Lori Drew Officially Acquitted
Well, it’s official. On Sunday, U.S. District Judge George Wu acquitted Lori Drew of all federal criminal charges for her involvement in the suicide of 13-year-old Megan Meier. As you may recall, back in November a jury initially found Drew guilty of three misdemeanor charges of illegally accessing a protected computer (in essence, she was […]
Convictions against Lori Drew overturned today; case dismissed
The case against Lori Drew has been dismissed in federal court today, as the judge seemingly thought it would be wrong to criminalize certain Terms of Service violations of MySpace and other social networking web sites since users often misrepresent themselves online. (Bottom line when it comes to this ruling is that the law used […]
Facebook Cyberbullying Policy
Here’s a recent query I received from an educator who I have worked with in the past. I thought her question and my response would be of interest to others so I am posting both here. Does your school district have a policy regarding cyberbullying or Facebook? How about cyberbullying on Facebook? Question: “The reason […]
Digital “Sexploitation:” An Extreme Example of Cyberbullying
This story out of New Berlin, WI, reports about very extreme case of cyberbullying. It is reported that an 18-year-old male student posed as a female student on Facebook and tricked other male students into sending him nude pictures or videos of themselves. There were at least 31 male students who apparently did so, and […]
Sex Offenders and Social Networking Sites: Show me the Research!
As anticipated, the Final Report released yesterday by Berkman Center’s Internet Safety Technical Task Force summarizing the state of knowledge concerning child safety online has come under fire by some state Attorneys General and others with an interest in advancing public fear about the risks inherent in online social networking. In my view, much of […]
Risky behaviors referenced on MySpace by adults
Findings from a new content analysis of MySpace profiles were released yesterday – something of keen interest to us as we’ve written empirical articles and presented extensively on the use of that social networking site by youth. The study is methodologically sound and well done, overall. The researchers found that over half (54%) of 500 […]
MySpace versus Facebook
Ok, now that we have discussed some of the risks and benefits of social networking, I want to return to an issue that we have discussed before on this blog. And that is whether or not any one particular social networking environment is “safer” than the others. And if so, how? When I talk to […]
Online social networking: Are the potential benefits worth the possible risks?
I was giving presentations at a school in Pennsylvania (last week) and got to the point in my presentation with parents and staff in the district about the risks and benefits associated with online social networking. When talking about the issues, I try to be reasonably impartial – simply presenting the facts as I see […]
Megan Meier Federal Cyberbullying Case Decided Today
Well, as you’ve probably heard by now, the federal jury in California found Lori Drew guilty of computer fraud (and violating the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act) but not guilty of felony charges of unauthorized computer access to inflict emotional distress on Megan Meier. She faces up to one year in prison and up to […]
Teachers and students “friending” on MySpace
CNN posted an interesting story about teachers setting up MySpace pages and “friending” their students…and about a Missouri legislator sponsoring a bill banning elementary school teachers from doing so. I was talking to Justin about this, and we both agree that a state bill banning this activity is completely overboard (another example of how politicians […]
