“Anonymous” is not a License to be Mean

A favorite stop on my daily round of news feeds is OpenSourceCommunity.org where I get my fix of geeky stuff. Yesterday, however, I was reminded about a story that first appeared last year about a young girl named Megan Meier, who hanged herself after receiving hateful messages on myspace. You can catch ABC News’ interview with Megan’s parents one year after their daughter’s suicide for the complete story and an interview with Megan’s parents. The interview is short and essentially is a plea by the parents to put safety measures in place for kids on the Internet. They would like to institute required classes in schools for Internet safety. While I agree that education is needed among younger computer users, I think there is a deeper issue that extends beyond the scope of the world wide web, where the “www” often stands for “wild wild west”.

In Megan’s case, she was duped by an adult who took on the identity of a teenage boy and began a false relationship with Megan in order to seek some sort of sick revenge for her own teenage daughter who had a falling out with Megan at some point in their friendship. I can’t help thinking that this “mother” (I hesitate call her that after what she did – yes “biologically” she is a mother, but as for “acting like one” she failed miserably) hid behind the anonymity of the Internet to do something she probably wouldn’t have the guts to do face to face. Not only did she herself take part in destroying Megan’s self-worth, but she talked co-workers and neighbors into sending hateful messages to the 13-year-old as well. And they all participated because they could “get away with it” by being anonymous. The last message Megan read was “the world would be better off without you” and was supposedly written by “Josh” her “boyfriend” who was really a fictitious persona created by Megan’s ex-friend’s mom.

Now let’s remove the Internet and myspace from the equation and take a peek into today’s public schools for a little taste of anonymity in middle school. My daughter is in the height of 5th grade drama…the daily clothing crisis, acne, “boyfriends” and girl fights. Yes, girl fights. A couple weeks ago, someone wrote a list of names on the wall in the bathroom. I heard about it for days. The first question the students pondered was “who wrote it?” As the handwriting analysis and class schedules began to produce clues, a few suspects were named. Then the question became “why”? Why were those names on a list? Were they targets? Friends? Was it a good list or a bad list?

My daughter came home on the day the list was discovered and went on and on, speculating about it until I finally asked her if she did it. She looked at me as if I had just dissed High School Musical and said “um…no…duh…” To which I replied, “Then you don’t need to worry about it. Let the teachers handle it. If the girl who wrote that list can’t own up to what she did, then she has real problems. You shouldn’t do things that you would be afraid to own up to doing.” I think my daughter understood that. My mini-lecture ended the conversation between us, but not between her and her friends. They still talk about the “bathroom wall names” frequently. Anonymity again. Would the guilty party have written the list if she had to sign her name to it?

I was reading “Small is the New Big” by Seth Godin yesterday, and he touched on this very subject, which I discovered is also mentioned several times on his blog. Seth mentions that a lot of things would cease to exists if we could rid the word of being anonymous. Picture a life without spam in your email, without computer viruses, without solicitor phone calls – oh and without nasty comments written about people on the stalls in every public restroom on the planet. I deal with it every day on this website. I am often amazed at how rude and downright mean people can be just because they can sign a fictitious name or use a fake email address to spew their “opinion” at me in a hostile manner. Would they be that way if we met in person? I’m all for discussion and entertaining other people’s point of view, but let’s be civil about it. :)>-

So what would life be like if everyone had to be accountable and own up to what they did? What if myspace did a background check before they approve accounts? Would it save kids like Megan? I don’t know what the perfect solution is here, but I do know that there are two pieces of this puzzle that are not being addressed. First of all, self-esteem is a huge problem among girls these days. In order for anyone to feel low enough to take their own life, their self-esteem has to be completely eaten up. Megan needed myspace friends who could build her up instead of tear her down. She needed confidence in herself to be who she was created to be and to ignore those who tried to tear her down. I am also quite certain that the media’s portrayal of how women should look or be or act was also an influence for Megan as it is with nearly every American teenage girl in our pathetic pop culture. I am not pointing a finger at anyone – I do not know anyone personally involved in this case, but the underlying issue has not been adequately brought to the forefront in my opinion and there are multiple causes for the self-esteem epidemic that is blatantly attacking our teenagers.

The second puzzle piece is that we are not training our kids to know and understand accountability. To be accountable is to be responsible. If you do something, own up to it. Mistakes will happen, acknowledge them. Accountability leads to integrity, which by definition is to possess soundness of moral character or honesty. Honesty. How refreshing would that be?

If you’re looking for a band-aid approach, my advice to myspace users is to stick to accepting only people you know. If you choose to accept someone you don’t know, remember that you can also choose to REMOVE that person from you friends list if they are demeaning to you or your other friends in any way (and you can do that to people you know as well ;) ). Girls – you are smarter and better than to be taken in by the words of other people. Especially from cowards who live behind the false security of the Internet or a bathroom stall. I just wish Megan would have understood that she was worth so much more than what other people said about her. We need more than band-aids here folks.