More on the Internet Harassment Law

The Kansas City Star reports that the first people to be protected by the new law against internet harassment may be the Drews, the famliy that is alleged to have harassed Megan Meier before her suicide. Somebody out there started a blog claiming to be Lori Drew and describing her perspective on what happened. I’m not going give that blog any more attention by linking to it; suffice it to say, it stoops to the low level of what Megan encountered.

This incident illustrates how difficult the broad anti-harassment law will be to enforce. Anybody can start a blog claiming to be someone else, or post malicious comments about other people anywhere on the Internet (except for Show-Me Daily, because we don’t publish comments yet!). Some of that can be tracked, but it’s easy enough to go to a public library and set up a blog without paying anything or providing any personal information. The Internet is a big place, and it’s going to be hard for Dardenne Prairie officials (or anyone else) to police it.