Sad and Evil? Yes. Criminal? No.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/21882976

A girl who is too young to post according to MySpace rules is allowed to have an account by her parents. The kid has mental problems and is on medication, but they allow her to continue chatting with (what they presumed was) a boy online. They did this knowing she was unstable to begin with, and was developing an attachment.

Then the "boy" (who turns out to be an ex-friend's parent!) says mean things about the kid and she commits suicide. Who is to blame?

Well, it must be the people who made the fictitious boy up and "chatted" with her. It can't be the parents who were negligent in their duty to protect their child from what they were SUSPECTING ALL ALONG was too good to be true. (And hello, even if it *were* true, how many romances begun at age 13 last very long? If your child is NOT balanced, how is allowing this relationship going to help??)

The child can't be to blame, because we all know that 13-year-olds are absolutely and completely without any sort of brain in their head and shouldn't be held remotely responsible for *anything.*

The story is sad. What happened to her was mean. But hello, it wasn't *criminal.* For crying out loud, who doesn't have an alternate online identity? I'm sure lots of people do. My real last name does NOT begin with C, incidentally. I do live in Missouri, and yes, these are actual recent pictures of my children and home you see online, but I'm not telling you my town or their real names. And sometimes I even post anonymously on other blogs! The horror!

If it comes to the point where we cannot have any anonimity at all online, I think we'll lose out on some valuable discourse and news sources. I know there is a line past which bad behaviour can be called harassment, and police should have full authority to look into that. There are security issues as well, and idiots posting that George Bush needs to be shot with a such-and such type rifle next Tuesday at 3 p.m. probably *do* need a little monitoring from your local police.

But this is just too much. The whole situation is sick, sad, and demented, but in terms of CRIMINAL action against these people, it's just too much. I can see where the parents are hurting and want some retribution since they lost their precious child. But wow.