To lead into my thoughts on this I'd like to say that I value the fact that the internet is something of a frontier in that it is a deep dark black hole of entropy. Why? Because from this abyss some really great things are born, like free forums of anything and everything that includes the deft and the daft on any topic imaginable. These dialogues connect such a critical mass of people as never could be joined otherwise. Not to mention chat rooms, blogs, music sharing, explanations by wikipedia about circlular velocity that puts my college physics book and professor to shame. And all we have to do is ignore the easily ignorable triteness. If we impose regulations on the internet to strangle that freedom then the we should be prepared to accept the risk that the internet may turn into a sterilized lifeless corpse.
Tangeant thought: People seem like they want to charge Lori Drew with murder, but they can't so they try to bend the law anyway so they can get her convicted of something, like lying to myspace or whatever as long as its something. Doesn't this strike anyone else as a perversion of modern law? On the other side of that coin I guess they did get Al Capone on tax evasion, but it was probably for the better that things turned out the way they did, rather than having him running loose.
There are a lot of ways this story could be dissected. but after some reflection, it seems to me that the real question is accountability. And accountability leads to this question: "Was Megan Meier mentally ill?" if the answer is yes, then blame should be placed on the government or Megan's caretaker. And it seems self evident to me that holding her mother responsible wouldn't be the right thing to do, and it seems a little unreasonable to ask the government to lock everybody up on suicide watch because of some suicidal tendancies. So lets ask ourselves again: "Was Megan Meier mentally ill?" if the answer is no, then she must be responsible for her own actions. Don't get me wrong, I think it's despicable that Lori Drew did what she did and she should be racked in shame in multiple capacities and on multiple levels. But we must catch ourselves in a bad habit of our society: Don't be so ready to blame and exact vengeance. Because if we continue to do that, our society will degrade far below the intangible rottenness of the dark side of the internet.
Disclaimer: if you are easily offended then you should skip this next paragraph and the following links. Seriously this is offensive.
edit: I have since read this paragraph and decided it was too much so its gone now.
But seriously I think that since Megan did commit suicide she was probably (in my nonprofessional opinion) mentally ill, but I don't think her mother accountable for what happened. And I certainly do blame Lori Drew for being a despicable person, but not a murderer.
Like I said, "the world is a twisted place."
4 comments:
I’m not following your reasoning. How would people registering themselves stem the tide of creativity and user generated content? I can’t see how it would. You’d still be able to go into chat rooms and talk, add information to a webpage, and do pretty much everything else you are used to doing now. The potential outcome isn’t even that everyone’s internet handle would become their actual name, it’s that the website you are logged into as a user would have your contact information. This wouldn’t be available to everyone else so the anonymity factor would still be there, until someone breaks a law.
The internet is still a very new thing and people are trying to figure out how it fits in our world. It is a wide open forum and I think it needs to remain an open forum, but that doesn’t lead me to conclude that there should not be regulations of some kind. If we all were sitting around in some pantheon discussing things and I began yelling various things, I would be accountable for what I said. If I began distributing leaflets with erroneous information I would be accountable for that as well. Why should I not be accountable for what I say or write on the internet? Especially if what I say or write results in someone’s death.
I agree about the seemingly random charges against Lori Drew. But I’m not talking about her legal situation. What we have to ask ourselves right now as a society is “Did she do something wrong?” It’s seems to me from your distaste for her that you think she did. So what do we do now? There’s no law that relates directly to what has happened, but should there be? Yes, it won’t have any effect on her, but that’s how law-making goes. Most of them are there because someone did something that the relative society disapproved of.
So do we as a nation, or even world, disapprove of what has happened here? If so, should we do something that would either deter or punish future instances of this or similar situations? This is where I say that yes we should. As citizens and decent human beings we have a responsibility to look after the well-being of others where able.
The question of Megan Meier’s mental capacity holds little water. Regardless of her personal abilities she is still a person. Should a person have been treated the way Megan was? I do concede that people can still be jerks to one another, that’s just a guarantee and a right for all people, but it can go to far in person and people will be punished. I see no clear line that would differentiate between what I say to someone’s face versus what I say anywhere else.
So Wong, the three questions I would ask you and have you honestly answer would be:
1) Regardless of an individual’s mental capacities are they still a person?
2) Do you feel that Lori Drew’s actions were inherently wrong?
3) Should others be allowed to commit the same or similar actions that Lori did to other people, regardless of mental capacity?
If you answered yes to the first two then you likely answered no to the third, which leads into the last question that we all need to consider: What needs to be done to prevent it?
WTC (What the chet)? You have a blog? The world IS a twisted place.
Very fine......
lot late to the party but I have an opinion.
I didn't read Neal's post on his blog, but I gather that there is one.
I think the G4 article is a bit of a joke and fear mongering. What Lori Drew did was horrible, and they are trying to make her pay any way they can. That is definitely a flaw in our legal system, but it is nothing new. The author of the article makes it sound like this is a new thing and suddenly all of us are in danger.
The only real danger any of us are in for lying to the internet is if we are also doing something else wrong. If they can't get the evidence to prosecute us, they may turn to more simple things like they did in Lori Drews case. Once again, this is completely not new.
You will hear this sort of paranoia inducing talk every time a violent criminal is brought up on a gun charge, but not a murder charge. The NRA will say all of us could be tried as criminals just for having a gun in a safe way. The truth is that won't happen.
Our legal system and government has definite problems, often times things aren't done in a direct way. And being a part of this society we all run the extremely slight chance we will be victimized by the broken system.
However, just because we (yes "we" we're all part of this system) punish a woman for a horrible deed by punishing her for a not so horrible deed, does not mean everything is suddenly going to go to crap. The prosecution I am sure are good people, and I for one would rather have Lori punished for something she did wrong related to the big crime than not at all. Is it perfect,no, does it happen all the time, unfortunately yes its the best we can do.
I think it was sad for the G4 article to take this and try to use it to instill a fear that all of our rights are at risk, that is so not the point of this tragedy.
just my two cents, and not elegantly written, try to see the overall point not the many holes in my logic.
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