The new forums will be named Coin Return (based on the most recent vote)! You can check on the status and timeline of the transition to the new forums here.
The Guiding Principles and New Rules document is now in effect.
Oh man I am so fucked: MySpace Bitch faces 20 years
Salvation122
Registered User regular
Registered User regular
Remember that bitch who taunted that 13-year-old into hanging herself over MySpace? She's indicted on federal conspiracy charges. This carries a max of five years. She's also charged for three counts of (essentially) hacking, which also carry five year maxes.
Does it seem reasonable to hold bullies accountable for someone else's suicide? And exactly how much jail time should I get for punching that chick?
Does it seem reasonable to hold bullies accountable for someone else's suicide? And exactly how much jail time should I get for punching that chick?
Salvation122 on
0
Posts
That being said, you're totally going to hell.
Granted, I think she's a dispicable human being... but it also saddens me to see the legal system so beholden to mob mentality...
(see also Celebrity trials)
I'd really like this thread to talk more about exactly how we should go about doing justice for the MySpace chick and less about epic face-punchings currently chillin' on a cool five stars in Awesome Posts.
The exact charge was "accessing protected computers without authorization." Maybe they did some social engineering stuff and snagged her pass, and they're charging them for that.
Not only that, but this woman created a fake MySpace account and personae to toy with her victim. This wasn't an accident or a random act. She put a lot of thought and effort into hurting her victim. This isn't just bullying, it's premeditated murder, which is usually punished by life in prison or death penalty. She's getting off very light with just five to ten years in prison.
:^:
This case only got attention because of "zomg internetz are after our childrens". How many kids kill themselves every year because of actual, real life bullying? I don't know but I bet it's a lot.
Los Angeles has thousands of unsolved murder cases, and they are wasting resources on a case with, at best, a flimsy connection to LA, just for publicity.
The hacking charges are silly though, they're based on her lying on her myspace profile (since you violated the ToS, it's unauthorized access)
It really is sad that someone drove a young girl to suicide, but, and this may sound very cold-hearted, it's not a big deal. This girl took her own life. Chances are if it wasn't this "cyber-bully" messing with her, it would've been something else. If you're troubled enough to take your own life, chances are there is no saving you. Should this woman be thrown in jail? No. I doubt she wanted something this extreme to happen, and even if she did - she has no control over it. The girl could have ignored her (or what she thought was a him) and gone on with her life.
Joking aside, your punching that girl in the face is a great example of this. You obviously gave that girl a chance to just leave you alone, but her own stupidity got her what she deserved. She could have just ignored you when you told her to leave you alone, but she didn't. This suicide girl could've just ignored the woman (what she thought was a boy) and move on with her life. Instead she wanted to end it, and your girl wanted to get punched in the face.
There's a question of reasonable expectation. You generally aren't held criminally liable for someone's harm or death unless there's a reasonable expectation that the harm would logically result from your actions. Closing your eyes and driving down the street at high speed has a reasonable expectation of harming someone. Asking someone for a match when, unbeknownst to you, that person is seriously traumatized by the burning death of his family, such that your question goes on to result in that person hanging himself, does not.
The Myspace situation lies somewhere between those two extremes. The woman is obviously a fucking bitch, but it's unlikely driving this person to suicide was her intent, and I'm unsure how much I would expect repeated cruelty to drive a stable and healthy person - even a typically overdramatic teenager - to death. The victim had a history of mental instability, didn't she? If the lady knew this, then fuck her, she's guilty. If she didn't, then it's a bit murkier.
I'm in favour of applying every single law she broke to put her ass away for as long as possible. Hell, if her car was illegally parked while she was bullying that poor girl, I'd nail her for that too. After she spent a month bullying a girl into killing herself, she doesn't deserve to get off easy because the laws she broke sound silly.
Uhhh...
What? There's a whole lot of stupid in your post.
First, it didn't get attention because, as you suggest, of fear mongering about the internet. It got attention because an adult woman drove a child to commit suicide. As for the rest of your drivel, I really don't know what unsolved murder cases have to do with this when we have the entire cast of characters sitting right in front of us waiting for blame to be appropriated.
She didn't shout at her to jump whilst standing on a ledge, however she didn't ask to freshen up a cup of tea either.
Oh? Is that why Missouri, where this happened, didn't file any charges?
Can anyone here debate without tossing insults like a 3rd grader? Watch out, I might kill myself. Did you read the TOS when you signed up for PA?
She maliciously terrorized the girl. She is responsible for the death whether or not it was her intent, or whether or not she knew if the girl had a history of mental illness. This kind of abuse should get punished without question, but if she hadn't commited suicide it would have been a civil issue rather than a criminal one. The facts of the case exibit that the woman's actions were exactly why the girl is dead, don't they?
1) Lori, the bully, is 49 years old; the victim, Megan, was 13 years old.
2) Megan was a friend of Lori's daughter. So it's not like Lori picked a random person out of the blue and was unfortunate enough to land on someone with a history of mental instability. She had at least a passing knowledge of Megan and of her mental state.
