Social Networking: Part VI – The Ugly or Anonymity Revisited
It was bound to happen, the good and bad of the freedom to create a different personality was brought to task in the Lori Drew case, a certainty that things can always be pushed beyond the bounds of original intent to become dangerous. And as always happens, one bad apple spoils the whole lot for the rest of us.
By taking on the identity of a teenage boy, Lori Drew via MySpace harrassed a young girl purportedly to suicide. Now the courts have ruled that she indeed broke the understood contract that users be "truthful and accurate when registering." But who reads the small print? Of course, one is meant to do so, expected to do so, but it is more often the case that without malicious intent, the majority of users are not truthful even if they do bother to read the agreement in whole.
Read Write Web has a good post and commentary on this matter, and all we can do is wait and see what happens as a result of the one most serious case of abuse and its effect on the global communities of social networking.
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