Myspace and Online harassment
Los Angeles: The daughter of a woman accused of planning a cruel Internet hoax against a 13-year-old girl who committed suicide took the witness stand to defend her mother.
Sarah Drew, 16, said her mother, Lori Drew, initially thought it was a good idea to create a fictitious boy on a MySpace account to find out if Megan Meier was spreading rumors about Sarah.
But Sarah said her mother told a business assistant to shut down the MySpace account two weeks after it was created — well before the final message was sent saying the world would be better off if Megan was dead.
Megan, who had been treated for attention deficit disorder and depression, hanged herself in October 2006 after receiving the message.
Lori Drew has pleaded not guilty to conspiracy and accessing computers without authorization. If convicted of all counts, Drew faces up to 20 years in prison.
A vice president of customer care at MySpace, testified that MySpace requires users to check a box agreeing to the rules prohibiting such things as online harassment.
According to the site MySpace now has 400 million profiles for users, which makes it difficult to enforce the service rules.
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