The study of 15,000 children found that although many teenagers try to prevent parents informing the school about bullying, where parents did the child was significantly less likely to still be the victim of bullies two years later.
Cyberbullying – by mobile phone, email and on websites – is now as common as name-calling among teenagers, it found. Pupils also reported threats of violence, actual violence and being "frozen out" by their friendship groups. A minority said they had been forced to hand over money or possessions to bullies.
It is a bold step forward in what is a world wide phenomenon and, often, a faceless crime. While the bulk of the issues will revolve around what constitutes 'terrorism', this law will make computer hackers and faceless data thieves think twice about their actions...especially in Pakistan. Cyber crimes erode the very fabric of trust that makes e-commerce vibrant and useful. It makes smaller operations less appear trustworthy even as 'small business' is the backbone of business. It needs to be cleaned up, some how. Pakistan is doing something. Any thoughts?It is a bold step forward in what is a world wide phenomenon and, often, a faceless... more
“I wouldn’t want to be in Lori Drew’s shoes and live her life. I think she’s already basically living a life conviction right now,” Meier said Friday on NBC's Today Show, a day after U.S. District Judge George Wu indicated he was vacating a jury’s verdict and acquitting Drew of misdemeanor counts of accessing computers without authorization.“I wouldn’t want to be in Lori Drew’s shoes and live her life. I think she’s... more
LOS ANGELES — A federal judge on Thursday overturned guilty verdicts against Lori Drew, issuing a directed acquittal on three misdemeanor charges.
Drew, 50, was accused of participating in a cyberbullying scheme against 13-year-old Megan Meier who later committed suicide. The case against Drew hinged on the government’s novel argument that violating MySpace’s terms of service was the legal equivalent of computer hacking. But U.S. District Judge George Wu found the premise troubling.
“It basically leaves it up to a website owner to determine what is a crime,” said Wu on Thursday, echoing what critics of the case have been saying for months. “And therefore it criminalizes what would be a breach of contract.”LOS ANGELES — A federal judge on Thursday overturned guilty verdicts against Lori... more
A 21-year-old woman accused of sending a vulgar text message to a 17-year-old girl is one of the first cases brought under a law against cyberbullying spurred by the suicide of a teenage girl following cruel messages on the Internet.
The 2006 death of 13-year-old Megan Meier prompted Missouri lawmakers to update state harassment law earlier this year so that it now covers bullying and stalking done through electronic media, like e-mails or text messages.
A handful of cases related to electronic communication have been filed statewide since the law took effect Aug. 28. Prosecutors do not track harassment cases based on the type of communication method used, so could not provide an exact count in recent days of how many people have been charged because of the new provisions.
In one of the new cases, Nicole Williams is accused of using electronic communications to harass a teenager in a dispute over a boy. Williams is scheduled for arraignment on one count of harassment on Jan. 8.
She allegedly sent the text message to the 17-year-old she had not previously met because she heard the girl had a physical encounter with her boyfriend. The two had just been talking, police said.
The 17-year-old girl received voice messages with lewd and threatening comments, including some that called her by the name "pork and beans" and threatened rape. Williams told police others sent those messages from her phone, according to a probable cause statement.
St. Peters police spokeswoman Melissa Doss said Friday that the 17-year-old had eggs, thumbtacks and a can of baked beans thrown on her car. Williams has not been linked with or charged with those offenses, she said.
The case was filed in November and is the first involving text messages in St. Charles County, the county where Meier resided, since the new law went into effect.
Subject line: GUILTY...A 21-year-old woman accused of sending a vulgar text message to a 17-year-old girl is... more
A former Florida high school student who was disciplined for "cyberbullying" a teacher on Facebook is suing the school principal on allegations of violating her free speech rights.
The case highlights the legal challenges facing courts and school administrators as they grapple with campus civil order and free expression in an online world.
"We're in the very first generation of this and there's nothing ripe for the U.S. Supreme Court to hear," said Frank LoMonte, executive director of the Virginia-based Student Press Law Center.
The lawsuit, filed Monday in a Florida federal court, concerns Katherine Evans, now 19, who was suspended as a senior last year after creating a Facebook group devoted to her English teacher. The group was called "Ms. Sarah Phelps is the worst teacher I've ever met!," and featured a photograph of the teacher, and an invitation for other students to "express your feelings of hatred."
After people's comments derided Evans for the online stunt, and expressed support for the teacher, she deleted the group. But Pembroke Pines Charter High School, which did not respond for comment, suspended Evans for three days for "disruptive behavior" and for "Bullying / Cyber Bullying Harassment towards a staff member," according to the lawsuit, which is backed by the American Civil Liberties Union.A former Florida high school student who was disciplined for "cyberbullying" a teacher... more
The case of a 49-year-old woman who is accused of violating MySpace's terms of service went to the jury for deliberation.
