Internet Harrassment
by Juli Mosoff
Since the development of popular networking websites such as Myspace and Facebook, the internet has become even more user-friendly towards young teenagers, and both of these websites say they have millions of teenage members. Both websites claim that they implement various safety measures to protect children and teenagers from danger. However, internet harassment by those who bypass these safety measures has increasingly led to alarmingly fatal consequences in teenagers within the past few years, leading many officials to wonder just how safe the internet really is.
Public scrutiny of safety measures on Myspace has been increased by the media's emphasis on the tragic suicide of Megan Meier, a 13-year-old girl from Missouri who was harassed by a neighbor who contacted her through Myspace under the fake identity "Josh Evans." The neighbor, Lori Drew, created the Myspace account with her daughter, who was once a friend of Meier's, and a former employee, all of whom sent messages to Meier throughout the six weeks before Meier's suicide through Josh Evans' account.
At first, Josh Evans started up a friendship with Meier, who had just transferred schools and hadn't made any new friends yet. According to The New York Times, their email messages were harmless until one day when Evans gave out her email address to numerous other people who all began sending Meier negative comments. The last email from Evans, dated October 15, 2006, told her that "the world would be a better place without you." Meier hung herself in her closet later on that day.
The constant attention placed on this case by the media has led to a demand for Myspace to create new safety measures. In January 2008, Myspace officials teamed up with the attorney generals of 49 states in an agreement that stated that Myspace will begin developing technology that will verify the ages of its members. With the implementation of this technology, older people such as Lori Drew will not be able to create fictional Myspace accounts with the intent of harming teenagers.
The new safety measures will also keep different age groups separate, where an adult will not be able to view a teenager's profile unless they can show that they know the teenager. Profiles of those under 18 will also be automatically set to the private setting, where only members who are their friends can see their profiles. Parents who do not want their children making Myspace profiles will be able to submit their children's email addresses to the website, making it so that profiles can not be created with these addresses.
North Carolina attorney general Roy Cooper hopes that along with these safety measures, teenagers will be better taught to protect their privacy online. Cooper said, "We must keep telling children that they're not just typing into a computer. They're sharing themselves with the world."
Meier's suicide was not the first instance of internet harassment that led to a tragic ending. In October 2003, 13-year-old Ryan Halligan from Vermont killed himself after speaking online with someone who advocated suicide as a cure for all pain after being mocked and humiliated by his classmates. His father John Halligan, who is now the vice president of the Vermont chapter of the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention, thinks that it is not just up to websites such as Myspace to set safety measures to protect children-he thinks that parents also need to do their part to make sure they know what their children are doing online.
With any luck, the measures that Myspace is using to verify ages will make tragic instances such as the suicide of Megan Meier much rarer, but people may start finding ways to get around them. Parents also need to do their part to make children aware of the dangers of the internet by setting guidelines about what they can and cannot do. Although most parents think that they know what their children are doing online, a study conducted by iSafe America concluded that only a little more than half of children actually do tell their parents what they're doing.
