The biggest social network in the world, MySpace, has allegedly been subpoenaed along with others, according to "The New York Times", in connection to the suicide of 13-year-old Megan Meier in October 2006. This has been not confirmed by Thomas Mrozak, a spokesman for
the United States attorney in Los Angeles, but "The NY Times" reported, citing unnamed sources, that the investigation would determine whether creating a false Internet identity to harass the girl is to be considered Internet fraud under federal statutes.
This is basically a serious threat to personas being created on the Internet by all users, because if the court finds Lori Drew, the mother of Megan's friend that supposedly drove her to commit suicide, guilty, that would create a precedent with a terrible weight in future cases to be issued on the same grounds, but hopefully under better outcomes.
As Duncan Riley of TechCrunch.com notes, "any ruling that using a false identity online constitutes a federal felony as Internet fraud could have a chilling effect for online anonymity depending on how the court rules." While morally everybody is probably encouraging the authorities to catch the culprits and give them what they deserve, such an ending to the story would be unfortunate for the online community.
The reason why MySpace would be held liable is very shady, it cannot be responsible for the tragic event, not to such extent as it cannot be responsible for anything that happens to any of its users. I'm guessing they got subpoenaed because there is some additional information needed, except from all the messages and time chart of the discussion that led to Megan's untimely death.
But, what really constitutes false identity? A nickname clearly not, at least that's the way I see it, but what about posing to be a person of the opposite sex and a lot younger?
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