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From David Ardia of the Citizen Media Law Project, 11/28/2007 9:21 am
City officials in Dardenne Prairie, Missouri unanimously passed a measure on November 21 making online harassment a crime, punishable by up to a $500 fine and 90 days in jail. The city's six-member Board of Aldermen passed the ordinance in response to 13-year-old Megan Meier's suicide. Meier committed suicide after a "boy" she met on MySpace abruptly turned on her and ended their relationship. It turned out that the boy was actually Lori Drew, a neighbor who had pretended to be 16-year-old "Josh Evans" to gain the trust of Megan, who had been fighting with Drew's daughter, according to the Los Angeles Times. (In an interesting side note, the local media refused to identify the neighbor involved, so several blogs such as RottenNeighbor.com and hitsusa.com did some investigating and identified Drew and posted the Drews' home address, phone numbers, e-mail addresses and photographs.) When it looked like local and federal prosecutors could not find a way to charge anyone for Meier's death, city officials stepped in and made online harassment a crime. As the Associated Press reports:
Mayor Pam Fogarty said the city had proposed the measure after learning about Megan Meier's death. "It is our hope that by supporting one of our own in Dardenne Prairie, we can do our part to ensure this type of harassing behavior never happens again, anywhere," Fogarty said, adding, "after all, harassment is harassment regardless of the mechanism or tool."
While Meier's suicide is a tragedy and it is laudable that city officials want to reduce online harassment, criminalizing such conduct raises important First Amendment concerns. I should point out, however, that I've been unable to review the actual language of the ordinance, and have had to rely on the following press reports.
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For more on the regulation of citizen journalism, visit the Citizen Media Law Project blog.
