional Infliction of Emotional Distress (IIED) at least, even with the causation problems. It certainly meets the outrage threshold. Or isn't it recognized in that state?

Posted November 18, 2007 4:25 PM by Jen

I'm speechless. What a disgusting thing to do to somebody.

Posted November 18, 2007 4:25 PM by Dave Hutchinson

Abi @ 6... adults can rarely remember the way that teenaged life feels

...or even what it's like to be a kid. That's probably why my 6-year-old nephew likes me so much. As for what happened when you were 19, I'm glad you didn't go thru with it. The world would be a sadder place without you around.

Posted November 18, 2007 4:34 PM by Serge

Throughout America there should be gigantic billboards that say: "Instead of killing yourself, you should try using drugs."

Your doctor may not prescribe the one that will work for you first, but eventually there will likely be some relief.

Posted November 18, 2007 4:37 PM by Scorpio

This is so *(#@%@%ed up. The thing that boggles my mind is that it was PARENTS who did this. Can you imagine being their daughter, the friend who was dumped? "Oh, it's okay, honey, don't cry that Megan doesn't want to be your friend any more. We tormented her until she killed herself."

Posted November 18, 2007 4:45 PM by Katherine Mankiller

Jennifer @24,

I know what you mean, but this sort of thing was going on when I was in school, too. It's just that it was kids pretending to be the bullied kid's friend instead of parents.

Posted November 18, 2007 4:50 PM by Katherine Mankiller

It is my understanding that the Drew daughter was a willing participant, as was at least one of the Drew employees.

Posted November 18, 2007 4:52 PM by mcz

As well as the daughter of the lady across the street, the one who eventually told the Meiers what happened.

All of these folks knew each other. The one-word description is "sordid."

So, how do we defend ourselves and our kids from the anonymous assholes who are trying to rent space in our heads?

(This is part of why I, as a moderator, have no problem with finding and posting the IP addresses of sockpuppets, and why Miss Teresa's certificate gives all moderators everywhere permission to ban "vexatious persons.")

Posted November 18, 2007 5:00 PM by James D. Macdonald

What strikes me as almost odd is that I don't know of sockpuppets driving anyone to suicide in fandom. My general rule for the internet is, "it happens in fandom & techgeekery first", and we've certainly seen the early adopters of sockpuppetry, flaming, cyber-stalking, cyber-impersonation, cyber-seduction, and all kinds of emotional scamming, including quite a few faked suicides and other faked deaths.

I'm actually surprised that fandom didn't get here first, too -- I wonder if it's a sign of how much more stable & connected non-hospitalized adults are, compared to 13-y.o.s?

Posted November 18, 2007 5:06 PM by Doctor Science

I wish I didn't stand corrected. Geeze.

Posted November 18, 2007 5:11 PM by Katherine Mankiller

So, how do we defend ourselves and our kids from the anonymous assholes who are trying to rent space in our heads?

This is why I finally had to go cold turkey on Conservapedia and Rationalwiki. One of the CP sysops isn't just a right-wing loon, he's a manipulative game player who's also active, under several different names, in the anti-CP activities. As far as I can tell, his only goal anywhere is to cause drama and pain, and I couldn't figure out how to convince others that he wasn't on anyone's side but his own.

Posted November 18, 2007 5:12 PM by Todd Larason

There's known tech: "Who vouches for you?"

That is, "Who do I know face-to-face and trust who knows you face-to-face and trusts you?"

Posted November 18, 2007 5:17 PM by James D. Macdonald

How do we defend ourselves?

Dude, I don't know. I just wish I could pull kids in Megan's place aside and tell them, "Anyone who talks to you that way is a f***ing piece of s***."

Seriously, kids. Rule of thumb. Anyone being deliberately cruel to you is by definition not someone worthy of an opinion of you.

Posted November 18, 2007 5:19 PM by Katherine Mankiller

Dr Science #42: there was a certain serial joiner of British fandoms (plural, but she had a bigger-than-average notch for SF fandom in her belt), who died a few years ago, and who I think came close. Her MO was to join some subtype of fandom (SF fandom; paganism; BDSM; others, I believe), acquire a coterie of newbies, manufacture persecutors, and leave in high dudgeon, taking her coterie with her -- and either she fucked them up, or she selected them for predisposition to fucked-up-ness, I'm not sure which, but they were spectacularly fucked-up.

I suspect, although I cannot prove, that sock puppetry of some kind was going on in there.

I'm going to shut up now. (Unless anyone who was involved can (a) recognize the person and (b) wants to correct me on any misapprehensions.)

Posted November 18, 2007 5:20 PM by Charlie Stross

The internet also helps kids. I've seen forums where youngsters in bad situations got to talking about things, usually because the forum's ostensible subject was related to some aspect of the bad situation. These weren't especially homey or brilliant forums, but the people in them were quick to figure out that the kids were in a bad place, and offer them help, comfort, and practical suggestions.

(It's a funny thing. Sometimes it's easier to talk about what's happening if the ostensible subject is something else entirely.)

I'm disturbed by several aspects of this story -- for instance, that so many people were in on the creation of "Josh," but not one of them stopped to think that maybe it wasn't such a good idea.

It's creepy to think of so much time and effort being focused on one thirteen-year-old girl. If the perps had been more experienced sockpuppet-wranglers, they could have had an entire cast of characters headtripping the kid.

You wouldn't have to be a thirteen-year-old girl with self-esteem problems to be taken in by that kind of targeted microtheater. If three different people you know from online venues all sent you e-mail giving you essentially the same feedback, could you ignore it? Would you first stop to wonder whether they're really three different people?

