It been called the MySpace suicide case. On march 14, 2008, a federal grand jury indicted Lori Drew,49, of Missouri the so called cyber bully. Ms Drew had created a MySpace site for Josh Evans, a fictitious teen boy she used as a means of getting information from Megan Meier, a 13 year old girl with whom Ms.Drew daughter had had falling out. Josh pretended to be interested in megan, but then said that she was fat and that the world would be a better place without her. Megan hanged herself within an hour of receiving the final comments from Josh. Ms.
Drew was charged with one count of conspiracy and two counts of accessing computers without authorization and was convicted of three lesser charges. However the judge dismissed the charged because of issues related to the meaning of the term unauthorized use and whether the federal statutes could be applied what Ms. Drew did. When the indictment was made public, Salvador Hernandez assistant director of the FBI in Los Angeles said whether we characterized this tragic case as cyber bullying; cyber abuse or illegal computer access, it should serve as a reminder that our children use the internet for social interaction and that technology has altered the way they conduct their daily activities. As adults we must be sensitive to the potential dangers posed by the use of the internet by our children. Some states have now passed specific statutes to make cybebullying a crim. Why would the judge not find a criminal violation? Is it a crime to bully over the Internet?