Reflection on Megan Meiers Case

Fake myspace account-is it legal? Should it be legal?
Contacted (13 year old) -underage--> should there be ratings on websites, penalties or should some government issued id be needed to access these websites

Posters pretended to be Josh Evans-Mrs. Drew, her 18 year old employee and 13 year old daughter. peer to peer-different standards for adults and children?

Establish relationships under false identity- friendly for months (Josh and Megan)-Are friendly relationships legal (obviously if Josh had never said anything mean to Megan she never would have committed suiced and we wouldnt even be having this conversation.)

"Josh" turned on Megan [happened within 24 hour period]--->Megan commites suicide

Who should be responsible for underage kids having access to myspace?
Myspace
Parents
ISP
Advertisers

Features of Internet
-Anonimity
-Information intensity
Interactivity Immediacy
Flash Mob reactions


What needs to be done about this?
-Do parents need to better educate their children about what and who is on the internet?
-Do we need to inforce laws to prevent children who are under the age of 18 from accessing Myspace and similar sites?
-Should the sites that allow these kids on them without monitoring what they're doing or without really checking their ages, should they be penalized in the same way that cigarette and alcohol providers are when they serve underage children?
-If we can't say what we want to on the interent it is violating our right to freedom of speech so how can we hold it against these kids for saying mean things over the internet?