I’m not surprised. Today, Federal Judge George Wu tentatively rejected the federal conviction of Lori Drew in the her infamous cyber bullying case. It’s not surprising since the case hinged on a strange interpretation of the laws about terms of use policies for MySpace. Since the malicious messages were sent from a fake account, the creation of the fake account become the issue to be decided in the case. It is so normal for online users to simply click “Yes” or “Accept” and ignore, misread, or misunderstand those complex, legal documents called “User Agreements” or “Terms of Use Policies”. There doesn’t usually seem to be a penalty in doing so. To now claim that this behavior is actual evidence of hacking is a specious argument to most casual observers. Rather, it was a convenient prosecutor’s effort to find a way to get justice for the Meier family for the tragic loss of their beloved Megan.
Judge Wu said that “were Ms. Drew’s conviction to stand, anyone who has ever violated MySpace’s terms of service would be guilty of a misdemeanor.” Including every 9-year old who ever claimed they were 13 to create an account. Or person who used inappropriate language.
The whole legal effort gave me such a disappointed feeling. We need real efforts to address cyber bullying but it won’t happen through law enforcement, no matter how well meaning. Certainly we need to update our laws to allow for the most horrific forms of cyber bullying, harassment and stalking to be addressed seriously. And we need the laws to support the schools, so administrators and teachers know how to manage bullying in all forms and know the law will help, not hinder those efforts. We need to provide clear direction to victims on what action to take and who to turn to for support in dealing with a damaging and traumatic experience. Parents have the most important role to play, to stop saying, “it’s just kids being kids” or even worse, “it will toughen them up” to the parents of the victims. Or reciting directly to the victim, “sticks and stones will break my bones but names will never harm me.” Because we know that bullying, even online and verbal forms, is highly damaging, leaving invisible scars. And what are we doing about the “silent bystanders”, those who know the bullying (playground and virtual) is occurring but lack the knowledge of what they are supposed to do?
To effect meaningful societal change, it’s going to take some magic combination of new parenting skills, education, awareness campaigns and consequences for the bullies. I suspect it will take more than a cyber generation’s time to fix the problem of cyber bullying. After all, bullying didn’t start with the online world, it only made it worse. And no simple flick of the legal wand will make it otherwise.