rogerd - 9:48 pm on Nov 17, 2007 (gmt 0)

The suicide of a troubled teen has been linked to the girl's interactions with a MySpace member who proved to be a false identity set up by an adult neighbor. The profile appeared to be a boy of similar age to the girl.

Net hoax turns deadly, turns town against neighbors [chicagotribune.com]

This raises a couple of issues for operators of community sites and social networks:

1) Anonymity is greatly valued in many communities because it allows frank discussion without exposing personal information, but will communities end up having to establish the real identity of users even if they keep it confidential? Even then, a hoax like the one that precipitated the above tragedy could still be perpetrated.

2) As a community operator, how do you deal with members who are in emotional distress? Just about every busy community encounters this situation once in a while. A member is clearly troubled, and is posting in a way that makes other members uncomfortable and/or worried... it seems kind of cruel to add to the problem member's troubles by issuing warnings or turning off posting, but something has to be done. How have you handled these issues?