(Come to think of it, I saw that tried just a couple of weeks ago. The person they targeted is sane and confident, and the personae used were brand-new nonce accounts, but it was still a nasty attack.)

I've got no problem with online pseudonymity. I don't like anonymity, though I acknowledge that sometimes it's appropriate. (I nevertheless think anonymity is 75% of Wikipedia's problems.) What does trouble me is the use of anonymity for malicious purposes like stalking, harassment, or fraud. We're all vulnerable. Sometimes I think the only thing that saves us is that most con artists are neither imaginative nor enterprising.

IMO, only a small fraction of the netizenry abuses anonymity. Kathryn Cramer's line is that the number of people misbehaving on the internet is much smaller than everyone assumes. I think she's right.

Still, it would be nice to have a carefully and parsimoniously written law prohibiting the use of false identities for harassment, fraud, or other malicious purposes. And if we ever get one, I have a list.

Onward.

"What the neighbors thought they were doing" is an interesting question. Inventing a sockpuppet in hopes of finding out what the target is saying about her ex-friend is the kind of thing people do when they think they're defending themselves. It's contemptible and crazy to aim it at such a vulnerable target; but it's still a defensive strategy.

I think the family that ran the hoax was displacing their own issues on the kid who died -- identifying her as their daughter's problem, instead of whatever the real problems were. It's like parents who blame their child's suicide on the satanic influence of rock music, or dysfunctional families that have a designated family member who's supposedly to blame for all their problems.

I also suspect they're the kind of people who think in terms of retribution and malicious mischief. Why should they be trying to monitor what the kid's saying on the internet, unless they're assuming it's injurious to them? And why should they assume that, unless they think it's what anyone would do?

I don't think there's a just punishment for what they did. But if they don't think that what they did was wrong, I don't see how they have much cause to complain if their real names are attached to the story, and stay attached to it for the rest of their lives.

Posted November 18, 2007 5:26 PM by Teresa Nielsen Hayden

There is just so much awfulness in this story, but for some reason, this quote jumps out at me. Regarding the Anonymous Mother:

(She) felt this incident contributed to Megan’s suicide, but she did not feel ‘as guilty’ because at the funeral she found out ‘Megan had tried to commit suicide before.’

So she felt a little guilty, but not "as guilty" after she heard some gossip at the funeral? Somehow hearing some piece of information that lead her to believe Megan was troubled before absolves her of guilt in this situation? The whole thought of justifying this behavior to yourself in this way is ... well, like the rest of this situation, it's sickening.

Whether or not this group of people has any criminal action taken against them, they do deserve to be outed to their community. It boggles my mind that you can, as an adult, engage in this kind of bullying of a child, and there are no consequences, legal or social, to be had. (Short of a broken foosball table and a lawn-job.)

Posted November 18, 2007 5:42 PM by Jess A.

Jim @45
That is, "Who do I know face-to-face and trust who knows you face-to-face and trusts you?"

Interesting question. For pretty much everyone on this website, my answer is* "no one". I can name one person that I know Teresa has met‡, but that's all. And yet here we are.

But this is adulthood. Childhood is different. When I was 14, I met a boy from another school at Star Trek movies, and he asked me out. My mother insisted on him coming to the house and sitting down for a face to face interview before I could go to the local pizza parlour with him.†

-----
* Or was, till I met some people when I was in California at Easter
‡ She mentioned the name once on the blog
† OK, OK, he turned out to be weird in many ways, but none of them were harmful beyond the usual slings and arrows of adolescent dating

Posted November 18, 2007 5:46 PM by abi

Caroline 2:The only reason I'm here typing this is that, once I laid out all the sleeping pills on my dresser when I was thirteen, I found that I was too afraid to start swallowing them. If, at that moment, someone I thought was my friend had told me that the world would be a better place without me -- well, I might have overcome that fear.

Me too. Not the sleeping pills, so much, but I contemplated various methods.

Scott 8: Hear, hear.

Jennifer 24: I feel certain that I would NOT have survived to adulthood had the internet existed when I was a child.

julia 27: My understanding is that they were storing the foosball table prior to this event, even prior to the falling-out between the daughters.

Emmelisa 31: It's scary to think that there are people out there, who have to be close to my own age, who not only don't think about the consequences of their actions, but who genuinely don't care.

I used to know someone on MySpace who not only participated in such behavior, but who wrote lengthy essays advocating it. I was the target of several of his organized campaigns of cyberbullying, and it was hard—for me, with my strong support network and adult coping skills! I'm certain, but cannot prove, that he caused more than one suicide.

This scumbag had his profile deleted over and over and over. He just saved the profile code and put it back up in minutes. MySpace doesn't track IP addresses or anything.

I hesitate to call him an adult. Let's just say he could drink legally in the US, though cocaine was his drug of choice.

He's the only person on my list of "when they die, the world will be, ipso facto, a better place" who isn't a public figure. Though I think I may add Lori Drew.

Teresa 48: The internet also helps kids. I've seen forums where youngsters in bad situations got to talking about things, usually because the forum's ostensible subject was related to some aspect of the bad situation. These weren't especially homey or brilliant forums, but the people in them were quick to figure out that the kids were in a bad place, and offer them help, comfort, and practical suggestions.

I can personally vouch for the fact that this is true. I have helped kids in forums like that. But...you know the fucktard I was talking about above? He would come into (say) a support group for overweight people, pick one, and tell hir that s/he was always going to be fat, and that she should probably kill hirself, because it would only get worse as s/he grew older.

