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137 Comments
- thinkingserious, on 12/01/2008, -1/+76"The charges suggest that anyone who uses a fake name to sign up for a Web service like Yahoo or Gmail could be charged with a federal crime"
Wow, that would be like 95% of the Internet. - Krakerjax, on 12/01/2008, -0/+35"Megan didn't always make good choices because of her ADD"
Because we all know, ADD has a strong effect on your ability to make decisions as important as opening a myspace account. - nerdherder, on 12/01/2008, -2/+24Well internet, we had a good run.
- combatchuck, on 12/01/2008, -0/+20I feel really sorry for that John Doe dude living at 123 Fake St. Beverly Hills, CA 90210.
- angesbiz, on 12/01/2008, -1/+20That is one huge document and scary actually... makes me wonder really how many internet users DO read the TOS of the services they use.
- dasunst3r, on 12/01/2008, -4/+22No, she should be forced to live the rest of her life with the shame of being recognized as the cyberbully who drove a mentally ill person to suicide. Nobody wants to pal around with someone like that, and the rest of Drew's life is likely to be long and miserable. That's worse than a quick death.
- haikuFU, on 12/01/2008, -0/+18The ***** up part is this ruling is saying that if you violate the TOS of a web site, you are committing a federal crime. This is essentially allowing web sites to write criminal law.
I could put something in my TOS that says you cannot post on my forum and use the word "pancakes". If someone posted "pancakes" to the forum, it would be a violation of federal law. That is absurd.
What happens when a religious or political forum puts up a TOS that bans dissenting viewpoints? Anyone that disagrees on the forum is automatically in violation of federal law? - Zomgondo, on 12/01/2008, -2/+19I've been telling people for YEARS that surfing the Internet is only safe if you wear a properly grounded tinfoil hat. But do they listen? No, they never listen.
- MetalNoodles, on 12/01/2008, -0/+17I think it is possible that she didn't make good choices because she was a 14 year old girl.
- Syric, on 12/01/2008, -3/+17The girl committed suicide because she was bullied. There's nothing particularly unique about that. I don't think bullies get convicted if their victims commit suicide. So no, I don't think that the bullying mom is really guilty of a crime. Not that she isn't a terrible terrible person, however.
Violating terms of service should not be a federal crime: overcriminalizing indeed. The terms of service are sort of a contract; if you break them they certainly would give the company a legal leg to stand on if they decided to take action against you. But a federal crime, in and of itself? - dilpil1, on 12/01/2008, -3/+15Or you could judge submissions based on their content.
- tekhna, on 12/01/2008, -4/+16Too long, hyperbolic, and badly written. He raises a few legitimate issues, but they are obfuscated by his ranting.
- SLYK, on 12/01/2008, -0/+12Absolutely, I couldn-
oh look, myspace. - nerdherder, on 12/01/2008, -0/+11Oh hey good your copy and paste still works.
- AtWorkSurfer, on 12/01/2008, -0/+9If waxoff leaves, I'm leaving, too. I'm pretty sure Digg will have to shut down with both of us gone.
- rushiku, on 12/01/2008, -4/+13"Cause", I take issue with this.
If I were to say "RealmDown, the world would be better off without you" would it "cause" you to pull out a rope and hang yourself from the nearest convenient point?
Probably not, but even if you did hang yourself, could we say that I "caused" you to do so?
Absolutely not! Regardless of my opinion of you, you will, or will not, hang yourself.
You will do it now. (he's not doing it...tap, tap, tap, is this thing on?) - netneutrality, on 12/01/2008, -0/+9I don't think some of the commenters up above have read this properly. Read the PDF; it's better than the article.
The point is that what the defendant did to the victim, assuming the allegations are true, was at worst stalking and harassment. They weren't able to prove that those actions had broken the law. She was then criminalized *only* for violating the site's terms of service.
Think about that. Any site can make up rules and if you fail to adhere to them, even if you didn't know about them, it's a criminal offense. - WoollyMittens, on 12/01/2008, -0/+8You are oversimplifying things. She knew the girl was depressed and still she willfully caused needless mental grief. If I give a torch to a pyromaniac and tell him it would be best if he set your house on fire, then that would have been very irresponsible of me.
p.s. That burning smell is not someone baking cookies. - RealmDown, on 12/01/2008, -2/+9I said shot, not killed. Knee would be fine.
- Trav1289, on 12/01/2008, -0/+6Waffles
- Wetzilla, on 12/01/2008, -0/+6It also isn't just some random person. This woman didn't make the account and just start saying mean things, she first pretended to like and befriend this girl, and then once she had her trust she proceded to tell the girl (who she knew had mental health problems) to kill herself. That's not the same as some random person on the internet telling another perfectly healthy and much older/more mature person to kill themselves.
- waxoff, on 12/01/2008, -0/+6That depends on what you mean by crime. If you mean that some moral code has been broken I agree. If you mean a law has been broken, I could not disagree more. Yes, the law needs to catch up, but people cannot and should not be criminally charged with laws that do not exist at the time the act was committed. The prosecutor in question wasn't satisfied with that, so he stretched computer fraud laws to apply to terms of service agreements that we all click through when signing up for online services. This means that any rule any web site decides to create effectively becomes a crime to break. So let's say Comcast wrote a rule in their TOS barring people from using abusive language towards their representatives. The rule would now be criminally backed.
