The Case:
The tragic story of Megan Meier, a 13-year-old St. Louis-area girl who committed suicide after being harassed on MySpace, has grabbed national headlines and inspired thousands of web readers to participate in a collective sorting of legal and ethical issues surrounding the case.

Meier met a 16-year-old named “Josh Evans” on MySpace. Her mother reluctantly gave permission to add Josh as a friend and visit with him online. They became close, but he suddenly turned on her, calling her names, saying she was “a bad person and everybody hates you.” Others joined the harassment, and the barrage culminated in Meier’s Oct. 16, 2006, suicide, just short of her 14th birthday.

Weeks later, Meier’s parents learned the boy didn’t exist—he’d been fabricated by a neighbor, Lori Drew, the mother of one of Meier’s former friends. The girls had had a falling-out, police say, and Drew wanted to know what Meier was saying about her daughter. Local police and the FBI investigated, but more than a year later, no criminal charges had been filed. Then things escalated.
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