14 DAY TRIAL // Because a 13-year-old girl committed suicide a few weeks ago after she broke up with her virtual MySpace friend, the Missouri authorities decided to promote a new law that will make the online harassment a crime. According to the Houston Chronicle, the maximum penalty for this kind of illegal activity brings 90 days in prison and a $500 fine. "The ordinance outlaws harassment using electronic communication, which includes the Internet, email, paging services and mobile phone text messaging," the above source stated.
In case you missed the news, Megan Meier was found dead in her room with a message sent by a MySpace member displayed on her computer monitor. It appears that the 13-year-old girl used to chat with another Internet consumer on social networking service MySpace but he decided to stop the virtual relationship because he found out from Megan's friends that she's a bad person. Moreover, he said that the world would be better without her.
The authorities thought that this type of activities should avoid their residents and decided to vote this law meant to prohibit online harassment. "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. After all, harassment is harassment regardless of the mechanism or tool," Mayor Pam Fogarty said according to Houston Chronicle.
MySpace has always been a very popular technology with millions of users from all over the world. It's a well-known fact that it hosts all kinds of people, starting with teenagers and ending with sex offenders who want to obtain explicit photos and pornographic pics from younger users. That's why such a law could prevent the Missouri residents from turning into real Internet victims.