NY town angry over Net slurs at suicide victim

[Omaha Steve]

Source: AP

WEST ISLIP, N.Y. (AP) - A community reeling from the suicide of a popular high school senior turned its sorrow to outrage Friday over a practice known as "trolling," in which derogatory, hurtful comments are posted online against a person.

In this instance, a tribute site created for Alexis Pilkington, 17, of West Islip High School was the target of insulting messages after her death.

"I think it's horrible. It's vicious. It's cruel. It upsets me as a parent," Lorraine Kolar said as she left a memorial service Thursday for Pilkington.

Classmates, relatives and friends were incensed over what they called creepy, insensitive messages about Pilkington, many posted anonymously and also appearing on other Internet sites since her death.


Read more: http://apnews.excite.com/article/20100326/D9EMIM500.html

---

A memorial message decorates a car as students head to the funeral for 17-year-old Alexis Pilkington Thursday March 25, 2010 in Babylon N.Y. Pilkington was a popular athlete, a well-liked star who had already landed a soccer scholarship to college. But none of that stopped the teenager from becoming the target of nasty online comments. Even after the Long Island girl killed herself, the harassing Internet messages kept on coming, posted on a page meant to stand as a tribute. (AP Photo/David Goldman)

[Xipe Totec]

1. Those creeps are going to get a lesson on how anonymous they're not

Every post has a traceable IP address, and an ISP provider that, under subpoena, will release that information to the authorities.

Knock, knock...

[Vincent441]

2. I don't think they broke any laws

[Xipe Totec]

4. Why are you defending them?

[Confusious]

7. If you don't recognize it

That was a statement of fact, not defense.

There are no national, and very few state laws, that have penalties for this sort of thing.

[paulsby]

13. and any that did would not survive constitutional scrutiny

talking smack is constitutionally protected. even if you are a meanie when doing it

[SoxFan]

76. Intentional Infliction of Emotional Distress

Not criminal, but a cause of action in a civil case.

[paulsby]

77. i agree

i was talking crimes.

prior restraint issues, among other things, prevent such laws.

civilly actionable is another issue entirely, i agree

[RaleighNCDUer]

23. There could be a correlation to stalking laws that might be applied. nt

[NashVegas]

65. Then There Are No Penalties For Naming Them

[no_hypocrisy]

6. Welcome to DU.

Maybe no criminal statutes were violated. But the perpetrators are lawfully liable for outrageous behavior that led to this victim's suicide due to the humiliation they cultivated.

[Confusious]

8. I'm not challenging your statement

Just curious. You think they could haul whoever it was into civil court?

[no_hypocrisy]

9. Provided they have sufficient evidence linking him/her/them to the situation.

There's caselaw holding individuals liable for outrageous behavior that leads to humiliation, injury, and/or death.

[Confusious]

10. Kinda like OJ

One can and does hope they do.

Some sort of precedent should be made to stop this sort of stuff.

[paulsby]

14. the comments occurred AFTER her death

for pete's sake.

it's kind of hard to blame people for a death when they are making the comments ex post facto

READ THE ARTICLE

not to mention that , thankfully , most of the time the courts do NOT find people liable for talkin' smack which is what we are talking about

recall the lori drew case where overzealous prosecutors were overturned.

[SusanaMontana41]

20. I read the article

It included this sentence: "Pilkington received harassing Internet messages even before she killed herself last Sunday."

Not looking for a fight here. Just sayin' ...

[paulsby]

22. fair enuf

we may have been referring to different parts of the article.

i just am extremely hesitant to blame (at least in any sort of criminal sense... morality is another matter entirely) mean people for people's suicides.

teenagers (not to mention adults) receive harassing messages, not to mention statements in person etc. and have been for centuries.

teenagers are mean.

in the last 20 yrs, i'd bet scores of millions of teenagers have received harassing messages of one sort or another. and DIDN't commit suicide.

i have seen a # of cases (and these are just the ones that get reported to police) where (mostly teenage girls) receive mean messages or people make internet pages or facebook pages or whatever that are incredibly insulting, make all sorts of bogus sexual remarks, etc.

none of those were remotely criminal, but i helped the parents and kids find a way to deal with the problem through contacting the management of facebook/myspace etc.

my point is that this stuff is very common. it almost always does NOT follow that a teenager commits suicide because of such behavior

considering that the VAST (and i mean VAST) majority of those who receive harassment and mean comments do NOT commit suicide, it's clearly almost never foreseeable or actionable when it does happen.

it is the extreme statistical outlier case when it happens. teenage taunting is shockingly common. teenage girl suicide is quite rare (boys actually commit suicide far more often).

