Megan Meier’s Suicide in 2006 Has Impacted a Lot

Date: May 20, 2008

For anyone who frequents this site, you know I’ve got more than a few gripes about governments. Well, it’s time for me to add in another gripe that I’ve had for some time. Being the large, corrupt and very-nearly mindless entity that it typically is, the government is not very good at properly adapting to changing times and technologies. There are some absolutely terrible laws on the books, when it comes to new media, particularly the Internet, and more are being written as politicians begin to realize that the Internet is useful and not just a fad (surprise!). Some of the latest are “anti-harassment laws for the Internet,” a number of which were made in response to the Megan Meier controversy, which occurred in late 2006.

About Megan Meier

In brief, the Missouri-based, Megan Meier controversy was that the mother of one of Meier’s friends, who was also her neighbor, used MySpace to stalk and harass her, thus, the argument goes, leading directly to her suicide. The 49-year-old Lori Drew created a fake profile on MySpace, a.k.a, refuse of the Internet, and used it to harass Meier.

Apparently the MySpace message that sent 13-year-old Meier over the edge was “The world would be a better place without you.” That’s disputed, however, since there’s no record of such a message, so either that is true or it was just the accumulation of negative and hurtful messages from Drew’s “Josh Evans” profile that depressed her. Moreover, Meier’s mother didn’t seem to take the situation as seriously as she should have, so that was likely a factor to her depression as well.

About Lori Drew

Lori Drew, who is quite obviously disgusting and desperate, has been federally indicted, as of May 15th, for four matters, including conspiracy. She will spend up to 20 years in prison. This is after the county reviewed the matter and didn’t file charges. For those interested, you can see a full copy of the indictment papers at The Smoking Gun. From the papers, one can see that nearly up until October 16th, the day Meier committed suicide, the interaction between Meier and “Josh Evans” was positive.

If one reads the documentation critically, I think the assumption here can be that Drew and any others possibly involved were attempting to end the hoax in October 2006. Page seven, Overt Act 7, of the indictment papers shows Drew as writing on the 7th of October that “Josh Evans” was moving. When Meier’s communication seems to have not stopped–going so far as to include “I love you so much” to “Josh Evans” a few days later–that is when Drew stated that the world would be a better place without Meier. It seems to me that Drew was trying to end what she started.

When Meier committed suicide, Drew quickly deleted the MySpace account and told an involved minor to not discuss what had happened. I think that’s a pretty natural response, because it would be easy for Drew to see how she would be portrayed if information got out. She certainly did do a lot of wrong things, on many different levels, but I’m not sure the limelight demonization she’s getting is appropriate.

Now for a Part that Everyone Will Hate Me For

It is sad that a young girl chose to take her life. However, it was her life, and frankly, if a bullying statement from some supposed stranger online is what leads to your hanging yourself…my God, you probably weren’t going to last long anyway. Really, as if that’s a big problem in life. Just think about how insignificant such a thing is. Most all of us deal with some form of bullying in our lives, and there will never be such a Utopian society that no one ever experiences emotional distress from it. Moreover, online bullying has to be one of the tamest forms ever, because 99% of the time you have complete control over it in the form of blocking someone or reporting them to administrative bodies that are typically very quick to act. Meier’s reaction could have been to block “Josh Evans” and make her profile private. Her reaction, instead, was to hang herself.

None of this is to say Drew should be excused for any of her behavior. Quite the contrary, she committed the crimes she was indicted for. However, it is preposterous for the media, and, to an extent, politicians, to suggest that she is the reason Meier committed suicide. I would even go so far as to say that 20 years in prison for influencing a depressed teen’s decision to commit suicide is a bit extreme when the average sentence for child molesters is 11 years. One is influencing a person’s decision; the other is actually inflicting (quite probably) lifelong distress on a person.

It’s not that I’m heartless. It’s more that I’m unwilling to embrace my emotions so much that I skew the facts. The fact here is that Meier had ADD, was clinically depressed and thought herself to be overweight, whether she was or wasn’t. She wasn’t your average teenage girl. That doesn’t mean it’s any less unfortunate that she committed suicide, but it does mean that she, when compared to other teenage girls, was more likely to commit suicide than the rest. That’s a fact that can’t be ignored.

The problem here is that it’s one thing to suggest a criminal has committed the crimes that she has. It’s another to say someone’s actions directly led to another person’s suicide. That’s effectively implying someone is a murderer. I think it’s undeniable that Drew’s activity influenced Meier’s decision, as it is obvious Drew’s “character” had impact on the girl; her family reported that her attitude was positive in the beginning of her online interaction with “Josh Evans.” That was during the time that the interaction was positive. We can see that this girl was emotionally invested. What we can’t see, and what’s possibly not being reported (or even known), is how depressed she really was, if she had failed to take any medication properly, if she had ever attempted suicide in the past. These are important things to consider.

We need to stick to the facts. Lori Drew didn’t commit murder, and we shouldn’t imply that by saying she “directly caused” Meier to hang herself. Megan Meier did commit suicide, and we shouldn’t imply that her suicide was merely influenced by this incident, when she had known psychological issues she was dealing with.

Why are people so surprised?

I don’t see national news coverage of many other teenage suicides, and there are over 4,500 others a year, accounting for the third largest cause of death for the 10-24 age group in the States. So, other than Lori Drew’s strange harassment, and at the risk of sounding cold, what makes Meier’s suicide so “special?”

