there ought to be a law...
What kind of adult intentionally deceives a kid into believing that the adult is a peer so that the adult can coax the kid to let down his or her guard, share secrets, and form attachments with the persona the adult has created? One answer which springs to mind readily is "the creepy kind who has to register with police."
So why is it that the case of Lori Drew participating in the creation of an online identity for exactly the purpose of deceiving 13 year old Megan Meier into believing this identity belonged to a same aged peer isn't being discussed in that light?
Over and above, or perhaps under and throughout, the more widely discussed themes of internet bullying, there is the characterization of Drew's behavior as a deliberate pattern of kid stalking.
While internet bullying is troubling (absence of certain channels in the interaction leads to a reduced immediate accountability load), I can't help feeling there's something about the term which implies some level of equality among the players and which, moreover, seems to invite a sort of "kids will be kids/people can be cruel but is it right to try to legislate good manners?" argument. Perhaps for those reasons I bristle at the treatment Drew's behavior has gotten, the bullying "issues" it has apparently raised, again.
This was more than bullying. Lori Drew engaged in a deliberate process of intentionally deceiving a minor into believing she was communicating with a peer, a peer the minor clearly had romantic interest in. It's not like Drew created a profile and Megan stumbled upon it, or Drew was pretending to be a kid for some reason independent of luring in a minor, or Drew created a female profile. No. Drew put out bait for Megan. Drew used the profile of a cute boy who said nice things to an insecure 13 year old presumably (because face it, big main stream presumptions of het until proven otherwise) straight girl. Lori Drew carried on this behavior, communicating with Megan, pretending to be a 13 year old the whole time. Lori Drew was part of making the Megan bait profile available and letting others use it to communicate with Megan. She pretty much pimped the profile.
Such deliberate deception of a minor, with such striking predatory overtones seems like it is something law enforcement should consider illegal or at least suspicious behavior. What I've seen in the news reports on Lori Drew's victimizing of Megan Meier is that there are no laws which apply here.
Should there be a law?
Arguably in many situations there is an assumed right to engage in pretense, online and in general. All of us engage in some level of it, to greater and lesser degrees and for better or worse reasons. And yes, some people will want to pretend to be younger than they are and while I personally think that sort of thing is deceptive and, well, lame, it doesn't take a degrees in legal ethics or criminal law to see that a 50 year old woman fudging facts by 5 or so years on her (adult) singles dating profile is a universe away from a 30-something year old woman pretending to be a minor for the purposes of initiating contact and carrying on a damaging relationship with a minor.
Is it just me or doesn't it seem like that sort of intentional, deliberate deception of a child should be, if not illegal, then at least cause for the FBI to seize your shit and comb through it looking for kiddie porn and the like. To me, it's the equivalent of hanging around the edge of the school yard luring kids over with candy and the like.
2 comments:
I'm just wondering now if the reason no one is really pushing this is because attempting to deliberately decieve a minor online is what most commercial entities do.
Rosey's Person
I don't think the kind or level is quite the same, not in a culturally relative context at least.
Consider: If a kindergarten teacher mentions Santa to the class, that teacher is technically engaging in a big fat lie. It involves the intention to manipulate the kid's behavior even ("be good or santa won't bring you a present", or maybe more proplerly "be good or santa won't bring you a wii")
But it's not the same kind of lie as someone telling the kid "Hey if you give me your mommy's credit card number, you'll get a puppy" or even the less apparently profitable but certainly malicious "if you eat all the pills in the medicine cabinet you'll never be sad again"
Culturally, we accept that some people will deceive us and our kids, that some people and entities will try to take advantage of us in some contexts (and will usually succeed much of the time). Hell, I'd say there's evidence that people not only accept it but revel in it to some extent. How about Tom's mother and her "shopping addict!" behavior. Not only did she in fact shop for useless goods in a manner which made the behavior downright dysfunctional, she displayed many attitudes and ancillary behaviors which were shockingly similar to those associated with substance abuse. Worse still, she had an awareness of it, but was able to fit it into a cultural niche where both being addicted to shopping and engaging in the shopping behavior itself were positive traits (and so feminine)
I do think though that not all advertising is accepted as happily as stories of Santa, not all "shop til you drop!" messages are received with wide open arms (or other body parts). The documentary "Maxed Out" [spoiler warning] focuses on people who were or are in massive consumer debt, and on families of individuals who have been victimized by consumer credit companies. I recall a really f'd up interview with the mothers of two college kids, well young adults really I suppose - chronologically at least. These kids had committed suicide after sinking into debt holes via university based credit card offers.
If you were to ask these mothers interviewed in Maxed Out, I think they'd tell you that the level and type of predation done by consumer credit companies and by pedophiles is similar if not the same. But most people would disagree. And they would be right in that the beliefs and attitudes of most reflect and create the (mainstream) culture. And laws are codification of culture.
I propose that for most people embedded in and accepting of the mainstream cultural context (including lobbyists and legislators), there is an automatic distinction between (ugh) "good" or "normal" exploitation of a child through a series of patient, carefully researched, artfully crafted lies and "bad" or "deviant" exploitation of a child of the type which is undertaken by individuals who personally hope to use the child for their own private (i.e. non-corporate) gratification.
Er, so what's my point? (pardon me I just woke up about an hour ago)
I guess it's that legislation as a product and mechanism of our culture, would have to be sensitive to cultural baggage like the fact that the set of "things which can victimize" does not typically include consumerism (et al) in our culture. Thus, I don't see that protecting consumer/commercial interest would be highly relevant in a legislative discussion about child exploitation at this point in time.
So why no law then? I think the law is lacking because people engage in far too much handwringing and nervous proclamations when it comes to (what is even culturally defined as) child exploitation. Taboo topics resist adequate exploration. Moreover, they attract grand standing (think the alanon meetings) which can easily take the place of functional discourse. To have laws which would at least offer punishment for predatory behavior targeting a child requires, at minimum, in depth functional discussion among people at least willing or able to suspend what they've learned and surmised about exploitation of children (again, remembering that marketing behavior will not even be considered "predatory" b/c it doesn't meet the deviant requirements).
Maybe that's just a long winded way of saying people are stupid.
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