He also targeted groups that were generally supportive of one another, and have his minions go in and attack people at their most vulnerable, making it impossible for anyone to share anything that was bothering them.

He seemed to get around blocks and bans pretty effectively.

Fortunately for the world, he's a cokehead, so we can hope he ODs and chokes on his own vomit (a fitting end for a person (using the word loosely) like that).

I don't think there's a just punishment for what they did.

I don't know, I kinda liked Scott's solution at #8.

Posted November 18, 2007 5:50 PM by Xopher

Interesting question. For pretty much everyone on this website, my answer is* "no one".

In that case, abi, you'd be perfectly justified in assuming that every single person here is a forty-year-old perv sitting around in his underwear.

Posted November 18, 2007 5:53 PM by James D. Macdonald

There is just so much awfulness in this story, but for some reason, this quote jumps out at me. Regarding the Anonymous Mother:

(She) felt this incident contributed to Megan’s suicide, but she did not feel ‘as guilty’ because at the funeral she found out ‘Megan had tried to commit suicide before.’

So she felt a little guilty, but not "as guilty" after she heard some gossip at the funeral? Somehow hearing some piece of information that lead her to believe Megan was troubled before absolves her of guilt in this situation? The whole thought of justifying this behavior to yourself in this way is ... well, like the rest of this situation, it's sickening.

Whether or not this group of people has any criminal action taken against them, they do deserve to be outed to their community. It boggles my mind that you can, as an adult, engage in this kind of bullying of a child, and there are no consequences, legal or social, to be had. (Short of a broken foosball table and a lawn-job.)

Posted November 18, 2007 5:53 PM by Jess A.

There is just so much awfulness in this story, but for some reason, this quote jumps out at me. Regarding the Anonymous Mother:

(She) felt this incident contributed to Megan’s suicide, but she did not feel ‘as guilty’ because at the funeral she found out ‘Megan had tried to commit suicide before.’

So she felt a little guilty, but not "as guilty" after she heard some gossip at the funeral? Somehow hearing some piece of information that lead her to believe Megan was troubled before absolves her of guilt in this situation? The whole thought of justifying this behavior to yourself in this way is ... well, like the rest of this situation, it's sickening.

Whether or not this group of people has any criminal action taken against them, they do deserve to be outed to their community. It boggles my mind that you can, as an adult, engage in this kind of bullying of a child, and there are no consequences, legal or social, to be had. (Short of a broken foosball table and a lawn-job.)

Posted November 18, 2007 5:53 PM by Jess A.

TNH @48:
I think the family that ran the hoax was displacing their own issues on the kid who died -- identifying her as their daughter's problem, instead of whatever the real problems were.

I saw it a little differently. I think they, for some reason, tied their own images of success to their daughter's social status. This started as a little monitoring project: how are we doing?

Then, if there was a little rivalry between the girls, they may very well have entered into it. They played, and they played to win.

I hardly need state what this says about their view that people are there to be used, or their own self-worth as adults.

Posted November 18, 2007 5:54 PM by abi

Gah. Not sure how my comment got posted three times, but I do apologize.

Posted November 18, 2007 5:55 PM by Jess A.

The Girl-Across-the-Street's Story:

The single mother, for this story, requested that her name not be used. She said her daughter, who had carpooled with the family that was involved in creating the phony MySpace account, had the password to the Josh Evans account and had sent one message - the one Megan received (and later retrieved off the hard drive) the night before she took her life.

"She had been encouraged to join in the joke," the single mother said.

The single mother said her daughter feels the guilt of not saying something sooner and for writing that message. Her daughter didn't speak out sooner because she'd known the other family for years and thought that what they were doing must be OK because, after all, they were trusted adults.

On the night the ambulance came for Megan, the single mother said, before it left the Meiers' house her daughter received a call. It was the woman behind the creation of the Josh Evans account. She had called to tell the girl that something had happened to Megan and advised the girl not to mention the MySpace account.

Posted November 18, 2007 5:56 PM by James D. Macdonald

Jess 49: It boggles my mind that you can, as an adult, engage in this kind of bullying of a child, and there are no consequences, legal or social, to be had.

Well, their should be social consequences, and you can help. The "Anonymous Mother"'s name is Lori Drew. Spread it around.

And she and her husband Curt live at:

269 Waterford Crystal Drive
Dardenne Prairie, MO 63368
(636) 272-2670

Drew Advantage
2977 Highway K Ste 200, O Fallon, MO 63368-7862
Phone: (636) 272-2670

Posted November 18, 2007 5:58 PM by Xopher

Jim @52
you'd be perfectly justified in assuming that every single person here is a forty-year-old perv sitting around in his underwear.

Really? Well, get dressed, the lot of you*.

-----
* assuming that you're not mostly sockpuppets, in which case, both of you.

Posted November 18, 2007 5:59 PM by abi

I don't think there's a just punishment for what they did. But if they don't think that what they did was wrong, I don't see how they have much cause to complain if their real names are attached to the story, and stay attached to it for the rest of their lives.

The parents don't, no. The question is, even if their daughter was somehow involved in it, is it a good idea to tar her with that brush. She's 13, and has spectacularly bad influences at home. That doesn't mean she's doomed to be a sociopath or even a garden-variety self-centered nasty person. And I don't think it's possible to associate this story with them and not with her unless (a) their surname is very common and (b) her parents lose custody and she goes to live with people in another city. In which case, changing her surname to theirs might be prudent, assuming it's not her father's brother or some other relative who shares the surname, or so common that it's the same by chance. [I am here reminded of Robert Meeropol, though this girl is guilty of more than he ever was.]

