Have you read about the case? You might be amazed at how closely her parents did supervise the girl’s internet use, unless you mean that they literally needed to stand over her shoulder every moment she was online, but that’s a pretty high standard. They knew her passwords; they gave her permission about when she could be online; they limited who had access to her profile. They gave “Josh” permission to talk to her based on the fraudulent efforts of Lori Drew. Is that something we should blame them for?

This is prosecutorial vigilantism since it is extremely unlikely that Lori Drew will be convicted of a crime.

The truth is that we can harm each other with devastating consequences outside of the reach of the criminal law.

There may be some basis here for a civil action although I doubt there is much to gain financially from suing.

You are on to something in your social commentary about cyberbullying generally, but in the Lori Drew case does seems to me that she ought to be considered guilty of something.

What would have had to be true for her to have been guilty of emotional child abuse though, rather than some kind of computer crime? Drew was an adult person who was aware that she was dealing with a psychologically fragile middle schooler (she was aware she was being medicated) and she deliberately tricked her and did her harm. It actually went beyond just calling someone names. It was a pretty elaborate fraud that unfolded over weeks or months, if I remember correctly, involving building trust and then turning on her.

Has our society become so gutless and weak that we equate being called names with physical assault?