Cyberbullying on MySpace
Comments: 2 - Date: November 28th, 2007 - Categories: Identity, Safety
As someone totally immersed in the digital world, I’m always a little surprised when I hear of people deeply suspicious of the Internet. It’s the 21st century, I think. But with stories like that of Megan Meiers, even I get shocked, slightly paranoid, and start fiddling with my Facebook privacy control.
Megan Meiers was an 8th grader in Dardenne Prairie, MO who began exchanging messages with a boy, Josh Evans, she met on MySpace. Out of the blue, Josh wanted to break off their relationship and sent messages saying, “I don’t know if I want to be friends with you anymore because I’ve heard that you are not very nice to your friends.” Megan, who had a history of self-esteem problems and depression, committed suicide.
The bizarre and tragic twist to this story is that Josh Evans turned out to be a fake. He was an online identity created by a mother of Megan’s former friend. The original St. Charles Journal article left out the names of the imposters, but bloggers have outed their identity online. Megan’s parents went to the media with their story and are pushing for legislation to criminalize the mother’s actions. Anyone with legal expertise have any thoughts?
The issue here obviously stretches beyond the digital world, but it does bring up the unique problem of cyberbullying: anonymity. After all, anyone can be a dog on the Internet, and anyone could be your ex-friend’s mom.
-Sarah Z.
Comment by Katy - June 30, 2008 @ 11:34 pm
I’d like to say someone has made a hate-site about me on myspace. I’d like to know if there’s something I can do. It’s really starting to bother me, and I have no idea who is keeping it up. I don’t know how to notify myspace about it, and I don’t know where to turn. My mom tried to message Tom, but I’m pretty sure that doesn’t work…if you have ANY advice, please let me know. Thank you…
Comment by Sarah Zhang - July 1, 2008 @ 11:37 pm
That’s terrible to hear and unfortunately, it has happened to other people too. I don’t personally use MySpace, but this is the official form to report abuses: http://collect.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=misc.contactInput&primarySubject=2&secondarySubject=13 according to their FAQs. From what I hear though, MySpace is not especially quick to act, so you may want to report it again if you don’t hear back in a few days. MySpace should take down the page as a violation of their terms.
This is much easier to say than do, but in the meantime, please try to ignore it. Don’t try to contact people running the hate site. Talk to your parents or a counselor if the issue continues to bother you.
If your real-life safety feels threatened, contact your local authorities right away.