Posted November 18, 2007 6:00 PM by Vicki

James D. Macdonald, 52,
In that case, abi, you'd be perfectly justified in assuming that every single person here is a forty-year-old perv sitting around in his underwear.
I'm only 35.

Posted November 18, 2007 6:06 PM by midori

And here's a blog comment listing the businesses that use Lori Drew's ad agency.

Posted November 18, 2007 6:07 PM by Xopher

Vicki 60: Their surname is Drew. Not that common, unfortunately. I agree that the girl shouldn't be tarred with the brush, since she's the same age as Megan and therefore in my view recoverable.

Having her parents lose custody, have her change her name? All good ideas. I'd add, with Scott@8, that they should be forbidden to have any contact with her ever again.

Posted November 18, 2007 6:10 PM by Xopher

James 52: I wish I were only 40 and that I were wearing underwear!

Posted November 18, 2007 6:12 PM by Xopher

Teresa@48: I think the family that ran the hoax was displacing their own issues on the kid who died -- identifying her as their daughter's problem, instead of whatever the real problems were. It's like parents who blame their child's suicide on the satanic influence of rock music,

abi@55: I think they, for some reason, tied their own images of success to their daughter's social status. This started as a little monitoring projec

I think these are actually the flip side of the same thing. Focusing on external success rather than any internal self worth and well being of their daughter. And turning failures into blame games.

These are the sort of parents would would doubt your commitment to Sparkle Motion.

Posted November 18, 2007 6:15 PM by Greg London

Xopher @ 51 -- do you know your MySpace bully's real name? I'm sure there are lots, but the CP one I mentioned also has a MySpace history...

James @ 52 -- I don't know-in-person anybody here either, and maybe you all are 40-year-old pervs-in-underwear, but if so it hardly matters, does it? Sexual issues don't come up here often, and even if they did most perversions wouldn't shock me and I don't get the feeling they'd shock or disturb most others here. As to age and garments, that seems even less material. (For the record, I'm 35 and am wearing jeans at the moment, but have no way of proving that).

Posted November 18, 2007 6:15 PM by Todd Larason

These are the sort of parents who would doubt your commitment to Sparkle Motion.

Dang it.

Posted November 18, 2007 6:16 PM by Greg London

Todd @ 66: Whereas enough of the people here have spent time with me in person that I doubt they'd be surprised if I said I was typing this naked, or expect there was any sexual content to that statement. (I'm a casual nudist, but happen to be wearing jeans at the instant.)

Discussions of garments live happily in the salwar kameez thread.

Posted November 18, 2007 6:21 PM by Vicki

Get your kicks on Todd 66: No, I don't. I know what city he lives in, but that's all. He hasn't bothered me or my friends in a while, and I'm disinclined to stir the pot...though I've thought of doing things like hiring a private detective to collect evidence of his cocaine usage/possession (hopefully over the "intent to distribute" amount) and turn it over to the police.

But I've decided I have to let it go, unfortunately. Though if the evidence fell in my lap I'd certainly use it. Short of hiring a detective, it would take someone with better cyber-fu than I have to track the bastard down.

Posted November 18, 2007 6:26 PM by Xopher

Greg London, 67,

These are the sort of parents who would doubt your commitment to Sparkle Motion.

Sparkle Motion? Could you explain that? (Google says it's the name of a band in Donnie Darko, but having not seen the movie, I don't know why this is obviously funny.)

And for the record, I am wearing courderoy pants. And everyone's a pervert, just some don't admit it.

Posted November 18, 2007 6:28 PM by midori

Abi @45: I believe you have a passing familiarity with Edinburgh? If you're ever passing through, drop me a line and I'll come out to prove that I am, in fact, a 43 year old perv who reads ML in his underwear, and not a sock puppet. (I also read ML in my outerwear, for instance right now, but that's not the point.)

I also know PNH and TNH personally, from real face-to-face meetings over the years, so I can lay at rest your suspicion that they too are forty something underwear perv socket puppet wielders.

The truth is much weirder.

Posted November 18, 2007 6:30 PM by Charlie Stross

I'm wearing socks and an Akubra hat.

Posted November 18, 2007 6:30 PM by mcz

midori, Sparkle Motion wasn't a band, it was a dance team of young girls. The most selfish, stage-mothery swine of a parent in Donnie Darko says that ("I'm beginning to doubt your commitment to Sparkle Motion!") to Donnie's mother.

Spoiler: Guvf erfhygf va gur qrngu bs Qbaavr'f zbgure naq fvfgre. Jvgubhg Qbaavr'f zbgure gb gnxr Fcnexyr Zbgvba ba gur cynar, gurl pbhyqa'g unir tbar.

If I recall correctly.

Posted November 18, 2007 6:33 PM by Xopher

Yeah, I don't know if it's possible to write a "Don't be a jerk" law that won't backfire in all sorts of horrific, but unintended ways. However, it's too bad that the people who goaded Megan to suicide are still anonymous. This is the reason why we invented shame.

The bit I'm missing is: if they were using her to monitor the gossip on their daughters, why did they have "Josh" break it off with her? It reads like they led her on (complete with fake photo) then dropped her in a really painful way. Is it possible to do this unintentionally in the process of collecting gossip? I can think of more credible (if also more slimy) motives.

abi @50: We haven't met. But I did see, up close and personal, your exquisite work for the Mike Ford auction at the last Boskone.