- TheCake, on 12/01/2008, -0/+6This is a long and boring article which argues that no one reads long and boring TOS.
- Barackalypse, on 12/01/2008, -1/+7I feel real sorry for whatever law enforcement has to trace back this proxy account only to find out it ends up at an unsecured coffee shop... that I've never stepped foot inside of.
- RealmDown, on 12/01/2008, -0/+5Malicious manipulation of a mentally ill minor by an adult to the point where the minor self-harms is a crime, and a despicable act.
- comsense08, on 12/01/2008, -0/+4without adult supervision and guidance. When we learn that parenting is a crucial and full time job!
- Clumber, on 12/01/2008, -0/+4Ummm... isn't being emotionally disturbed still a SOP for being a teenager?
Or have I now officially crossed the line into being too old to know what "it's like!!!1!" these days? Otherwise, I don't think you can single out parents of teens who are emotionally disturbed.. redundancy and all.
I have sympathy for parents of teenagers... when is it drama and when is it time to call in the straight-jackets? No idea how my parents walked that line.... - Halenthal, on 12/01/2008, -1/+5She acted irresponsibly, yes. Reprehensibly, even. But what law, exactly, did she violate?
...I thought so. She violated a web site's TOS, not a law. - billbugger, on 12/01/2008, -0/+4If my last name was Doe, I'd name my son John. It would toughen him up for 'the real world'.
- lostarchitect, on 12/01/2008, -0/+4seriously? you do everything on tor? how can you deal with all the waiting?
- waxoff, on 12/01/2008, -0/+4This might be my last post here...
- billbugger, on 12/01/2008, -1/+5Ok, i'm entering my real name... oh look, a flashy ad saying i have a virus.
- AikoMiko, on 12/01/2008, -0/+4"yet some of the biggest leaders in cause of suicide are drugs and homosexuality"
No, intolerance is the cause. - inactive, on 12/01/2008, -5/+8More school, less Digg.
- rabbitracer, on 12/01/2008, -0/+3again realmdown stop inserting facts in the case that help make your point when in reality they are not there
- inactive, on 12/01/2008, -0/+3Wow, talk about a disconnect from reality!
- Halenthal, on 12/01/2008, -1/+4It seems like she was convicted of failing to follow the TOS of the website. Does that mean I could write up a piece of spyware, put that it cannot be installed by the end user in a EULA or TOS for the software (especially right in the middle of the EULA or towards the end-some spyware's EULA runs over sixty pages), and every time someone uninstalled it they could go to jail and pay some serious fines? What about doing the same for a virus?
If anything, the girl's mother should be charged with child endangerment, neglect and/or abuse. She's the one who knowingly allowed her child to *repeatedly* violate the TOS of the website, allowed her child to *repeatedly* use the website even though it had caused problems in the past, and let her use the website without supervision. The girl killed herself, that's a tragedy, but the mother is the one the blame should be placed on. - awtripp, on 12/01/2008, -3/+6Charles? Marylin? Hugh? Patrick? James? Shirley?
- momlyd, on 12/01/2008, -4/+7Okay, here's a radical idea; no unsupervised internet use for minors. Or, software on the home computer that blocks access to sites parents have not approved. That shouldn't take too long and it would keep responsibility for internet use where it belongs - on Mom and Dad.
- inactive, on 12/01/2008, -0/+3Because every 13 year old has ADD and some get left to their own devices
- Solkre, on 12/01/2008, -0/+3Use this guys.
http://lifelock.com/ - lokee73, on 12/01/2008, -0/+3457-55-5462
- combatchuck, on 12/01/2008, -1/+4Disconnect? Charles Manson never killed anybody. He had other people do it. He's admitted that outright, several times, over the past 35 or so years.
- waxoff, on 12/01/2008, -0/+3@RealmDown
The issue being raised here is not whether she is guilty of bulling this girl. Personally, I find her actions despicable, but they fall short of a crime. There were no laws covering what she did. So the prosecutor got creative with the law and charged her with hacking. Hacking is this case was creating a fake profile on MySpace. That's it. That's the extent of this charge for which she is being criminally prosecuted. That is scary. - billbugger, on 12/01/2008, -0/+3Anonymously.
- martoq, on 12/01/2008, -0/+2Totally off topic but still funny.
- FredFredrickson, on 12/01/2008, -0/+2So what would you say if a person in real life (not via the internet) pushed this young woman to commit suicide? Why is the internet being used as an excuse to act completely irresponsibly?
- maz2331, on 12/01/2008, -0/+2Uh, PJ is a she.
- SteveMax, on 12/01/2008, -0/+2All we can say from that is that he's not using an iPhone...
- JackOfAllGeeks, on 12/01/2008, -0/+2She was convicted of "unauthorized access" because she used a MySpace account and broke their ToS. What she did with the account has no part in any of that, aside from the fact that she didn't give her real info.
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