Cyberbullying/cyberstalking - an ongoing issue (perpetual thread)

[*CountessA*]

Two US girls, aged 11 and 12, have been charged with cyberstalking after allegedly posting sexually explicit photos onto a classmate's Facebook page.

The two girls are accused of hacking into 12-year-old Leslie Cote's account and sending messages to boys at school to organise sex acts under her name, the Seattle Times reported.

Doctored images of Leslie were also posted onto her Facebook page, one giving her "devil's horns" and another captioned "I'm a slattern".

The girls allegedly gained access to Leslie's account when her login information was saved on one of their computers.

Leslie said she was "hurt, sad, and very angry" by the cyberbullying.

"I just couldn't control it and then I didn't get any sleep," she told TV station KOMO.

"Some people looked at me differently, and then judged me differently now because of what happened."

The bullying allegedly began after a falling out at their school in Issaquah, east of Seattle, in Washington state.

The two girls could face up to 30 days in juvenile detention after being charged with cyberstalking and first-degree computer trespassing.

Leslie has been granted a restraining order preventing the girls from contacting her, despite the fact they share some of the same classes.

http://news.ninemsn.com.au/technology/8242164/girls-11-and-12-charged-with-cyberstalking

[tellomon]

Uh-huh.
*snipe*

C):-{=  <" its not getting any easier, but we sure have lots of dance tunes...  "<<

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VN8hV4AyNss

[tellomon]

What's with that title piece: "perpetual thread" jazz?

Is that a Hit Counter challenge?

Pffttt. Good luck with that!

You have already been cyber-PWN3D.

word

What's the topic???

                   

[tellomon]

My BEST
recommendation,
until further
notice...

[callostemma]

Very mild punishment compared to the malicious intent and character assasination practised by these girls

[tellomon]

C):-{=  <" give them a daypass to visit uncle ronnie. they will see pranks!  "<<

[tellomon]

I'm gonna....




SPANK
THOSE
BRATS!!

  I'm Richard Nixon!

[lacey]

Kids these days seem a lot more spiteful than when i was at school.  Dunno whats wrong with them but prolly the food.

[*CountessA*]

I was talking about this issue with a friend who's a school counsellor. She believes we're not really seeing more nastiness and bullying, but rather, the bullying has in its nature changed to become more ever-present (and hence more prominent and unavoidable and upsetting).

I can see her point. When the bullying is cyberbullying/cyberstalking, you can't avoid it unless you avoid all of the social networking sites (Facebook, Twitter, etc.); you can't open your emails if someone's bullying you by email (anonymous disposable email addresses); everyone can see you being harassed and bullied, and because bullying has a pernicious social aspect to it, that can draw other people into the bad online behaviour and join in with the bullying.

For school kids, it's a serious problem.

[*CountessA*]

By Gordon Deal

I don’t like admitting this, but I’m a little scared.

Yesterday was the annual Take Our Sons and Daughters to Work event at our Dow Jones campus. My son had a great time. I left with a knot in my stomach after one of the presentations.

The programs were well planned by our organizers. There was a “Sensory Exploration” workshop, where the kids created a couple of things that were part science, part arts and crafts.

The tour of the gym involved some exercises, like walking lunges and mountain climbers, broken up by questions and explanations about nutrition and fitness.

The “Solar Jeopardy” presentation provided great detail about the massive solar project we recently completed at our big campus in South Brunswick, NJ, which generates 4.1 megawatts of power.

In the “It’s Not All About Me” workshop, kids were encouraged to identify ways they could improve their communities and neighborhoods.

But it was the presentation about cyber-bullying where things turned. A couple of stats were alarming: 90% of middle school students say their feelings had been hurt online, according to a recent study. And 75 percent of middle school kids have visited a web site bashing another student.

As if this weren’t unsettling enough, several 4th graders in this workshop (which included my son) offered stories of “my father’s friend’s daughter” or somebody they knew committing suicide because of cyber-bullying through email or Facebook.

I asked the presenter of the workshop the age for which it’s appropriate for kids to have a Facebook page, since he’s the head of cyber security at Dow Jones. He said his 14-year-old son is not allowed to have one; but he’s given the green light to his 17-year-old daughter.

A friend of mine recently complained to local police about her daughter being harassed online. The sergeant on duty asked if the daughter, a 14-year-old freshman in high school, had a Facebook page. My friend responded that her daughter did have a Facebook profile. The sergeant asked, “Would you take her to a bar?” His point was that she belonged on Facebook as much as she belonged in a bar…at the age of 14.

This brings me to my fear. As social media advances at a pace I struggle to keep up with, will I be prepared when my kids dive headlong into Facebook?

What if I don’t stay current, and can’t ask the right questions about what my kids are doing? What if I wind up monitoring every key stroke to such an extent that my kids revolt by completely shutting me out?

I’ll leave you with this, from what we all learned yesterday:

The 8 Ways to Cyber Bully: flaming (sending the initial mean-spirited email), harassment, disparage, impersonation, outing (revealing somebody else’s private information), trickery, exclusion (from say, a chat room), and cyber-stalking (an email saying for example, “I saw you walk in to the coffee shop five minutes ago.”)

