A Missouri teenager’s father is claiming that the online taunting of his daughter caused her to be admitted to a mental health clinic and he is suing for over $25,000 in medical expenses and seeks to have Internet social networks Facebook and Web portal Live.com provide information on the sender of messages to his daughter. The case is similar to another Missouri case, in which Megan Meier, 13, committed suicide over the Myspace communications by a fictitious boyfriend. Megan’s death led to the passage of a new Missouri statute, making Internet harassment a felony for people over 21 and a misdemeanor for those under 21.
In the recently filed case, the unidentified teenager, age 16, had previously undergone outpatient treatment for 22 days in June and July for a psychiatric condition that the lawsuit claims was partly due to an obsessive relationship with a teenage boy. The suit claims someone created a fictitious Facebook account, using photos of an attractive, older model and the name “Jennifer Litzinger”, “for the purpose of creating a purported rival” for the boy’s affections. The suit claims that on the day before the teen was to finish outpatient treatment in July, “Litzinger” sent multiple communications, claiming she had been talking and texting with the boyfriend every day and night, was more attractive than the teen, and other comments designed to make the teen feel inferior to her fictitious rival.
Tags: cyberspace bullying, facebook, litzinger