[gvstn]

11. We are talking about comments on a memorial site

they had nothing to do with causing her to commit suicide. They may be distasteful and classless but probably not illegal. Or not worth suing over.

The internet is full of tasteless comments hence the need for moderators to remove material website owners find objectionable. It's great that the local press airs the kids' concerns so that maybe the nasty comments will be less numerous but other than that they should just prune the comments to their liking.

[paulsby]

15. they're not "probably not illegal"

they are NOT illegal

thankfully, we do not criminalize being a :"meanie".

we have that pesky 1st amendment to protect us

[gvstn]

19. Thanks

I put probably because I was unsure about "defaming" (or other legal term for false statements injuring the reputation) of a deceased person. I was thinking civil litigation..

[paulsby]

21. and i appreciate that

i think a clarification is in order.

civilly actionable speech (at least i would not refer to it as) is not "illegal".

illegal means (generally speaking) criminally actionable.

i strongly doubt the stuff i read would even be civilly actionable. but that is another issue.

i am 100% certain that nothing i read was ILLEGAL. in that, i mean a violation of a law. (note that some jurisdictions (very few) have very wierd CRIMINAL libel statutes, but that;s another story).

[boppers]

34. 18 USC § 1030(a)(2)(C) would be one likely test.

See the Megan Meier/Lori Drew case for a past conviction, and acquittal. Very interesting arguments over the course of that whole saga.

[paulsby]

68. i commented on that case at the time as a travesty of justice and it was of course overturned

they tried to prosecute her for violating the website's contract, under an obscure and never used federal law

and it was promptly overturned...

[boppers]

69. There's definitely room for disagreement on the topic.

It was overturned, basically, on an "everybody does it" kind of argument, because website abuse is so common. Impersonating another human being for the purposes of gaining access to, oh, credit card data, with a shell account, is less common, and more likely to be successfully prosecuted.

[paulsby]

73. that's because it's fraud FOR PECUNIARY benefit

which is something else entirely.

when EVERYBODY does do something, and the feds engage in selective prosecution, asin the instant case, it's prima facie unreasonable

it's jack mccoy'ism run amok... see "three crimes a day" for examples of this kind of crap by federal prosecutors

i said the case would be overturned... and it was.

lori drew did NOTHING criminal.

whether or not her actions are CIVILLY actionable is another case entirely, but the reality is that the first amendment doesn't protect us against people being mean to us, guys or gals creating fake personas (see: dating) etc.

[boppers]

74. The top hits I get in google for "three crimes a day" are mostly about a drink called "Buckfast"...

...and Jack McCoy is a "Law and Order" TV character?

I'm not following that part of your post.

[paulsby]

75. i;m sorry

it's actually

"three FELONIES a day" my bad

it's written by a long time criminal defense and civil liberties lawyer

and yes, jack mcoy'ism is a term i invented (ya me!) based on the proclivity for the character (a statist liberal if there ever was one) to selectively and inventively twist the criminal law so he can prosecute people for "crimes". in brief, liberals = good. statist liberals = bad (but usually with good intentions fwiw)

it makes for good tv, of course, and certainly far more interesting than the normal kind of murder cases these DA's handle which are mostly rather routine.

[boppers]

79. Thanks for that pointer!

Hours of interesting reading, though some of it is a bit strained, and saturated with rather torturous arguments....

For example (Chapter 1 of Three Felonies), an elected official is "given" a plot of real estate at substantially below market value. As a "gift". By a developer who wants to be "friends".

Silvergate argues that this is not necessarily criminal, as there was no quid pro quo, but anybody with an above room temperature IQ can see *exactly* what it is. It's a bribe. (This is why we have juries).

In much of the related supporting material, and follow up, it's similar arguments... things that were technically *possibly* legal, though juries often looked at it and said "oh, HELL no, this is a criminally guilty *person*"....

Junk Bonds con men, Ticket Scalpers, Animal Product Smugglers, Mafia Members, a whole panoply of criminals, all nailed on legal terms that Silvergate disagreed with, but in the end, while the charges often involved creative prosecution, these weren't average citizens being nailed by Jack McCoy stretching law. These were people engaged in criminal behavior, with a prosecutor using existing law to shut them down.

