Re: [LM_NET] Implications of the Lori Drew conviction

[Nancy Willard <nwillard@CSRIU.ORG>]

I think we should encourage reading and abiding by the terms of service -
but this is a contractual issue. If you violate the terms of use of the
agreement, your use of the site is terminated. The terms of use agreement
are an agreement between you and the site.

Where I have difficulty is when a federal prosecutor attempts to turn
failure to read or follow the terms of service into a federal felony. All of
the legal authorities think this will not fly - hopefully the district judge
will overturn the conviction. If not the circuit level judges certainly
will. So this was all just an exercise for naught.

We also will not effectively address the risks young people face online by
focusing on trying to convict Lori Drew. There will always be mean people
online - whether they establish a false persona or not. When Megan killed
herself, she had no knowledge that this profile was false. And according to
the police chief, there was not significant "seduction" in the
communications. Megan had fallen into "fantasy love" with an online
stranger. What happened that allowed this to occur? The answer to that
question is where we can get to prevention.

From a prevention perspective, we have to focus on the fact that the Meiers
allowed their highly emotionally vulnerable 13 YO daughter to establish a
friendship link with a "hot" 16 year old boy - who was not known to them in
person. Even if this was not an false persona, this was dangerous. In fact,
when my emotionally stable daughter was 13, she would not have been allowed
to establish a link with a 16 YO boy even if she knew him. Duh! There were
also plenty of indicators that this was a false persona- - like the kid did
not have a phone number.

Most importantly, if you look at the early news coverage,
http://suburbanjournals.stltoday.com/articles/2007/11/14/news/sj2tn20071110-
1111stc_pokin_1.ii1.txt the Meiers were clearly aware that their daughter
had become emotionally attached to a "hot guy" she met online - who they
knew nothing about. So this situation was fraught with danger. And the
Meiers did nothing to protect their child from this danger. It seemed like
Tina Meiers encouraged the online relationship.

So the things we need to focus on with students is the possibility that
someone could create a false persona that they might use to harm you in some
way - by getting you to share personal information that is then forwarded to
others for a laugh. So it is safest to only like with friends and friends of
friends  - people you know actually exist in the real world. If they ever
link to a "stranger" they need to be really careful to fully investigate
this person - and watch for indicators that the profile is fake - like who
the person's friends are, how many bulletins are posted, how many images.
Ask your students if they have linked to a profile that they found out was
fake and what the signs were.

And we also have to focus their attention on the concerns of "fantasy love"
- the idea that you can really fall in love with someone online - that the
online communications provide enough information about a person that will
really allow you to know that person. Ask your students if they have ever
thought they were in love with someone who they communicated with primarily
through electronics and what happened when they actually spent some time in
the real world together.

I strongly recommend you use the site I provided above with your students.
Have then get into small groups - appoint someone in each group who you
think is really solid to provide group leadership. Ask them to read the
story and come up with the guidelines they think are important for they and
their peers to follow so that incidents like this do not occur to them or
their friends. Focus on both sides - adding information that the profile was
initially created in response to the fact that Megan was bullying Sarah.
Also point out that this news coverage was wrong - Lori was not the one
communicating. It was Ashley, the 18 YO and Sarah, the 13 YO.

Have your students come up with some guidelines in small group - then refine
in large group. Share them with these email discussion groups. I betcha you
will find that your students have some very excellent insight. And the ones
who have not thought this through will listen to their peers.

Nancy

> From: Judy Robison <robison1948@frontiernet.net>
> 
> I find this argument strange.  I do read terms of service, and have
> decided not to join a number of services that I felt compromised my
> privacy, or carried restrictions I didn't want to abide by. (OK, I'm wary
> of what I commit to) Shouldn't we model behavior that includes reading a
> contract before we "sign " it, instead of rationalizing our ignorance?
> The fact that "most people" donšt read the terms of service shouldn't
> change the fact that we are obliged to abide by them - sort of like
> copyright, even if you didn't read the copyright notice on the software
> you purchased, you still are bound by that agreement. (Do you think it is
> acceptable for people who have agreed to YouTube's membership agreement to
> download their videos?)
> When MySpace first became popular, we covered their FAQ in our HS
> technology classes, just so our kids did understand what was involved. Now
> we use news stories like this one to raise the same issues.
> 
> Judith Claire Robison
> St. John's Catholic Prep
> Director of Technology
> 
> 
> 
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-- 
Nancy Willard, M.S., J.D.
Center for Safe and Responsible Internet Use
http://csriu.org
http://cyberbully.org
http://cyber-safe-kids.com
http://csriu.wordpress.com
nwillard@csriu.org

Cyberbullying and Cyberthreats: Responding to the Challenge of Online Social
Aggression, Threats, and Distress (Research Press)

Cyber-Safe Kids, Cyber-Savvy Teens: Helping Young People Learn to Use the
Internet Safely and Responsibly (Jossey-Bass)

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