When someone says child protection in connection with the internet, what easily comes to mind are protection from child pornography and from content that are not suitable for children. Parents in particular are very concerned about the sites available to their children. The internet is a place where anonymous interaction is allowed. The person you’re talking to on MySpace might be who he says he is, and then again, he might not. He might not even be a HE. He might not even exist.
Thirteen-year old Megan Meier thought she was developing a relationship with 16-year old Josh Evans, when she was actually MySpace friends with Lori Drew, the mother of Megan’s former friend, who lives four doors down the street form Megan. Drew wanted to get back at Megan for things she said about Drew’s daughter by using information collected by “Josh Evans”. Drew got the ultimate payback, alright, when things turned sour and it had become too hurtful for Megan that she committed suicide by hanging herself in her closet.
It was most unfortunate that a person, a mother at that, who you would think was concerned about protecting children from harmful internet use was the one who did the harming. Lori Drew created Josh Evans to hurt Megan on purpose. This should have been written up as child abuse. I guess now, parents have to add cyberbullying to their list of potential harms to their children.
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