Cyber Vigilantes, Bullies, and Virtual Shunning

Fascinating article about virtual mobs and internet vigilante justice.

Lori Drew, a mother, goes online and creates a fake MySpace account, pretending to be a teenage boy. She does this specifically to befriend Megan Meier (her daughter’s friend and daughter of a neighbor) in order to get information about her own daughter. Somewhere along the line, Drew turns on young Ms. Meier and berates her. Ms. Meier – tragically fragile – then commits suicide. The dead girl’s father finds out about his bullying neighbor’s apparent role in his daughter’s death, and in a spasm of righteous rage, destroys the Drew’s foosball table. The Drews then press police charges against the grief-stricken father. Internet vigilante Sarah Wells finds out, does some research, and organizes a virtual mob whose fury has real world consequences – enough so that police have increased their patrols around the Drews’ residence.

The facts here seem pretty egregious, but the key word is “seem.” Mobs are not particularly known to be careful fact-finders nor dispassionate dispensers of justice. Are we entering an age of virtual witch trials and online cultural justice when the real world fails to mete out subjectively appropriate punishment? And with the anonymity of the internet, do mobs have even less of a sense of fair play?

Aside from the obvious internet cultural issues stand some fascinating legal issues. There is a tort law concept known as the “eggshell skull,” where those committing torts are responsible for all consequences flowing from the injurious acts, even if the victim suffers from unusually high damages from the acts. Did Drew have reason to know how emotionally fragile Ms. Meier was? Was the bullying pervasive and outrageous? It would seem that Papa Meier could have a cause of action against Drew, but what about free speech?

And check out the end of the article – in an ironic twist, Sarah Wells is tabbed a “vigilante” by a counter-vigilante, who posts personal information of Wells on the internet. Great read.