Internet harassment: misdemeanor, punishable by up to $500 and 90 days in jail

It's a start:

Missouri City Makes Internet Harassment a Crime

DARDENNE PRAIRIE, Missouri — City officials unanimously passed a measure making online harassment a crime, days after learning that a 13-year-old girl killed herself last year after receiving cruel messages on the Internet.

The six-member Board of Aldermen made Internet harassment a misdemeanor, punishable by up to a $500 fine and 90 days in jail. Mayor Pam Fogarty said the city had proposed the measure after learning about Megan Meier's death.

"It is our hope that by supporting one of our own in Dardenne Prairie, we can do our part to ensure this type of harassing behavior never happens again, anywhere," Fogarty said, adding, "after all, harassment is harassment regardless of the mechanism or tool."

Several dozen people broke into applause after the measure was passed.

Authorities have said they could not find a crime to charge anyone with in the case of Meier, who thought she had met a good-looking 16-year-old boy on the social networking site MySpace last year. But he began sending her mean messages and others joined in, her family said, and then he abruptly ended their friendship.

Megan hanged herself within minutes of receiving the last messages on Oct. 16, 2006, and died the next day.

Megan's parents, Ron and Tina Meier, learned about six weeks after Megan's death that the boy, Josh Evans, was not real. The boy was created by a mother down the street who wanted to know what Megan was saying about her own daughter, who had had a falling out with Megan.

Her father said he found a message from Josh, which he said law enforcement authorities have not been able to retrieve. It told the girl she was a bad person and the world would be better without her, he has said.

The four-page measure defines both harassment and cyber-harassment, essentially making it illegal to engage in a pattern of conduct that would cause a reasonable person to suffer "substantial emotional distress," or for an adult to contact a child under 18 in a communication causing a reasonable parent to fear for the child's well-being.

City attorney John Young said constitutionally protected activity would be exempt. The measure would apply when one of the people communicating was in Dardenne Prairie.

During a break in the meeting, Fogarty embraced Megan's mother with tears in her eyes. She said she was sorry there had not been a law previously in place to prosecute Megan's harassers.

Tina Meier said she was thrilled that the city had passed the new measure.

"This is not a stopping point," she said. "We're not done."

City officials also passed a resolution encouraging state and federal officials to outlaw cyber-harassment and cyber-stalking. A state lawmaker has questioned how state law could be altered without running afoul of First Amendment constitutional issues guaranteeing freedom of speech.

Déjà vu anyone?

SPIRALING OUT OF CONTROL

Shaming is an important tool for social control, yet it can be dangerous if
unchecked. When people can report on the misdeeds of others, they eliminate
the anonymity that often facilitates the transgressions of norms. “How’s My
Driving?” programs, for example, have led to improvements in road safety.
But such programs work best when under tight controls. In the “How’s My
Driving?” program, complaints about drivers are investigated and drivers are
given feedback, training, and instruction.87
Much Internet shaming, in contrast, occurs without any formal procedures,
investigation, or direct feedback to the accused offender. As a result, Internet
shaming can readily get out of hand. Because the Internet allows thousands
to communicate quickly, it makes it easier to form the digital equivalent
to a mob. Gustave Le Bon, in his famous 1896 work The Crowd, observed that
crowds have a different psychology than individuals do: “A crowd is as easily
heroic as criminal.”88 Crowds can be impulsive and excitable. Psychologists
describe a related phenomenon known as “group polarizing effect.” As groups
converge on particular issues, they tend to polarize in their opinions, resulting
in more extreme points of view.89
People on the Internet often move quickly, like a swarm of killer bees. They
often behave in moblike fashion. In China, for example, a person used an on
line bulletin board to shame a college student who he believed was having an
affair with his wife. Readers of the bulletin board quickly exacted punishment
on the student. One reader wrote: “Let’s use our keyboard and mouse in our
hands as weapons to chop off the heads of these adulterers.” Thousands of
people joined in the attack, causing the target to leave school and making his
family hide away in their home. In a similar case in China, a man caught a
college student having an affair with his wife. He posted the student’s name
online and described the affair. People quickly rallied to support the husband,
providing more information about the student, including his address and
phone number. The student denied the affair, even posting a short testimonial
video. But the attacks didn’t stop. Some people even began seeking out the
student at his school and home. The husband was so surprised by the quick
and vigorous reaction that he came to the defense of the student and urged a
halt to the vigilantism. One of the shamers proclaimed: “What we Internet
users are doing is fulfilling our social obligations. We cannot let our society
fall into such a low state.”90
The shamer’s explanation for attacking another person, somebody he probably
didn’t even know, stems from a belief that shame is necessary to ensure
social order. Without the threat of shame, people would transgress norms,
making society less orderly and civil. But as some of these incidents demonstrate,
although shaming is done to further social order, it paradoxically can
have the opposite result. Instead of enhancing social control and order, Internet
shaming often careens out of control. It targets people without careful
consideration of all the facts and punishes them for their supposed infractions
without proportionality. Shaming becomes uncivil, moblike, and potentially
subversive of the very social order that it tries to protect.

Source: “The Future of Reputation: Gossip, Rumor and Privacy on the Internet.”
CHAPTER 4. SHAMING AND THE DIGITAL SCARLET LETTER

In the case of a local law, how are they going to determine jurisdiction, much less enforce it against someone half way across the planet?

I don't really know, but is sures seems this is he way things are heading.

Regards,

he = the

One of the problems with "shaming" over the internet it that it creates a lifetime blemish on the individual from which he cannot recover. It is there for anyone to Google it an read about. Shaming makes it really hard for the individual to recover and reinsert himself in the society or peer group again.

The effect that it achieves is thus the opposite to that intended. Now he has absolutely nothing to lose, as his reputation is stained forever. Is there any incentive for improvement? Absolutely not. It so happens that at the end the person might "snap", and if by any chance he has a slight underlying mental or physical problem it might be a disaster waiting to happen. What if after months of harassing an individual over the web something happens to him or he reacts in a totally unpredictable way? People gang on an individual without even knowing his medical history.

Now, as far as how will that be enforced across state lines I don't know, but if in the end this is legislated as a federal offense it would not be that difficult to imagine; and from what I'm seeing is just a matter of time...

Regards

Like in child support cases now where the person not receiving can go to their own state and go to court there, no matter what state the person who is not paying is in that it will become much like that. Agencies in different states working together to cut the barrier lines out.
Since this is the computer age and I can see where the problems with harrassments and the like lay I can also see that line between states slowing disappearing, and maybe not so slowly now that the ball is rolling.

They won't ever be able to control the internet without broad, national laws. And I, for one, hope that doesn't ever happen anymore than it already has.

Sweet Jesus.....I'm gonna get the lethal injection.

I was gonna offer to start passing the hat to bail you out now, Chuck.