Drew is charged with one count of conspiracy and three counts of unauthorized computer access for allegedly violating the MySpace terms-of-service by creating a fake MySpace profile for a non-existent 16-year-old boy named "Josh Evans" for the purpose of inflicting psychological harm on 13-year-old Megan Meier, who then committed suicide.
She wanted to know if Megan was spreading rumors about her daughter.The case of a 49-year-old woman who is accused of violating MySpace's terms of service... more
The "Bullying Hurts" program, developed by Marvin Nash — a.k.a. Starvin' Marvin and his wife, Darlene, trains high school kids to mentor grade schoolers on dealing with bullying in their schools and community.
Nash's program stresses positive youth development and prevention. With the help of school administrators, he recruits and trains high school students to present the program to elementary students over six work sessions. The program teaches that bullying is a part of life, that violence against bullies is not a solution and tells kids who are bullied where they can get help.
Bullies are publicly identified bullies in the classroom. Instead, the class discussion sends a message to bullies that their behavior is hurtful and is based on an underlying cause, Nash said.
Nash has been a professional rodeo clown for some 30 years, entertaining fans and protecting bull riders at great risk to himself. Nash, who at 53 is close to retiring from the rodeo arena, is a fixture every summer at the annual Cowtown Rodeo near the small New Jersey community of Sharptown, just south of Philadelphia.
Nash also is working to address the relatively new phenomenon of cyberbullying, in which kids use the Internet and cell phones to spread mean messages about others. His interest in the problem was partly inspired by a case in Missouri in which a 13-year-old girl committed suicide nearly two years ago after being harassed on the Internet.
"We have to start teaching these young kids that are getting on the Internet and writing these things to be careful about the words they're using," he said.
The success of "Bullying Hurts" is hard to measure, but Nash said he is encouraged by reports of kids helping each other. In Colorado, he said, the program helped stop a bullying problem on a school bus, when a group of high school mentors rode with the victim to school. The "Bullying Hurts" program, developed by Marvin Nash — a.k.a. Starvin' Marvin and... more
Ricky Alatorre doesn't know which classmate surreptitiously hoisted a cellphone camera and snapped his picture or exactly when it happened.
All Ricky, 16, knows is the fuzzy yet distinguishable portrait of him in English class showed up on MySpace, on a page that claimed to be his. And the fake profile, titled "The Rictionary," not only identified his school but also said Ricky loved dictionaries - a swipe at his school smarts - and was gay (he's not), one of the most common schoolyard taunts.
Tall, big and bookish, Ricky, who lives on a farm in Lake County, Ind., had been picked on since he was in kindergarten.
Insults flung in the heat of anger always inflict some pain. But words - and pictures - posted on the Internet, where they can be seen by anyone, have taken bullying to a whole new level.
"I was completely devastated," Ricky says.
As younger and more kids get their hands on cellphone and digital cameras and nearly ubiquitous high-speed Internet connections, cyberbullying is ramping up and taking new forms.
No longer are threats, taunts and insults relegated to the written word in chat rooms and instant messages. Now teens, children and sometimes adults are adding pictures and videos to their bullying arsenal and posting them on sites such as MySpace, Facebook and YouTube, where anyone can see them.
And bullying has led to real consequences - from fights to teen suicides, or what some label "bullycides." States are beginning to take action with tough new laws targeting those who use electronic means to bully.
Kids don't always report it
Online harassment of American young people ages 10 to 17 increased 50% (from 6% to 9%) from 2000 to 2005, according to the latest research available, a watershed report by the University of New Hampshire's Crimes Against Children Research Center. And the number of young people who said they had "made rude or nasty comments to someone on the Internet" increased from 14% to 28% in the same period.
But there hasn't been nearly enough research on the subject, says Corinne David-Ferdon, a health scientist at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Compounding the frustration is that children often fail to report bullying. They fear that tormentors will become angrier and bully them more or worry that if they report being bullied over the Internet or on a cellphone, their phone and Internet privileges will be revoked.
"This is an emerging public-health problem" that needs attention, David-Ferdon says. The problem gained visibility with news about high school girls getting in trouble after posting school fights on YouTube.
Five girls from Lakeland, Fla., face charges over an incident March 30 in which they are accused of participating in the beating of a 16-year-old acquaintance in retaliation for her saying nasty things about them on MySpace. They videotaped the beating and planned to post it on MySpace and YouTube, says Chip Thullbery, state attorney spokesman in Polk County.
