myspace

After listening to a week of testimony, the House Judiciary Committee has crafted two bills that seek to deal with the problem of cyber-bullying. One bill is a nuanced attempt to create a conversation between children, parents and school administrators about the proper use of technology, and the other is, well, not.

MySpace, the popular online community and social networking site, announced plans to add games, email and other features developed by outside providers next month. Adding applications from the outside is possible now, but its a little too difficult for the average member, involving cutting and pasting the relevant code from a third party.

In September of last year, a 13-year-old girl was contacted through MySpace by someone claiming to be a teenage boy named Josh Evans. The two corresponded for a month, but then the tone of their exchanges switched, and "Evans" accused the girl of treating her friends poorly, and told her that he wanted to end their friendship. A day later, the girl hanged herself. Eventually it came out that an older neighbor was posing as Josh Evans to learn what she thought of another girl. Yesterday, the local police department announced that no charges will be filed, provoking outrage from the victim's family.—Gregory Mone

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