Cyberspace Misbehavior Poses New Ethical Challenges

From a utilitarian perspective, Suburban Journals reporter Steve Pokin and his editors took the proper action by not revealing the neighbor's identity in this tragic case.

Even though Pokin had unearthed facts that linked an adult neighbor with actions that may have been connected to Megan Meier's suicide, he focused on the action his reporting might evoke from readers if he revealed the neighbor's name or the names of other adults who might have been involved. Had the police arrested the neighbor, there would be no ethical dilemma in printing the name of a suspect who was charged with crime, but that wasn't the case.

Though the neighbor had admitted to police she had been harassing Megan on MySpace while masquerading as a teenage boy named Josh Evans, the reading clearly states "there were no arrests, no charges filed, no civil suit." Ignoring privacy concerns by revealing the neighbor's identity absent any criminal or civil charges clearly could have provoked outraged readers to seek their own justice against her - an action Pokin and his editors strongly considered when making the decision to withhold her identity.

The Suburban Journals made the same decision - to withhold an identity - that newspapers across the nation make every day, even when criminal charges are filed. As a reporter in Connecticut, I'd often have access to full police reports involving the arrests of juveniles and while I'd report on the crime, my articles would omit their names because of their ages. In those cases, a journalist's obligation to protect the privacy of a juvenile outweighed the need for the newspaper to identify a suspect.  

But if one tackles the same issue from a communitarianism viewpoint, the decision of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch editors to reveal the neighbor's name was appropriate because it was in the community's interest to discourage similar behavior (online harassment of children) and stigmatize the neighbor for her admitted actions, regardless of whether she had been charged by police. The cry for justice surely was deafening in the greater St. Louis region and, after national coverage of the incident, across the United States, so the individual's right would be subjegated to the needs of the greater community.

While it isn't clear how the St. Louis Post-Dispatch learned the neighbor's identity, it could be argued that revealing it would be justified under a principle of transparency if it had been discovered through the police investigation. After all, the term "person of interest" is now commonly used by law enforcement officials even before (or if) an arrest is made.

I feel Pokin and his editors made the correct call by refusing to name the woman who admitted to bullying Megan Meier on MySpace. However, I can't say whether they knew her identity might eventually be revealed in cyberspace (as it ultimately was) and just didn't want to be held responsible or they truly believed it was important to hew to their principles.



It's not clear from the article if anyone had reported the cyberbullying to MySpace but had it been reported MySpace officials had an obligation to investigate it and, if necessary, take steps to stop it. Both Facebook and MySpace have rules for members but since millions of users log on daily, it is unreasonable to expect either social networking site to police every indiscretion.

At last year's White House Conference on Bullying Prevention, Facebook unveiled new anti-bullying tools designed to create a "culture of respect." These tools, according to Mashable.com, "boil down to two main aspects: an improved safety center with more multimedia resources, and better, more social tools for reporting offensive or bullying content." 

Facebook Director of Engineering Arturo Bejas told Mashable the company "spent some time looking at reports we were getting in different categories.

"We take down content that violates our policies," he added, "but we also wanted to help people get support from someone in their lives… someone you trust who can help you deal with this in a way that’s constructive."

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