The sheriff decided to release it to deal with news media interest, the Associated Press reported.
"Girlfight" videos have become so ubiquitous that the search term "girlfight" brings up thousands of videos on YouTube.
"You're bullied twice," says Nancy Willard, author of Cyber-Safe Kids, Cyber-Savvy Teens and Cyberbullying and Cyberthreats. "You're bullied in the real world with a physical attack, and then you're bullied online with humiliation. It's very hurtful. Very, very hurtful." Ricky Alatorre doesn't know which classmate surreptitiously hoisted a cellphone camera... more
Social networking website Bebo has been blamed for a 13-year-old boy's suicide. Sam Leeson, a 13 year old student from Tredworth, Gloucestershire, hanged himself in his bedroom apparently after suffering months of bullying online.
Sam's mother Sally Cope, 45, said the family only learnt of the cyberbullying when they checked his Bebo page after his death. Social networking website Bebo has been blamed for a 13-year-old boy's suicide. Sam... more
A teenage boy is facing jail after an internet prank drove his best friend to attempt suicide. The 17-year-old posted a fake profile on the social networking website, Bebo, pretending to be a boy called Callum, and struck up a three-month relationship with his 16-year-old male victim. He then revealed details of their intimate messages, which often ended with the words "I love you", to other friends.
His victim was so traumatised by the scam he took more than 60 painkillers, an act described by a psychologist as a genuine attempt to kill himself rather than a "cry for help", Brighton Youth Court heard. A teenage boy is facing jail after an internet prank drove his best friend to attempt... more
"Get ready for total inundation," said Debra Aho Williamson, an analyst at the research firm eMarketer, who estimates that 20 million children will be members of a virtual world by 2011, up from 8.2 million today."Get ready for total inundation," said Debra Aho Williamson, an analyst at the... more
MIT Prof. Nicholas Negroponte's dream is to put a laptop computer into the hands of every child as an educational aid. Lesley Stahl reports on his progress in Cambodia and Brazil.MIT Prof. Nicholas Negroponte's dream is to put a laptop computer into the hands of... more
The Meier case got massive play in the national media this past week, coming as it did on the heels of a major new survey showing that up to one in three children in the United States have been harassed or bullied online.The Meier case got massive play in the national media this past week, coming as it did... more
DARDENNE PRAIRIE, Mo., Nov. 21 Megan Meier died believing that somewhere in this world lived a boy named Josh Evans who hated her. He was 16, owned a pet snake, and she thought he was the cutest boyfriend she ever had.
Josh contacted Megan through her page on MySpace.com, the social networking Web site, said Megans mother, Tina Meier. They flirted for weeks, but only online Josh said his family had no phone. On Oct. 15, 2006, Josh suddenly turned mean. He called Megan names, and later they traded insults for an hour.
The next day, in his final message, said Megans father, Ron Meier, Josh wrote, The world would be a better place without you.
Sobbing, Megan ran into her bedroom closet. Her mother found her there, hanging from a belt. She was 13.DARDENNE PRAIRIE, Mo., Nov. 21 Megan Meier died believing that somewhere in this... more
As more and more young people have access to computers and cell phones, a new risk to teens is beginning to emerge. Electronic aggression, in the form of threatening text messages and the spread of online rumors on social networking sites, is a growing concern. Researchers estimate that between 9 percent and 34 percent of youth are victims of so-called cyber-bullies. And as many as one out of five teens has bullied another youth using digital media, reports a special issue of the Journal of Adolescent Health.
School districts in Florida, South Carolina, Utah and Oregon have responded by creating new policies to deal with digital bullies. New York City is enforcing rules banning communication devices in school buildings, and Washington state recently passed a law requiring that cyber-bullying be part of school district harassment prevention policies.
The schoolyard bully has gone digital.
As more and more young people have access to... more
YouTube and the Beatbullying charity is teaming up to crackdown on online bullying with a YouTube channel aimed at encouraging its users, particularly young people, to denounce online intimidation. It's using celebrity endorsement to draw people to the channel. Do you think it'll have much of an effect on the cyber-meanies?YouTube and the Beatbullying charity is teaming up to crackdown on online bullying... more
Man threatens former school - 14th November 2007: A Sydney man has been arrested and charged with using the internet to menace, harass or offend.
"Anyone who thinks they can hide anonymously behind a computer and make threats of violence is seriously mistaken as NSW Police can, and will, find anyone who breaks the law in cyberspace."Man threatens former school - 14th November 2007: A Sydney man has been arrested and... more
