Mike the Usurper wrote:

The internet is not a safe place for kids? What a goddamn cop out. NOWHERE is safe for kids. Welcome to the social contract. We CAN'T watch our kids all the time, it's not possible, so we have expectations that other adults are not going to go out there and deliberately fuck with them, and if they do, that social contract says there are consequences. While it may not be safe, there is a requirement on us, as adults not to fuck with kids, and if we do, we get hit for it, and damn well should.

You want that responsibility abrogated because it happened on the internet? Your response is fundamentally wrong at every level. This person violated that contract, and did so in one of the most offensive ways possible. If anything, she's getting off light.

Traffic is safe if you look both ways, but if you're kid fell on the bad side of the evolutionary road and you let that kid play in the street, the problem is with the kid instead of the roads and drivers. If your kid is going to commit suicide because someone honked their horn and called them a dumb asshole, the fault is yours. If your child is raised with such a broken psychology that they kill themselves because of an internet troll, they are not mature enough to handle using myspace or even the internet in general.

There should be no legal requirement that people must not be verbally hostile to one another. Its not nice to harass those who claim to be young, but if the kids are networking on the same playing field, the social contract is invalid if the kid is not mature enough to comprehend a hostile world.

RE: Jury convicts mom of lesser charges in online hoax