The Law Applies to Everyone, Ironically
The tragedy of the suicide of a 13-year-old girl was followed by public outrage over what had apparently driven her to take her own life. From all accounts, it seems that Megan Meier was the victim of an Internet hoax and harassment.
Megan was a fan of the popular website MySpace.com. She had been contacted by a person who she thought was Josh, a cute boy who was interested in her. In reality, there was no boy named Josh. He was allegedly invented by an adult woman named Lori Drew and her daughter who was at one time a friend of Megan's. They were assisted in the hoax by an 18-year-old employee of Drew's.
After Megan had become interested in the fictional character, Drew and others allegedly began sending her cruel and hateful messages from "Josh" and told her that the world would be a better place without her.
As a result of the hoax and Internet harassment, Megan Meier hanged herself. After the details of the events leading up to her suicide were revealed, the public demanded that criminal charges be brought against Drew and others who allegedly harassed Megan online and contributed to her death.
The problem was that Drew and her helpers had actually not broken any existing laws in their town and despite all of the negative attention in the case, local prosecutors could find no grounds to charge Drew with any crimes.
However, since Megan's death, her hometown of Dardenne Prairie, Missouri has adopted a law that makes Internet harassment a misdemeanor crime. Under state law in Missouri, Internet harassment and stalking are crimes, but the sheriff's department has not concluded their investigation into whether or not Drew broke any state laws through her alleged online communications with Megan.
Meanwhile, a new blog has popped up on the Internet on Google's blogging network. Now, Drew seems to be getting a taste of her own medicine-someone posing as her is blogging about the case. Drew claims that she is not the author of the blog and the sheriff's department is also investigating the blog and its postings to see if a crime has been committed there.
The blog is titled "Megan Had It Coming" and is on the Blogger.com network. Lori Drew and her family say that the blog was started in order to further damage her reputation. Postings on the blog claimed to outline Drew's motives for the hoax that she allegedly orchestrated leading up to Megan's suicide. The blog has now been reduced to only one post, although the blogger still claims to be Lori Drew.
The irony is this: now there's a law in the town that protects people from Internet harassment. Because of Drew's alleged actions leading up to the suicide of Megan Meier, people in the town are now protected from this sort of thing. And since laws apply to everyone, Lori Drew may be the first person to be protected from Internet harassment under the new law.
So it seems things have worked out for Lori Drew. She may never be prosecuted for her alleged scheme to torment a 13-year-old girl on the Internet; however, she may be protected under the law that was created because of her alleged actions.
