This week were were given an article called "Friend Game: Behind the online hoax that led to a girl's suicide" by Lauren Collins. The article told the story of 14 year old Megan Meier who committed suicide due to a web of cyber-bullying via Myspace. A twist to this story is that in addition to her peers bullying her, parents of one of her peers purposely made a Myspace account posing as a teenage boy, Josh, to harass Megan. The ability for one to simply make up an account with absolutely no personal verification is both a draw and a drawback for social networks. I'll be honest, I once made up a Facebook page using an fictional name so that I could win bonus prizes for 'inviting a friend' on a popular Facebook game. Its easy to do, and I'd imagine that for 14 year old Megan, the thought that Josh was not who he claimed to be never even came into question.
Depending on how you view the story, blame over Megan's suicide likely goes to several actors. The Drews (the adults who were behind 'Josh'), the Mulford's daughter, the 18 year old who worked for the Drews, Megan's parents and her peers. I want to focus on the Meiers, Megan's parents. As described in this article, they are stuck in this awkward place of wanting to protect Megan from the dangers of the online abyss, yet also dealing with a young teenager who felt like her life revolved around being able to become part of the social network. How do you balance these opposing demands? While it does seem like they put in an effort to monitor her while she was online without impersonating Megan and running the account themselves, should they have done more? For instance, I wonder why they would even allow their daughter to befriend a complete stranger, regardless of how 'cute' or legitimate he seemed? To this day, unless I know someone or have some form of verification that they are legitimate (ie. mutual friend, belong to a network where an official email is required), I will not add them on Facebook. I'd be especially concerned about male attention to Megan who (no offense meant), came off as naive and juvenile based on what how article described her Myspace page. I don't blame her, I just wonder why there wasn't a stronger resistance to a guy paying attention to a young girl.
For myself and my friends, the approximate timeline of social networks went from: AOL Homepages to Xanga to Sconex to Myspace to Facebook (to LinkedIn if one considers that a social network). As described in the article, particularly during the early teenage years, the cool thing was to 'wRiTe lIkE tHi$' and use glittery banners on one's homepage. I remember AOL Homepages in particular allowed users to create their own avatars of themselves. The avatar one chose was one of the first representations that a lot of people from my middle school had to represent oneself so in a way it was the first form of self-expression. Several acquaintances who joined the 'popular' crowd used this as a way of expressing their sexuality by choosing barely covered avatars who wore stilettos and far more makeup than any 14 year old would wear. I also distinctly recall a 'Top Friends' list on several individuals pages (as described in the article) where people were ranked as a top guy friend and top girl friend. These didn't cause as much conflict as they seemed to cause on Myspace- perhaps because AOL was much less interactive and didn't provide a way for viewers to comment. I can't personally speak about Myspace as I was never allowed to join- a decision by my mom that I was frustrated by in middle school.
I joined Facebook as probably a junior in high school, so a bit more removed from the ridiculous politics of middle school drama. Though I wouldn't hesitate to say that Facebook poses just as many threats to individuals as Myspace did for Megan. Creating an account is simple and interacting is even easier (liking a post, commenting on a status or picture etc). As horror stories like Megan Meiers' about social networking sites present themselves more frequently in the media I hope that teens and their parents who use these sites are more aware of what dangers can lurk beyond an innocent profile picture.
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