According to a report published by the associated press today, the mother of a girl involved in a cyberbullying suicide story has been indicted by federal prosecutors. The tragic story of Megan Meier made national headlines late last year, in which the mother of one of Megan's former friends allegedly created a fake MySpace profile that pretended to be a boy who liked Megan. You can read the past articles about it, but it ended with Megan committing suicide. After it was revealed that the mother of Megan's friend was involved with creating the fake profile, local prosecutors were unable to press charges against her, citing that they could not find an applicable statute. Federal prosecutors, however, have been able to indict Lori Drew "on one count of conspiracy and three counts of accessing protected computers without authorization to obtain information to inflict emotional distress."
I will update this post with links to more articles in the coming days as details of this story begin to surface.
It is important to note that while this tragedy does produce lots of headlines, there are lots of smaller incidences of bullying and cyberbullying happening right now. Make sure to talk to your students and children about cyberbullying and strategies to prevent it. The Center for Safe and Responsible Internet Use has a lot of helpful information for parents and teachers to access.
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2 comments:
While the Megan Meier incident was tragic, I think it's important to keep some perspective. Education of the public in general and of our kids specifically is key. Lawmakers reacting by making laws without thinking is a bad thing. Unfortunately, when a tragic incident like this occurs, we tend to overreact, often making the situation much worse. Here is an interesting article on the issue.
knowing how hard it is for our young teens to deal with bullying...an adult Mom should have definately known better! Not only did she hurt another teen, & aid in her decision to end her life, she certainly sent the wrong message to her own teen. I feel she should have gotten a stiffer sentence.
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