That’s simply answered, I think. Media producers and many politicians are either technophobic themselves or like to promote technophobia. This was one of those bad-news-is-good-news stories for them. Don’t be fooled. It wasn’t only the strange lengths that Drew went to that caught national, and even international, media attention. It was the fact that it happened in the big, bad world of cyberspace, the Internet, the place where a pedophile roams on every corner, where your identity is stolen the second you connect and where you are largely defenseless against evildoers. Thank goodness we have traditional media to remind us of this. Thank goodness we have the government to police the problem.

While I don’t like MySpace at all personally, I have to feel for it. Parents are probably more afraid of MySpace, because of stories like this, than they are rising teen pregnancy rates, which affect far more teens and families annually than cyber harassment or even suicide.

My concern in regard to people’s surprise, deep dismay and constantly renewed fear is that it will lead to new, restrictive legislation in response. Unfortunately, my fears are often realized, regarding that.

How One Incident Can Have a Snowball Effect

There’s amazing truth in the old adage, “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.” This becomes increasingly true when we speak about politicians and the government, I think. If something doesn’t need a new law to be made, we should seriously question why politicians are so eager to sign something new. What’s hidden, in small print, on page 53 of that overstuffed bill that only a few in the room have read? What might we lose if we allow this seemingly unnecessary law to be passed?

The Megan Meier suicide probably more directly led to local and state governments’ new Internet anti-harassment laws than Drew’s MySpace messages led to her suicide. A year after this case, the mayor of Dardenne Prairie, Missouri, where Meier was from, declared the need for updated harassment laws. Here’s a paragraph about it from a local newspaper.

[Mayor] Fogarty instructed City Attorney John Young to draft an ordinance that would make it a Class B misdemeanor - punishable by 90 days in jail and/or a $500 fine - to harass someone over the Internet.

That is the maximum penalty for a fourth-class city such as Dardenne Prairie.

Young said that at the state level harassment is a Class A misdemeanor. Such crimes are punishable by up to a year in jail and/or a $1,000 fine.

Oh, and if you didn’t believe my opinion before that the media and the government love to make you afraid of technology, take a look at this gem from the same article:

[State Rep. Cynthia Davis] spoke publicly and cautioned that the dangers of cyberspace extend far beyond the boundaries of Dardenne Prairie, as well as Missouri and even the nation.

We’re all afraid now, right? Good, good. That, in turn, led to this:

Davis said later she is “committed to exploring the options” of filing a bill and as quickly as Thursday would ask House staff researchers to look into the matter.

Ward 3 Alderman Mike Coyne responded to Davis. “You can’t wait for the federal government to do something,” he said. “It starts at the local level and the state level.”

OK then, Fogarty said, might as well add a second resolution for next week: one urging the federal government to address cyberspace harassment.

So, some of you may have gotten this far and are wondering why these new, good-sounding laws are unnecessary. The simplest answer to this is to show you the categories of harassment that are currently covered under our “run of the mill” harassment laws, courtesy of Wiki.

Legal harassment - Legal actions against an individual or a group
Sexual harassment (with a much stricter definition in the workplace)
Psychological harassment - repetitive unprovoked intrusions or interruptions
Group psychological harassment
Hate speech - comments proveably false or irrelevant which express or encourage hate towards a particular group

The above covers things like stalking, psychological bullying and general bullying–all three things of which Lori Drew did and all three things of which Lori Drew was indicted on. What more, exactly, can new laws do? Other than, of course, line the pockets of lawyers and give the government new, excessive power over what you and I–the people who hopefully use the Internet for good purposes–can do online.

By the way, the desire for new laws apparently all started when “Authorities in Missouri investigated Megan’s death but failed to charge Drew after they were unable to find a law that she had broken” (source). I’ve no idea how they missed the countless laws regarding harassment, but apparently they did. That’s a real talent.

How Problems Like the Megan Meier Incident Can Be Prevented

Not only is government involvement unnecessary for the reasons I gave above, it is also ineffective. While it is questionable whether a teen with as many emotional and psychological issues as Meier had will function well, there is very little question, in my opinion, of whether she, and many other teens who’ve had online run-ins, would still be alive if parents had taken a moment to listen to the problem she said she was having. Unfortunately, many parents of my generation and the one right after me are either uninterested in a lot of things online or are, frankly, afraid to use the sites to understand their pros and cons. (Perhaps we can attribute the latter to the technophobic influence of traditional media and the government, even.)

Internet crimes are just like other crimes, and few new laws need to be made for the moral issues that may ensue. Harassment is harassment, whether it is in the workplace or schoolyard, via phone or online. To be self-indulgent and quote myself from 2006:

Crime–that is, physical and mental crime, rather than the usual money scams and such–is one of the things MySpace has “learned” from reality. This is in part because over 100 million users are on MySpace. The potential for heinous crimes to be committed skyrockets as the “population” grows in a confined area that can’t be well monitored. This especially holds true, considering so many teenagers use notoriously poor judgment when navigating this website, and therefore, the need for third party monitoring is rather high.

The only danger of MySpace, given its large user base, is actually the main danger that exists in reality, and that is letting your guard down. People seem to forget that there is still some reality in virtual reality, and crimes can and will be committed.

That was written two months prior to Megan Meier’s suicide in October. It’s 2008, nothing’s changed, other than, maybe, how much freedom some people want you to have online. The good and bad thing about the Internet, then, is that it’s hard to enforce laws that will restrict you in this medium. In this case, amid all the fear, I think it’s a good thing.