To summarize: I suppose Silvergate could find really good arguments about how Al Capone wasn't technically liable for tax evasion.

[AngryAmish]

80. I disagree

What you are counting on is a prosecutor being properly selective in enforcement. Do you really want a world where the executive has that much power?

And by your example what Rezco did for Obama was a felony.

[paulsby]

82. not to mention the trend in FEDERAL law

where so many of these laws are "strict liability"

this makes it quite easy to break these laws without mens rea, which as anybody (even the blonde in legally blonde knows - is a very fundamental element of the law) and means that people routinely plead out on stuff where they didn't even intend to do anything criminal in the first place, but just got caught in that federal web

[boppers]

87. Pleading guilty, without being guilty?

I can see this an argument, but a rare one. Much of the examples offered are people pleading guilty to avoid harsher trials.

That being said, mens rea is being confronted with an opposition idea: "this isn't technically a crime, it's just being clever".

I don't think we should criminalize being clever, but there's something to be said about the spirit of the law, and the letter of the law.

[boppers]

84. You seem to be unfamiliar with the Obama/Rezko history.

..and, FWIW, Rezko eventually went to jail.

[Democat]

62. If you post something I don't like online, I want you arrested!

On the other hand, I should be able to post whatever I want online.

[paulsby]

12. would you please get a clue

these were comments that appeared (per the article) SINCE her death

it's kind of hard to be "lawfully liable" for somebody's suicide if you make comments AFTER they kill themself

hth

[KittyWampus]

42. there is such a thing as evidence though. Returning to the scene of a crime one commits.

[WinkyDink]

57. What laws were broken?

[Tunkamerica]

17. these comments were after she died.

they are after the fact and no law was broken.

[KittyWampus]

43. These comments may link to comments made BEFORE she died. They may be incriminating evidence.

[WinkyDink]

56. Be careful what you wish for.

[WinkyDink]

55. That law would be...? Example of precedent?

[Tunkamerica]

16. subpeona for what?

what was the crime?

and you're assuming they're from this country...(they prob. were, but still.)

[KittyWampus]

44. Incriminating evidence. If addresses were same as harassing emails from BEFORE the suicide.

[ProgressiveProfessor]

25. Actually those can be gotten around fairly easily

TOR nodes, anonymous browsers, and proxies all come to mind. Trivial really. The absolute traceability of IPs is right up there with all emails are recoverable.

[lbrtbell]

51. Exactly.

A lot of trolls specialize in hiding behind several proxies. It's kind of hard to find somebody if their IP address is in Japan....

[boppers]

33. *cough* Anonymous proxies *cough*

This is how Human Rights dissidents in nations like China and Iran can evade censorship and persecution.

[truthisfreedom]

3. Their identies and addresses should all be revealed.

[Tunkamerica]

18. no they shouldn't

the memorial site should have moderated comments if this is a problem.

[RaleighNCDUer]

24. Oh, by all means, protect cyber bullies from being publicly revealed

for what they are.

I think that anybody willing to write that crap should have to be exposed to the public. If they don't want to say it publicly, they can just STFU.

[Tunkamerica]

37. that's a well thought out philosophy.

people posting unpopular things on the internet should be outed. nothing bad could come from that.

[KittyWampus]

45. Harassment isn't about popularity.

[Leftist Agitator]

40. If you want to tell everyone on the internet who you actually are, be my guest.

I'm sure that will work out spectacularly... :eyes:

IT'S THE FUCKING INTERNET!!!!! WHY IN THE FLYING FUCK WOULD YOU TAKE ANYTHING SAID ON HERE SERIOUSLY????!!!

God, there is no word, not even facepalm, for what I am feeling toward you at the present time. I know you mean well, but... fuck.

[KittyWampus]

46. Who cares what you feel towards another DU'er? You support harassment, apparently.

[Leftist Agitator]

50. I don't support harrassment whatsoever.

I do support people taking anonymous comments on the internet way less seriously than most people apparently do.

Watch this: Call me something terrible. Really, lay into me and call me every horrid thing that you can think of. Watch how upset I get.

