I was researching online to find an Internet crime that interested me that I could write my blog about this week and I found a very sad story. The story that I found doesn’t actually involve any criminal charges because currently there is no legislation written regarding this particular matter. Which is tragic. I read a story about a young lady who committed suicide by hanging herself after a young man started harassing her on myspace. The girl was only 13 years old. It is so heartbreaking.
The problem here is obviously that technology is advancing so quickly that it is impossible to know the negative affects until something like this happens and then there are no laws to protect young girls like the one in this news article. I am sure since the development of this story and because it attracted national news coverage that there are currently laws being written to protect future individuals from enduring this sort of harassment. I think that this sort of thing happens whether myspace is used as the medium or not, middle school and high school girls and boys are brutal and mean and don’t think about how damaging the words that they say can be to others. In my opinion the person involved should have been charged with harassment. I guess I don’t know the particulars of what actual can be qualified as harassment but it seems like this mans words must have been hurtful enough to be considered harassment.
During my reading for this assignment I also came across an article that deals with some technology and new age issues and how the church is dealing with them. So in my top story a young girls in unprotected because our legislative process is slow to develop laws related to technology and in this second story an institution that is associated with being so static and unchanging is modifying it’s practices to deter it’s followers form abusing technology and using drugs.
The Vatican (living leader of Catholic church) recently listed new sins. In the olden days the deadly sins included lust, gluttony, and greed. Now the Catholic Church says pollution, mind-damaging drugs and genetic experiments are on it’s updated thou-shalt-not list. These are obviously not officially written in anyway because the bible that is used by the Catholic Church was written so long ago but the current Pope is putting a modern spin on sin. Being an Agnostic I have my own strong opinions on the subject that I won’t share here but there are some definite positives to religious beliefs and this is one of them. Hopefully devout followers will heed the words of their Pope and make better choices concerning these types of instances that aren’t currently governed by their bible. It is very impressive to me that the Pope is speaking on matters like genetic manipulation and the environment.
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2 comments:
That story about the 13 year old girl is terrible, we all know how tough adolescence can be..luckily we didn't have to deal with this type of harassment when we were that age. I hadn't even thought of harassment online by peers until now.
I also found it interesting that the Catholic Church had recently updated their sins list. As a Catholic, I feel like I should have known about it already, but thanks to your blog I know that I need to read more about it! Your blog is reflecive of how fast things are changing and how slow legislation can be to keep up. Very insightful and interesting!
That is crazy that a 13 year old girl would hang herself after being harassed on Myspace. It makes me wonder if there were other things going on in this girls life. Did her parents hit her? Was she sexually abused? If not, I wonder what this guy was saying to her. I'm surprised that the girl didn't take it to her parents or a sibling if the harassment was that severe. This is just another example of the kinds of dangers that are on the internet.
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