Posted November 18, 2007 6:35 PM by John Chu

Tshirt, sarong.

I wonder if people really are sending the Drews hatemail? I'm still dwelling on the fuss they made over their foosball table and lawn. It's like they have no sense of proportion at all.

Posted November 18, 2007 6:35 PM by ema nymtonsti

Jim (57):

The single mother, for this story, requested that her name not be used. She said her daughter, who had carpooled with the family that was involved in creating the phony MySpace account, had the password to the Josh Evans account and had sent one message - the one Megan received (and later retrieved off the hard drive) the night before she took her life.

"She had been encouraged to join in the joke," the single mother said.

Would you ever trust anyone again if it happened to you?

On the night the ambulance came for Megan, the single mother said, before it left the Meiers' house her daughter received a call. It was the woman behind the creation of the Josh Evans account. She had called to tell the girl that something had happened to Megan and advised the girl not to mention the MySpace account.

Posted November 18, 2007 6:40 PM by Teresa Nielsen Hayden

#74 However, it's too bad that the people who goaded Megan to suicide are still anonymous.

Not that anonymous. Their names are known, and spattered from one end of the Internet to the other. Just not very much here in my original post: You have to click one of the links.

I don't know, of my direct knowledge, that they are the right people.

Posted November 18, 2007 6:42 PM by James D. Macdonald

No, not gonna make any funny comment Xopher 69 -- since you said "city" rather than "town", I'm going to assume they're different folks and leave it at that, rather than put in any google fodder and stir either your pot or mine.

Charlie 71 -- dangit, I had the chance to meet you, or at least see you, a few weeks ago; you did a reading at my place of employment, but I was sick that day. For now, for all I know all those books with your name on them could have been ghostwritten by Lanaia Lee.

Posted November 18, 2007 6:42 PM by Todd Larason

#51--Xopher--you might google "cocaine cardiac damage" and see what you get. It's a horrible side effect, but some people deserve what they get.
Also, I, too, wish I was 40 again. My knees hurt less then.

It's hard enough being a teen-ager without adults working to make it worse.

Posted November 18, 2007 6:45 PM by fidelio

Ema, I'm sure people are sending the Drews hatemail, both for the normal human reasons, and because there are always people out there who are happy to have an excuse to send someone hatemail.

Posted November 18, 2007 6:45 PM by Teresa Nielsen Hayden

Nor is any allowance made for the fact that certain statements and certain actions might stem from the numbness that automatically swamps you when you realize (dimly, through a glass darkly) that you've done something irredeemable, irremediable, irretrievable, unforgivable. Saying you don't feel quite so bad because she tried to kill herself once before is heartless and cruel and stupid and an utterly human (and ultimately doomed) thing to do, to try and keep yourself from inkling what it is you've done. —Perhaps I am naïve to a fault, but the benefit of the doubt should always be weighed, even here, and bullying is bullying, no matter how much moral righteousness you have on your side. The arc of the universe bends towards justice, not vengeance, and certainly not lynch mobs.

Posted November 18, 2007 6:46 PM by Kip Manley

midori@70: Sparkle Motion? Could you explain that?

Oh, sorry. It's a line from Donny Darko. Most of the movie is about Donny, but there's this third level removed thing going on between Donny's mom and another parent at school. Both Donny's mom and this other mother have daughters in this school "show" called "Sparkle Motion". The other mom is in charge of the show, and her daughter happens to have the lead part, if I recall correctly. Anyway, they get up and dance to a song. That's the big it. And the other mom is talking to Donny's mom about taking Sparkle Motion to New York or something, and Donny's mom can't go or something, and the other mom gets all upset and says "Sometimes I doubt your commitment to Sparkle Motion".

And it's just like a spot on representation of that parent everyone knows that gets too wrapped up in their kid's external successes and then starts blaming other people when things don't go according to their master plan.

Plus, it's got a lot of the high school kid teen angst stuff going on, which just sort of plugs into this whole thread.

"Donny Darko" is a really good cult movie (Cult as in not mainstream, not cult as in koolaid.) I recommend it.

Posted November 18, 2007 6:46 PM by Greg London

The mother-down-the-street would have been able to see what "Josh" had posted, just by logging in as "him."

Two 13-year-old girls knew the account name and password. There's no reason in the world to think that the last day didn't include half-a-dozen boys from her old school, egging each other on into greater and greater awfulness.

Posted November 18, 2007 6:48 PM by James D. Macdonald

James @52 - Thanks to the boiler being broken here, not only am I fully dressed, I'm wearing my dressing gown over the top of my clothes. Oh and I'm 32. And a dog.

I'll definitely second Teresa and Xopher on the internet being able to do good for kids (and adults) in bad places, as I've seen it happen (in person and online). But when you're in a bad place one person can say one wrong thing to push you to the edge, and never even know (and I've seen that too).

Posted November 18, 2007 6:50 PM by Neil Willcox

Jim @ #3, my sincerest sympathies. There was a suicide recently among my acquaintance, under circumstances that were bound to be severely unpleasant for the EMTs.

Katherine @ #46, good rule.

Re vouching: pat greene knows me, and I know one person who's met Teresa and Patrick. But 'by their fruits ye shall know them'--I trust all the regulars here, whoever you 'really' are, because you all have a solid record of civility and decent behavior. There's impatience with stupidity, occasionally short tempers, but not meanness.