3) Lori faked being a boy to get Megan interested, then sent more and more cruel messages culminating with "the world would be better off without you". As a 49-year-old, she should have some idea what impact this would have on a 13-year-old girl, even one she does not know personally.
So yeah, I think we can safely put the blame for this on Lori's shoulders. If not premeditated murder, at the very least this is criminal negligence resulting in death.
When I post:
I am not, in point of fact, committing a felony. No matter what you loony tunes people decide to do to yourselves in response.
But who really gives a flying fuck where it's prosecuted? "It happened in LA!" isn't some media appeal tactic as far as I'm aware, and it seems like you're just trying to argue that this is a non-issue when it's a very clear case of severe abuse, and what we should not legally tolerate.
Yeah, needs to be changed. I had to read the pointer hover preview to have any idea what this was about.
When you and some other people target a single person, create a fake personae to get close to that person, and send her PMs carefully researched and designed to hurt her as much as possible, then you and your group can be said to be conspiring to hurt the target.
The US Attorney in L.A. thinks he's got something he can charge her with, and I'm all for it. She needs to be held accountable for her actions- and not just by the court of public opinion. I mean, yeah- she's a social pariah right now, anyways, basically, she drove this girl to kill herself. There needs to be some public accountability.
I have a hard time not equating this to terrorism in my head.
Yes. Especially in a case like this where someone specifically planned out the bullying. And especially when its a 49 year old adult doing it to a child. This is more than just some mouth-breather randomly picking on whatever unfortunate kid they find in the hallway at lunchtime, this case is an adult setting out to harass and inflict mental trauma on a child.
I don't know enough about the law to say whether or not it could be considered murder, but there should definitely be some legal consequences in a case like this IMO.
We can sit here all day and talk about how it's essentially harmless to say certain things to people, or how a set of words will not kill a person. The matter is that while these words do not specifically harm someone, they are still a form of harassment that can get a person in trouble. If somebody bothered me maliciously for a month, I would be well in my mind to press charges on the person.
This girl, instead of pressing charges on the woman (considering she was 13) killed herself. I don't want to talk much about suicide in general, because I think it is very selfish, but whether or not you want to admit it the consideration is "Did what this woman said to this girl contribute to her suicide?" and it seems that it overwhelmingly does. Then, we ask, "Did this woman have the intention to cause this girl to commit suicide?"
That's where you need a good lawyer, or a reasonable jury. You're right, putting a knife in front of someone and saying, "Cut yourself" is not in itself a crime. If you walked up to someone, told them the most gruesome and horrible thing you could think of, and put a gun in front of them and told them to shoot themself, you'd be so guilty it would hurt.
The two in tandem seem reasonable to express as harassment to the extent of premeditated murder, perhaps we feel that merely one of the two afforementioned actions does not explicitly state an intent for her death?
Why is that even an issue? Why must we create such specific boundaries to assess whether or not something was "over the line"? This old woman harassed this girl until she killed herself. Why harass her in the first place? Why defend this woman at all? I sense there's some sort of wish to set precedence about cases like this, that we must define what is and isn't acceptable, but instead of judging the vast foray of human behavior, why not just judge the person in question?
It IS murky, somewhere between two extremes, but it is severe harassment with an unfortunate outcome. People who have done less have been charged with more - this lady doesn't deserve the discourse we're putting forth on her behalf.
If you were to create a fake identity with the intent to make a 13-year-old girl with a major psychiatric condition get a crush on you, and then used that fake identity to verbally abuse her, taunt her to commit suicide, and then sent her that image and she fatally cuts herself within a few days of the occurance, then yes you should be sent to jail.
Even if there is no law specifically against it right now, there should be.
Edit: What Richy said.
the "no true scotch man" fallacy.
In roughly the same way that a motley crue t-shirt fits a "non-legal" definition of formal wear.
Also, bullying occurs even on this very forum. I am certain that many people here have been sent to their deaths because of things that they've been told. But I don't think the bullies she be held accountable.
the "no true scotch man" fallacy.
Well, since we're speaking of other realities in which things "should be" illegal, all I can say is that I disagree entirely.
The daughter of woman used to be friends with the victim. It seems like she did it to find out what the victim was saying about her own daughter.
As for the motive, Megan and Lori's daughter were pulling some of the usual fickle BFF-one-day-worst-enemy-the-next crap that teenagers often do. But instead of Lori telling her daughter, as a mature and intelligent person would, "Honey, kids are like that at your age, I wouldn't worry too much about it," she helped her daughter pull a despicable stunt.
the "no true scotch man" fallacy.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Megan_Meier_suicide_controversy
Don't be a cock, Senj. As ElJeffe aptly described, there's a legitimate question over whether this is already illegal or not, and that question might be better answered by lawyers and judges than random people on the Internet.
This case may set precedent.
I'd be interested in knowing why.
the "no true scotch man" fallacy.