Al Capone and Internet Safety

I'm sure you are all aware of the suicide of 13 year-old Megan Meier, a St. Louis teen who thought she was talking to a 16 year-old boy who was actually an adult neighbor.

Today, the U.S. Attorney in Los Angeles announced a four count indictment against, Lori Drew, the adult accused of being instrumental in Megan's death.

I think this is an extremely interesting case for many reasons. If you look closer at the indictment, you realize that there were no cyberbullying or harassment laws in place that could be used to get justice in this case. The US Attorney had to get creative and took a page from the Al Capone prosecution book. While there were laws against what Capone was doing, no one could get the goods on him for murder or other heinous crimes. However, they were able to put him away for tax evasion.

What has happened in the Megan Meier case is that the US Attorney has applied laws that are typically aimed at hackers and used the MySpace Terms of Service as a key portion of the issue. I am sure that this will catch the attention of the ACLU and EEF and you will be hearing charges that this prosecution is too broad and may be leading us down a slippery slope.

I seriously doubt that anyone will be prosecuted for minor violations of TOS as they might suggest. The US Attorney took great pains to emphasize that the decision here was made on the merits of this particular case. It was the death allegedly as a result of the actions of an adult online. That indeed is a serious case and anyone thinking that the US Attorney would be going after someone for anything minor is either delusional or paranoid.

Cudos to the US Attorney for seeking justice for Megan.

The Megan Pledge - An Anti-Cyberbullying Campaign

A few weeks ago I gave you a peek behind the scenes of the 8th Annual Wired Kids Summit. Today, I'm here to tell you about the major focus of the Summit. The suicide of Megan Meier that took place after a cyberbullying incident brought national attention to the problem that is running rampant with teens. A Tweenangel chapter in New Rochelle, NY has done something about it and we would like to turn it into a national campaign.

The tweens have initiated the Megan Pledge, a three part campaign to help stop cyberbullying. There are three parts of The Megan Pledge, a signed individual pledge, a group banner and a black and white polka-dot ribbons to wear and share. The pledge itself contains both statements and a set of promises. It is signed and witnessed and given to WiredSafety’s Megan Pledge volunteer team and sent back to WiredSafety where the pledges will be recorded and entered in a data base with the objective of getting one million signatures by the end of the year.

At the Wired Kids Summit, Tina Meier, Megan's mother and Deputy Director of the Megan Pledge campaign, presented the program along with tweens from the Ridgewood chapter.

A dedicated web site is being created and when it is announced, it will be with the endorsement and help of Facebook, Xanga, and Tagged, with others to follow as arrangements are completed. The site will have all the necessary information and resources to get a program started in your school. Watch for that in the coming weeks. However, there is no need to wait. If you would like to get a Megan Pledge campaign started in your school, just email me at awolinsky@3dwriting.com and I'll email you a starter kit.

Help fight cyberbullying. Be one in a million!