Making Internet Harassment A Crime The latest news regarding a teenager who commited suicide after believing a my space "boyfriend" jilted her and who had called a "bad person" is that finally, we may be getting some internet laws created to put a stop to online harassment by malicious persons. It is quite unfortunate that it took the death of a young teenager for the legal system to realize we need some tough harassment laws to protect people from malicious others who have the intent to cause ill will over the internet.
The fact this young girl killed herself after believing she had met a boy through "My Space" and thought she had met someone she could trust and believed everything he wrote to her only to be later called names, harassed and scorned hits a high nerve with me. True, the teenager did suffer from mental issues and the malicious mother who pretended to be the young boy and who had created a fake "my space" page probably never thought the girl would kill herself over the terrible words she typed to her, it was still wrong and shame on a MOTHER for lowering herself to such levels as a means of harassing a teenager. The mother who created the fake page claims she only did this because she was trying to find out what the girl was saying about her own teenage daughter, but I think the mother needs to go to jail! I agree with the father who said this woman basically placed a loaded gun into the hands of his now deceased daughter because the woman lived down the road from them and she knew the family. She was aware this young girl was on medications for mental issues.
I have never lost a child, but I do feel their pain of losing their child over something some stupid. The parents will now live with guilt and wonder whether there was something more that could have been done to have helped their child through a difficult period. Let's face it, most people don't snap over ridiculous postings that are placed on the internet by dumb people who carry vendettas. But at the same time, people should be careful about what they post inside of forums and what they do or say to people on the internet. This young girl caused harm to her self...not to others.....but what if she had snapped and gone in the other direction?
Some people snap. Some people have a low threshold for stress and who knows what fine line is going to cause them to act irrational over what someone said or did over the internet and cause them to go over the edge. Whether they harm themselves or hurt the one who has posted horrible lies about them on the internet, everyone has a breaking point. I am in complete agreement that laws should be tougher regarding the internet and harassment. I believe that websites that host forums and places such as My Space where personal pages can be hosted or created should be held accountable and responsible if another person is injured or harassed by malicious people who use their forums and sites for this purpose. IP addresses can be recorded and such sites have the ability to remove content that is derogatory in nature. Such sites have the ability to moderate their forums and pages posted through their websites and should be more responsible in moderating them. The world is full of crazy people. We all know this! People feel they can sit behind their computer and do whatever they want to others and NOT get in trouble for it. There are many cowards in this world who do hateful things to others via the internet because they do these things at the touch of a keyboard and it doesn't matter whether or not their words are true. People take what is written at face value.
When my sister went into my space and created a horrible fake MY SPACE page using my photo and my name, I was mortified when it was discovered! Yes, MY SPACE removed it upon my contacting them but the fact remains, the page stayed visible for six months before it was discovered! That same malicious sister of mine went into dozens if not hundreds of dog forums and wrote horrific lies about me, pretending to have been a potential customer and then also used various faked user names....faked email addresses....and wrote lie after lie pretending to have been various dog buyers and wrote the worst lies I had ever seen someone write...not to mention listing my personal name, address and other personal information. Much of the content remained on the internet for a very long time before it was discovered and I was able to get many of the sites to remove her content...but there are still sites who harbor her lies inside of their archive hell holes and I am sure there are more places I have yet to discover her many, many lies she wrote. I don't care that she has claimed to have had a nervous breakdown over mental/personal issues she was having at the time (that I had nothing to do with) that does NOT give her the right or anyone the right to go into forums or anywhere on the internet to slander me or anyone else for that matter. Had I been a weak person and had her derogatory nonsense caused me to snap, there is no telling what I would have done to her for causing me so much embarassment and loss of business over her written lies. I am within driving distance of her and she is very fortunate I am a strong person who still has my mental facilities intact. I did the smart thing.....I printed out everything I found that she did and forwarded it to my attorney. I contacted the websites that harbored her insane lies and asked them to remove the content. Many complied. Some are still teetering on the edge, pushing the envelope but their day is coming. My fingers are crossed that the death of this young girl will make lawmakers more aware of how serious harassment over the internet has become and how it is very important to toughen the laws so that those who harbor or write such malicious content about others will be hauled off to jail or punished completely if they don't remove it or prevent it. There is absolutely no reason for website owners to allow their members to post derogatory nonsense inside of their forums, especially content that targets people by name. Website owners have the responsibility to properly moderate their sites and to immediately delete such content. Website owners have the ability to ban members who refuse to be civil and it is up to the site owners to ensure their forums are civil and not malicious in nature.
I am very saddened this young girl killed herself because of a very stupid thing a neighbor wrote to and about her over the internet, but I hope her death will open the eyes of lawmakers. I hope that her death will bring justice to many others who have been harassed over the internet and that laws will be created to help protect people from those who seek revenge through their keyboard.
Author: Dee
Gerrish@2007
