Wednesday, November 26, 2008
Lori Drew Lives
Remember the Lori Drew case, in which a woman created a fake Myspace profile as a teenage boy to seduce and dump a neighborhood girl who then killed herself? (Said girl having previously dumped said woman's son.) A jury has acquitted Drew of the felony charges, but found her guilty of a misdemeanor, for "gaining unauthorized access to MySpace" (!), which will probably carry no jail time. The case elicited the worst side of everybody involved -- the woman was typical of the Awful Parent, and the New Yorker piece describes the dreadful behavior of all the other self-righteous parents in the area -- and confirmed all my prejudices about the innate nastiness of human nature. As such I shouldn't really have any preexisting sympathies; however, I'm pleased that the mob was thwarted.
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4 comments:
It's a little chilling that "gaining unauthorized access to MySpace" is a crime. Am I right in assuming the crime is using a false identity on MySpace?
That would be chilling, yes. Dunno the details, but maybe it means something stronger like friending people under a fake identity? You're the lawyer...
What's really awful is that they basically got her on violating the Terms of Service agreement. Think about how many of those you agree to while using the internet, and how many terms you've probably violated. It just opens the door to all sorts of arbitrary prosecutions.
Yes, it's a terribly unsavory bit of mob justice. However, I was expecting things to turn out much worse.
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