Posted November 18, 2007 6:52 PM by Lila

Please understand that I mean no one any offence, but does anyone else feel rather uncomfortable about the widespread posting of the Drews' address, phone number and business contacts? I'm as revolted as everyone else by what they did, but doesn't this smack of vigilantism? Or incitement to vigilantism, anyway?

Actually, the larger part of me says they deserve everything they get. But part of me finds it rather disturbing.

Posted November 18, 2007 6:53 PM by Dave Hutchinson

Hey! I'm forty-eight.

Posted November 18, 2007 6:57 PM by Patrick Nielsen Hayden

Delurking re: the removal of the other daughter, and any child abuse connections.

I just wanted to point out the Missouri statutes (http://www.childwelfare.gov/) regarding abuse and neglect. Missouri does have a statute for 'emotional abuse', but it's not clearly defined, and one would need to define the abuser as a person responsible for the child.

As for the removal of the other daughter: clearly that woman and those involved--incredibly crapTAStic parenting, and utter failure at human decency. But removing their daughter at this point only creates more problems. Consequences? Yes. And consequences that show this child that her parents made BIG mistakes--but removing her penalizes HER, not them.

Also--unless the local DSS has more info than has been published, there's no imminent risk of harm to enable them to remove.

I think any legal consequences will have to occur from another angle--harassment, or a redefinition of child endangerment.

IMVHO. (relurks)

Posted November 18, 2007 6:59 PM by Heatherly

Perhaps I am naïve to a fault, but the benefit of the doubt should always be weighed, even here, and bullying is bullying, no matter how much moral righteousness you have on your side. The arc of the universe bends towards justice, not vengeance, and certainly not lynch mobs.

Thank you for saying this - It's more elegant than any of my abandoned attempts to say the same thing. Now that everyone knows names, addresses and phone numbers, I fear it's only a matter of time before some vigilante/mob with pitchforks goes for vengeance. And there is another teenage daughter to consider - however worthless her mother is, the child has had rotten role-models. She doesn't deserve what many people seem to think her mother has got coming.

Posted November 18, 2007 7:00 PM by vian

Yeah, Dave, I hear ya.

I'm reasonably sure that everyone in the perp's social-and-business circle knows about this by now. That comes with being top-of-the-hour on CNN Headline News. And they all know the real names of everyone involved.

Apparently everyone in the neighborhood knew for months; they were just waiting to see if the cops would do anything.

For the rest of us, a letter from yet another anonymous jerk isn't going to help.

Part of me thinks "If you can't haul the weight, don't pick up the freight." Another part thinks "You've heard about three-fold return?"

They haven't harmed me, so I can't forgive them.

I debated writing this post. Would it do any good, or is this just slowing down to stare at a wreck on the Information Superhighway?

One thing that might be interesting would be to revisit the earlier thread, Blow, blow, thou wanker wind and read the trolls' and sockpuppets' comments again with this thread in mind.

Posted November 18, 2007 7:04 PM by James D. Macdonald

PNM @ 87

Hey, kid, off the lawn!

(Birthday was Friday. I didn't tell the folks at work. While they are out at lunch and I was minding our workarea, I went down to Starbucks-in-the-lobby and got a pumpkin empanada.)

Posted November 18, 2007 7:04 PM by P J Evans

Dave, I'm not entirely comfortable with it either, and the more detail is added the less comfortable I am.

On the other hand, I came close to finding them myself, simply because I was so very annoyed at the newspaper for declining to name them. I don't think I'd have posted their names if I had, but I'm not sure.

The lack of truly local news is maybe the problem; the people in O'Fallon MO may have a right and need to know what kind of people the ____s are, without everyone on the internet knowing their phone number.

Posted November 18, 2007 7:06 PM by Todd Larason

Oh, and by the way, the Meiers have requested that no retribution be taken against the perps.

Posted November 18, 2007 7:07 PM by James D. Macdonald

Breaking my guideline of not saying anything sympathetic online because, well, the internet never gets it across the way real life does- this is very sad, and tragic, and just begging for some serious talking to the various "adults" involved.

AS for sock puppets and mind games, I can vouch that Charlie Stross is real, I've met him a few times.
Relatedly, I was also overjoyed to find an internet forum on Alchemy had been started by some expert who lives in Glasgow. I thought it would be interesting to see what I could learn and how many nutters and cranks there would be. Maybe 10 days after I joined the host shut it down complaining about people being nasty and silly and childish to each other. There were definitely some games being played by posters, and I have run into games players in other forums as well. As a result I have realised I have a deep desire to introduce sock puppets and their masters to certain 16th century devices in a book by Vannoccio Biringuchio. However being a nice law abiding person, I won't.

Posted November 18, 2007 7:09 PM by guthrie

Abi @59, Jim @52 et. al.

..and I, for my part, am *extremely* impressed at the quality of recruit in online law enforcement these days.

Abi, while I have no (and no desire for) photos, I confess to gleefully and wantonly sharing your poems with.. well, anyone who stands still near a browser.

Perhaps you'd best name the bus station handiest to your precinct house. I'll go quietly.

Posted November 18, 2007 7:10 PM by myrthe

Isn't it about time that public schools started having "Internet Health" classes? Since more and more interactions are going to be online, wouldn't it make sense for a few classes on how to deal with Internet bullying, harrasment, etc.?

Posted November 18, 2007 7:15 PM by Steve C.

Laws broken: hmm, that's difficult. Harassment? Incitement to suicide?

Rules broken: It's against the TOS of every ISP and online content host I've ever seen to post stuff to harass other users.

