What do you think about the MySpace Hoax Case? I think the acts committed by Lori Drew and her daughter, are not criminal. Life is life and people can’t legally be held responsible for causing someone to have a bad day. Lori Drew is not responsible for the state of mind of the 13 year old, nor her weight or her choice in friends. The parents of the 13 year old girl are however responsible for her choice in online browsing, her health, state of mind and peer group. The personal circumstances regarding the case are disturbing and the situation does become deeply immoral but I feel it is not criminal. “Ethics is a philosophical approach, examining theories of what is good or bad. Morals are concerned with behavior as judged by society. Values are beliefs or standards considered worthwhile.”(Essentials of Business Law, Luizzo, page 23)
The immoral factors regarding Lori Drew’s actions include false impersonation, slander, and the fact she is an adult preying on a teenager is most disturbing. In my own experiences in life I have encountered countless amounts of bad days filled with gossip, false statements, lies, and personal attacks on myself by others around me. Nothing any of the people did to me was criminal, yet had I killed myself popular opinion would establish blame accordingly. To me that is what happened here.
Because MySpace was a relatively new phenomenon people were and always going to be susceptible to all types of false circumstances, the first instances will always establish the future of the product. Public opinion wanted to establish strict punishment in this case to prevent further misuse. Does that mean Lori Drew is guilty of a law not yet in place? It shouldn’t. In my opinion when cases like this are brought before the Justice Department, they find any way to peruse the case to benefit public opinion and not necessarily the laws currently in place. The reason I believe they do this is to set a standard or precedence in future cases. Too often the cases brought before the courts today are decided by previous cases and the rulings made in regards to them. If Lori were not found guilty of any wrong doing then future cases most likely end the same way. Therefore the Judicial department was going to establish some form of wrong doing originally charging her with 4 felonies’s to establish a sense of seriousness while fully realizing if they charged her with enough infractions the jury would eventually find her at fault for something. “Individual and group values are influenced by religion, tradition, and customs.” (Essentials of Business Law, Luizzo, page 23)
The case ended with Lori found guilty of 3 counts of computer fraud. My question is this…” If the 13 year old girl had not killed herself did Lori commit a crime? And why aren’t the other 20 million fake MySpace profiles investigated removed and the individuals prosecuted? “As you can plainly see Lori was not convicted of any charge relating to the death of the girl, so why is she guilty of computer fraud and 20 million fake MySpacer’s are not? Well maybe they are, but the truth in the answer is that while what Lori did was wrong from an immoral point of view it was not illegal, but it was about to be! Public opinion is the law not the law, and while that is not an accurate statement there is truth to it. Our system bends and breaks the rules to suit the public not the private. Finally in my opinion the laws set in place by the Constitution were established for the greater good of society and it is the individuals within that society that bastardize and exploit that system for nothing more than money or personal gain.