At the very least, I hope that little fear I currently have is healthy to the point where it reminds me to try to make sure my kids make responsible decisions when it comes to online communications.

http://blogs.wsj.com/wsjam/2011/04/29/lessons-on-cyber-bullying/?mod=google_news_blog

[*CountessA*]

Monitoring cyber bullies

Rebekah Polley | 29th April 2011

“YOU are not official friends until you are Facebook friends” is a commonly used phrase, but social networking sites are increasingly becoming more than just a networking site.

Schools and police are encouraging parents to closely monitor the social behaviours of their children with cyber bullying raising its ugly head in town recently.

“YOU are not official friends until you are Facebook friends” is a commonly used phrase, but social networking sites are increasingly becoming more than just a networking site.

Instead, they are being used as a platform for bullying.

St Patrick’s principal Max Martin recently wrote about the issue of cyber bullying in the school’s newsletter.

He wrote that cyber bullying had “risen its ugly head” at the school and although it was occurring out of school time, it still affected what was happening at school.

Mr Martin explained there were two kinds of cyber bullying: direct attacks through messages sent directly and by proxy, and using others to help cyber bullying the victim either with or without the accomplice’s knowledge.

“All ages should be taught about respect for others and to communicate in an appropriate way,” Mr Martin said.

“This isn’t just about cyber bullying, it is about how kids and people interact with each other whether on the internet or in the tuckshop line.

“Like most schools, we educate about appropriate behaviours. Ultimately, actual issues that occur fall outside of school hours are the responsibility of parents to monitor.

“Young people need to be supported and taught how to use it appropriately as it will ‘not go away’ as a communication tool so we need to teach how to use it.

“We can teach appropriate ways of using Facebook etcetera but ultimately, since it is a communication tool only able to be used at home, parents have the responsibility of monitoring.”

Emerald Senior Constable Kellie Silvester backed up Mr Martin’s comments and said although it was hard to monitor kids’ social networking, parents needed to be more involved as cyber bullying wasn’t acceptable.

Snr Const Silvester has been raising awareness at Marist College of the criminal offences involved in misusing social networking sites.

She gave a powerpoint presentation to all students and concentrated on appropriate use of modern technology and general forms of communication and what the consequences were when used inappropriately.

She said she was also able to clarify and answer questions the students had.

“It raised so many questions, particularly in relation to sexual act offences, which were clarified,” she said.

“Main one being it is illegal to have any type of sexual activity under the age of 16, even if both parties are consensual.

“We are trying to promote and look after their future. By future we mean having a criminal record that may effect life in many ways ...(in terms of a) future job, licence, travel and social status.”

http://www.cqnews.com.au/story/2011/04/29/monitoring-cyber-bullies-social-issue/

[*Brum6y*]

Facebook, et al are, in my opinion huge risks.  Simple as that.

I agree with this:

A friend of mine recently complained to local police about her daughter being harassed online. The sergeant on duty asked if the daughter, a 14-year-old freshman in high school, had a Facebook page. My friend responded that her daughter did have a Facebook profile. The sergeant asked, “Would you take her to a bar?” His point was that she belonged on Facebook as much as she belonged in a bar…at the age of 14.

... at least at a bar, you can physically see who you are talking to.


Fortunately, my kids had grown up enough when Facebook came to be for me to not have to worry .. too much.


Aside from cyber-bullying, there are other risks.  Basic home security being one of them.  A friend of mine went off on holidays with his family.  His son kept his Facebook account updated with where they were, what they did and what a great time they were having.  When dad found out, he was not happy - everybody who knew the boy knew where he lived and he was broadcasting the vacant house!  When granddad (who was not on the holiday) found out, he fairly freaked out and made several passes by the house each day as a security check.


Naivety in any 'social networking' environment is dangerous.


Very dangerous.


.... yet kids "know it all" - don't they?

[*CountessA*]

http://news.ninemsn.com.au/world/8302080/heartless-internet-troll-sentenced-to-jail

An English internet troll is headed to jail for targeting the grieving families of dead teenagers on Facebook.

Sean Duffy, 25, not only posted highly insensitive and offensive comments on victims' Facebook memorials but set up his own irreverent memorial pages and created Youtube videos to mock the deceased and their families, the Herald Sun reports.

One of the teens singled out for abuse was Natasha Mcbryde, 15, who killed herself in February by throwing herself under a train after being bullied at school.

Duffy anonymously posted a video on Youtube titled "Tasha the Tank Engine" which Mcbryde's family said left them feeling "shocked, outraged and physically sick."

He pleaded guilty to two offences under the Malicious Communications Act in relation to Natasha at the Reading Magistrate's Court, yesterday.

Duffy, who is unemployed and suffers Aspergers syndrome, also asked the court to take other instances of his Facebook trolling into consideration.

The prosecution stated Duffy's attacks began after the death of 16-year-old Hayley Bates, who died in a car crash in September 2010.

Duddy also created a Facebook memorial for Lauren Drew, 14, who died after suffering an epileptic fit.

He posted images called "Lauren's epifit" and "Lauren's rotting body" and on Mother's Day posted a message saying "help me mummy, it's hot in hell".

Lauren's mother, Carole Gelder, told the UK's Channel 4: "We've lost our daughter and that was really hard and this was just a whole new thing we have to go through again."

Duffy's final target was 14-year-old Jordan Copper who was stabbed to death. Duffy created a Facebook memorial page called "Jordan Cooper in pieces".

Duffy has been sentenced to a jail term of 18 weeks and has been banned from using social networking sites for five years.