As many of you can probably tell, I’m fascinated by the idea of internet communication, and I follow almost all the major stories in the news press. The story below is one in which an adult woman posed as a teenage boy in order to bait and dump a teenage girl. The woman allegedly took this action because her daughter had personal problems with the teenage girl.
There was a guilty verdict on Wednesday, but what I find interesting is the basis of the verdict:
The woman, Lori Drew, posed as a teenage boy in using the account to send first friendly and then menacing messages to Megan Meier, 13, who killed herself shortly after receiving a message in October 2006 that said in part, “The world would be a better place without you.”
MySpace’s terms of service require users to submit “truthful and accurate” registration information. Ms. Drew’s creation of a phony profile amounted to “unauthorized access” to the site, prosecutors said, a violation of the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act of 1986, which until now has been used almost exclusively to prosecute hacker crimes.
It raises questions about phony identity. While I agree that this woman should be guilty of something, the critics are correct–we’ve often been told to create phony identities in order to protect our real identities. I think this ruling will stand, but I’m wondering what other kinds of lawsuits it will open up. Maybe there should be a crime against making a false identity in order to harass someone.
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