From Yahoo (I can't access MySpace from the computer I'm on):

You agree to not use the Service to:
1. upload, post, email, transmit or otherwise make available any Content that is unlawful, harmful, threatening, abusive, harassing, tortious, defamatory, vulgar, obscene, libelous, invasive of another's privacy, hateful, or racially, ethnically or otherwise objectionable;
2. harm minors in any way;

Seems that the ISP would have a nice civil case, if they could figure out how much damages to sue for. (Dragging their name through the press as a "teen suicide website" should be worth a hefty dollar.)

Oblique crimes: Custodial interference, contributing to the delinquency of a minor, potentially hate crimes if race, gender or sexual orientation were relevant.

Posted November 18, 2007 7:20 PM by Elfwreck

P J... Joyeux anniversaire!

Posted November 18, 2007 7:27 PM by Serge

Ms. Drew used the same same exact mode of operation as a child predator enacts in the seduction of a child.

Drew posed as a member of the opposite sex and spent weeks and weeks luring this girl into a relationship.

But yet it went further. The adult Drew formed a heated relationship with the 13 year old girl. She worked hard to gain the girl's confidence. She exploited the girl intimately by posing as a boyfriend. She enacted the same methods child predators use to groom their victims.

Then the woman emotionally raped this child. She took her supposed love and sexual stimulation and crushed the girl emotionally with them -all while knowing the girl was unstable.

This adult and her friends calculated the best way to achieve maximum mental distress and then carried out their plan. Even enticed others to join in the destruction of this child.

There are manslaughter convictions on the books that won based on looser ties to a person's death than this. Child predators go to jail for following this scenerio.

Ms. Drew is the clear definition of a child predator. She used the internet to stalk, entice and lure a 13 year old girl into a romantic, sexually sparked, full fledged relationship. She then used that power to inflict Great Mental Harm to this child... A physical rape and mental rape are both as equally destructive to a 13 year old child. Drew knew this (or should have known this) and still proceeded unabated.

This is so far beyond "Harassment", this is full fledged exploitation of a child.

Is the local police of this county out of their minds to think that NO charge will stick?

Is the local District Attorneys office serious if they don't think this girl's rights have been thoroughly trampled by a grown woman?

Does the DA really expect people to roll over while this woman goes without so much as even a single charge?

Does even a speeding ticket register a more serious offense than this?

_____________

Last of all, the very worst. Ms. Drew remains defiant and indignant. Claims the girl was already on the edge mentally.

Ms. Drew denies wrong doing and insists she bears no guilt in her actions.

She justifies her actions as being "protective of her daughter"... Please tell me how she was protecting someone by mind raping a 13 year old child?

To add insult to incredible injury.... The Drews file charges against the family that lost this child.

The Drews, in a final act of ultimate hate, seek to hurt this family who lost a beloved child. She seeks to harm them financially....

Just as MS. Drew attacked an innocent little girl, Ms. Drew now attacks a grief stricken family - again seeking to harm someone's very life.

This woman is evil incarnate

This woman has county officials protecting her...

The same county officials who would put ANY other child exploiter in jail.

It would appear we have a few corrupt city officials. Officials who need to be fired

Perhaps the county detectives on the case need some scrutiny. Did they really investigate this crime thoroughly? Apparently not.

There had better be some charges...and some heads better role from this complete mismanagement of law enforcement.

Posted November 18, 2007 7:27 PM by DanCnKC

James@90 - Apparently everyone in the neighborhood knew for months; they were just waiting to see if the cops would do anything.

Then I hope everyone in the neighbourhood who knew about it for months and just sat on their hands waiting for someone else to do something about it realises how complicit they all are. This story just gets worse the more I hear about it. That the Meiers have requested that no retribution be taken does them great credit; I'm not sure I would have the character to do that.

I kept thinking about the earlier thread while I went through the sources you cited. And also the MSScribe business. I still find the whole business of trolls and sockpuppets utterly baffling.

I'm glad you posted this. Although, in the circumstances, `glad' is entirely the wrong word. The chances are I would never have heard about it otherwise.

Todd@92 - I suspect I would have looked for them, too, and for the same reasons.

Posted November 18, 2007 7:28 PM by Dave Hutchinson

I'm still stalling on the idea that things were more civilized back in Usenet days when parents weren't involved.

Posted November 18, 2007 7:31 PM by julia

Dan@99: This woman has county officials protecting her...

Well, that would be interesting.

Posted November 18, 2007 7:32 PM by Greg London

Paul @19: I don't think it's in the nature of children to be cruel so much as to test limits, which often manifests itself the same way.

That is a very useful way of looking at it. Thank you.

Jim @3: Believe me, I really, really know about depression. And I do know, down deep, how attractive suicide can look. I'm just laying out, as a general principle, don't do it. A lot of people you don't even know, including the EMTs, will have a lousy day because of it.

A friend who killed herself tried very very hard to spare her friends grief by planning out the when and how ... which not only of course was impossible, but she wound up being found after the fact by some hikers instead.

I still think of those hikers sometimes, though I don't even know their names, and of how that day without warning became one of the worst days of their life.

Posted November 18, 2007 7:36 PM by Janni

Teresa @76:

And then, when the kid finally discovered that it had all been a joke, she'd also find out how many people in her world had known about it, and had participated in it without telling her. Would you ever trust anyone again if it happened to you?