[AngryAmish]

81. This internet is serious business.

[WinkyDink]

59. Way to extrapolate in the face of legal facts vs. your "feelings" and assumptions.

[lbrtbell]

53. Aside from the free speech implications

Since most trolls hide behind a number of proxies, the only thing you'd be "revealing" is an IP address totally unrelated to the person doing the trolling.

[WinkyDink]

58. You DO know how that could be extended to, oh, I don't know....YOU? US?

[Lorien]

67. Agreed. Funny how many can be so harsh on people who have lost their

homes or who have been victims of bullying cops, claiming that the victims should be held "accountable" for everything that happens in their life-even if they were swindled by a bank, lost their job, or just ran into the wrong cop on the wrong day. But these same people protect vicious online bullying as "free speech", claiming that the attackers shouldn't take ANY responsibility for their actions-it's all the fault of the "fools" who dared to memorialize a loved one.

Authoritarianism is a sickness.

[truthisfreedom]

5. She was a lovely girl. Such a tragedy.

[Justice]

26. PEOPLE, READ THE ORIGINAL POST - she was a target of nasty online comments while she was ALIVE

I really wish people would read the post before commenting on it.

She was ALIVE when people posted nasty comments anonymously online. These comments continued after she killed herself.

READ THE POST.

I hope they get a subpoena and unveil the names of the posters. I hope they are sued by the family = I hope the poster's families have to pay money.

I am so tired of this rockem sockem mentality.

[Violet_Crumble]

36. I did. It said the comments weren't a major factor...

From the article: 'Her parents and other relatives insist she had been troubled for some time. They don't believe the messages were a major factor in her death.'

If I sued every DUer who'd posted nasty things about me I'd be a billionaire. The reality is that the internet is a nasty place and it's not the place to set up 'memorial' sites without any way of moderating them. If people are stupid enough to do that, they deserve the low-quality trolls they're going to attract. Unless laws are being broken, I'm totally opposed to anyone's identities being exposed...

[lbrtbell]

54. Good luck with that

Trolls aren't stupid enough to reveal their actual IP addresses. They're people with far more technical know-how than you obviously have (no offense intended by that remark).

These people can cover their tracks till nobody can find them. Subpoenas are useless.

[Democat]

63. Then every Freeper should be able to sue every DUer?

The level of disrespect that some people her have for the First Amendment is amazing.

I feel bad for this girl, but I (or you) have every legal right to call anyone I (or you) want an idiot or ugly. If you don't like it, too bad for you. Move to a country where they can arrest people for giving their opinion or speaking the truth.

[Leftist Agitator]

27. If you don't want people trolling your "memorial site", don't fucking make one!

This is far from the first time this has happened. See Mitchell Henderson for reference.

The internet is a vicious and mean-spirited place. If you take anything seriously that anybody on the internet has to say, you deserve to be trolled, IMO.

[AngryOldDem]

28. You're right.

And if you do want one, monitor it constantly. This is the Internet, not a guest book outside the viewing room at the funeral home.

And by the way, whatever happened to going down to the local Hallmark, picking out a card for $2.50 or $3 (or even $1), signing it, and mailing it?

[kiranon]

30. Is there a way to block outsiders from a site? Have a code to get in?

I'm not computer savy so maybe it already exists but if not someone needs to create it for memorial sites or create a memorial site that people can post on free of trolls.

[WinkyDink]

60. "Outsiders"? How would one go about finding out who knew this girl in BOTH RL AND on the 'Net?

You know---LIKE ON DU???

[lbrtbell]

52. The internet never has been a safe place

That's why you never reveal private info about yourself online. It was even worse in the early days, especially for women. :(

[Name removed]

66. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[Odin2005]

29. Ugh, people are so fucking cruel.

:cry:

[Name removed]

31. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[boppers]

35. Anonymous/4chan was the first thing that came to my mind, as well.

Went to check the latest trends, on the first hit on /b/ there was a "make this girl kill herself" thread with a facebook profile for her.... so, yeah. Rough crowd.

[Leftist Agitator]

39. Hey, /b/ isn't all bad!

It is indisputably the asshole of the internet, but they did save Dusty the Cat! So there's that I guess.

Honestly, for a bunch of amoral dickheads, they sure do latch on to some strange moral crusades. Oh, and they troll dead kids' parents. And the handicapped. And they're racists. And... Well, I'll stop there, otherwise the listing of their negative attributes would take up too much space and too much of my time.

Oh, they have one other redeeming quality: They troll pedos and get them arrested. I suppose there's that too. And they troll Scientology, which is pretty commendable in my opinion.

I suppose the best description of /b/ that I've ever heard, to paraphrase, went as follows: "Imagine the most reclusive, seething, hateful person you know. Now imagine a million of that person granted anonymity with a desire to hurt the world as much as it has hurt them. That's /b/".

And that pretty much sums it up.

[boppers]

71. There's a whole cadre of "white nights" who keep the community in check.

Yes, they do have a really, really, weird set of community standards, but they do have them.

[Name removed]

64. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[boppers]

70. Yes, because /r/ is the epitome of class and grace. /h/ is very studious.

/k/ is all about thoughtful analysis, and /cgl/ has nothing to do with messing with people IRL.

yeahbutno.

[Jkid]

72. n/t

[buckrogers1965]

32. Internet Trolls

Only one in a million people are insecure enough, and devoid of personality, empathy and reason enough to troll a web site like these idiots did. Unfortunately this means that there are thousands of internet trolls out there doing these sickening posts.

Their petty and mean comments say more about them then it does about the person they are victimizing.

A few of them will regret their mean spirited comments over their lifetime. Their words and deeds will fester and eat at them from the inside until their existence is a hell on earth.

And I feel truly sorry for those people. Because there is no taking it back.

[Leftist Agitator]

38. Dude, are you new to the internet or something?

"Their petty and mean comments say more about them then it does about the person they are victimizing."

Well, yes and no. But I would submit that the responses that they get from their victims say more about the latter's willingness to get butthurt over anonymous comments from people who didn't even know the subject of the trolling than it does about the trolls.

Honestly, if someone you didn't know, had never met, and would never cross paths with told you that they were glad that your dumbass friend/sister/wife committed suicide, why the fuck would you care? Would you really get that bent out of shape over some anonymous asshole on the internet? I sure as fuck wouldn't.

"A few of them will regret their mean spirited comments over their lifetime. Their words and deeds will fester and eat at them from the inside until their existence is a hell on earth."

Um, no, I'd wager that not a single one of them will ever have a single pang of remorse about their words and/or actions. It's the internet, dude! People who troll others do not have a conscience, period. Not a solitary tear of regret will ever be shed because someone feels badly about trolling. Hard core trolls have a motto, "I did it for the lulz".

Their philosophical underpinning can best be described as schadenfreude on steroids. Simply put, if someone gets all kinds of butthurt over being trolled, that outcome then justifies said trolling. People troll just for the sake of trolling.

I wouldn't personally troll a dead kid's memorial Facebook page, but I can see the redeeming social value of the actions of those who choose to. It's the fucking internet. Nobody, and I mean NOBODY should take anything said on it seriously, at all, EVER. If it takes being trolled for some people to learn that lesson, so be it.

[CBGLuthier]

41. The internet is full of assholes, proven once again.

[KittyWampus]

47. Indeed, a search of certain DU'ers past posts proves that nicely.

[Leftist Agitator]

49. There's no need to be so cryptic and vague...

You can say it, "You're an asshole".

I'm OK with that. Are you?

If you think that the world should just play nice for the sake of nice, then you need to wake the fuck up. The world does not work that way. Even less so the internet.

Again, for the record, I think that trolling a dead kid's memorial site is pretty fucking awful. I wouldn't do it, ever, period. Those people are suffering enough without random dickheads adding to their grief.

But I stand by my statement that what the trolls are doing has a redeeming social value. A terrible, utterly reprehensible social value, but their actions do have value nonetheless.

[LanternWaste]

83. We are often proud of...

We are often proud of degrading and minimizing ourselves....

[Name removed]

48. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[WinkyDink]

61. People here do know the Internet is world-wide, right? That posters didn't have to be from the

girl's home-town? State? Country?

[Rapier09]

78. Disrespecting the dead is the lowest of the low

Seriously though,why give these people attention?

It is just going to encourage them,best way to deal with this level of nihilism is to ignore it or cut the internet access.

[Haole Girl]

85. What in the h....

:-(

[WinkyDink]

86. I thought this was ONLY TWEETS. CLEARLY the REALITY = rapes and other violence. THAT CHANGES

A HECK OF A LOT.

I don't equate speech with thuggery, but I DO equate thuggery with thuggery.