I had something like that happen early last year, when one person took it upon themselves to castigate me in their online journal after my ex broke things off with me and I started dating again a whopping TWO months after the breakup. I woke up one day to find some horrific slanders directed my way online, with people piling on, and not one single person from the group of people asked my side of the story. Turned out that half of them thought they were talking about somebody else entirely, but wow, was that so not comforting after the fact. For months, I was unable to trust almost anybody associated with that group of people, even those who hadn't participated in the online slagging. I was emotionally fried, and I felt isolated, unable to decide who to trust. I can attest that if she had lived and found out about the hoax, she would still be dealing with huge emotional fallout for months and months. I was already in therapy at the time, and my therapist had a fun couple of weeks. At one point, I even asked if she had the authority to check me into a mental ward for a weekend or two, I was that desperate to escape the reality of the situation. And that was me, a grown adult, with a job and money and the ability to escape. Again, I can't imagine how a kid can cope with that level of betrayal, when it really does feel like the world is out to get you.

Posted November 18, 2007 7:43 PM by Piscusfiche

Xopher (51):

I used to know someone on MySpace who not only participated in such behavior, but who wrote lengthy essays advocating it. I was the target of several of his organized campaigns of cyberbullying, and it was hard—for me, with my strong support network and adult coping skills! I'm certain, but cannot prove, that he caused more than one suicide.

This scumbag had his profile deleted over and over and over. He just saved the profile code and put it back up in minutes. MySpace doesn't track IP addresses or anything.

...[Y]ou know the fucktard I was talking about above? He would come into (say) a support group for overweight people, pick one, and tell hir that s/he was always going to be fat, and that she should probably kill hirself, because it would only get worse as s/he grew older.

He also targeted groups that were generally supportive of one another, and have his minions go in and attack people at their most vulnerable, making it impossible for anyone to share anything that was bothering them.

He seemed to get around blocks and bans pretty effectively.

Xopher (58): When that was posted, I was forced to stop and think about whether it was a proper thing to have on Making Light. I didn't mind it, not one bit; but I had to do stop and sort out the implications.

You know what? I think it's fine. We know this couple enlisted their daughter, one of their part-time employees, and the kid across the street to help them with the hoax. That's five people total, two of whom owed them nothing and thus couldn't be relied on to keep it quiet. And since I can't imagine that everyone they told about the hoax reacted by saying "Swell! Let me help," I think the total number of people they let in on the story must have been considerably higher.

If they weren't concerned about keeping their role in the hoax a secret, I don't see why I should be concerned about it either.

Posted November 18, 2007 7:47 PM by Teresa Nielsen Hayden

#100 Then I hope everyone in the neighbourhood who knew about it for months and just sat on their hands waiting for someone else to do something about it realises how complicit they all are.

No, Dave -- not while it was going on. After the event. After the Dad drove his truck across his neighbor's lawn, for example, everyone would know. Letting the police build their case is a decent strategy. It was only after it became clear that there would be no official action that the story hit the press, and here's the DA suddenly saying that he hadn't read the file....

Posted November 18, 2007 7:53 PM by James D. Macdonald

Abi #6: I remember what it was like to be a depressed teenager with a perfectionist father who could never be satisfied no matter what I did (I got top marks in geography, he said that I should have got top marks in mathematics; I won national awards for poetry, he said I should have written short stories or a novel; I edited the school magazine, he said I should have been head boy). Suicide was often in my thoughts. I'm surprised I've made it to 51.

Posted November 18, 2007 7:53 PM by Fragano Ledgister

One quick look tells me Missouri has a stalker law; they could use that, couldn't they?

The lack of any ability to recognize what they did wrong and take responsibility for it is terrifying. The Meiers, on the other hand, seem like amazing people. I am not sure I could be as --I don't want to say forgiving, and rational sounds too cold-- about it all as they are. They honor their daughter's memory in ways those other folk couldn't even approximate in a century of Sundays.

BTW, I am a fifty-one year old librarian in a law school in South Florida. I'm easy to find and I use my own nickname. I don't think I know anyone here personally, but I used to hang around sf way back in the seventies, so there might have been some "brushes". I don't do it for the anonimity. Amazingly enough to many with whom I interact only online, I am extremely shy in person. It's fun being able to know people online: Charles, whose work I admire; Abi, with whom I almost-share a profession and a passion for paper :-); Serge, whose sense of humor delights me; Fragano, with whom I share a Caribbean upbringing... I could go on. To see that wonderful ability to make friends turned against a vulnerable child is... I don't think I have words strong enough.

Posted November 18, 2007 7:57 PM by Emma

TNH: And there in a nutshell is why the world needs moderators
Of course, when the moderators are part of the problem, the community is in for a world of hurt. The bully I mentioned above was a moderator on the Hot-or-Not community forums, and (I'm told) is the primary reason those forums no longer exist; he's also one of the reasons CP is so unpleasant, and he's been persistently angling to become a sysop on the anti-CP forums as well. He's also claimed (although I don't believe it) to be a MySpace administrator.

Posted November 18, 2007 7:58 PM by Todd Larason

Dave @86: I'm as revolted as everyone else by what they did, but doesn't this smack of vigilantism?

That's why I said (way up @49), that their community should be made aware of their involvement. Which is not to say that every average person with internet access ought to be mailing/emailing/calling them on the phone to berate them or exact some kind of "punishment".

If their community knows, or has known for a while (since Megan's death?), and this still hasn't been a problem for Ms. Drew & whoever else may have been involved, then I would hope that there is some sort of justice somewhere. I can't understand why someone who behaves in this way has been allowed by their community to just ... keep on, business as usual.

Posted Nove