Cyber Bullying Growing More Malicious, Experts Say

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I am going to non register at topix, and monitor what it is all about. thanx for telling me about it.

slayerwulfe of KY 11:41PM June 04, 2011

What if one or two hours a week thay could learn the effects it has on others.this might help as sometimes the assisant bullys are very very differcult to detect.taking about this in a place where thay are open with each other might help them to see each other as people and not toys thay can dominate.

pauline of 4:34PM June 04, 2011

I know there are a lot of parents out there who are concerned about cyber bullying. Digital drama is real life for teens and tweens. Here is a great web site for parents who are feeling a little helpless because they don't know how to help their kids sort through all this digital drama:
http://www.internetsafety101.org/cyberbullyingsafety.htm

Internet Safety Advocate of VA 11:05AM June 03, 2011

It is definitely a problem and can cost people their lives or reputations. No one has that right and libel is not freedom of speech. I know some of the social media groups like Facebook and Twitter get all the press but there is a site called Topix that is ten times worse. They don't even require registration! Formspring is bad as well.

Todd of ID 9:48AM June 03, 2011

Phoebe Prince was NOT to any significant extent a victim of cyberbullying, in the sense of online posts or pages on the internet, like on social networking websites.
She had a few -- like a half dozen -- critical comments posted in the context of a conversation between a few students who knew each other and were not misrepresenting their identities as they did so.
There were some harassing text messages that went to Phoebe in the weeks before her suicide in January 2010 but while they might reasonably be considered harassment the OVERWHELMING amount of abuse was carried out against her in person, in school, to her face, behind her back, in classes with teachers present, and in graffiti written on walls and chalkboards -- and the school did essentially nothing about it except for one suspension due to an incident directly witnessed by a teacher about a week before her death. There were numerous other incidents of insulting and abusive remarks and statements made about her before and after her death related to her dating relationship with two football players on the high school football team which for the most part weren't responded to in a critical way by teachers and administrators.
The inaction and near willful ignorance of teachers, staff, and administrators may have been unusual, but the degree of harassment due to dating relationships that she experienced isn't all that uncommon -- but discussion of that kind of old-fashioned in-your-face and behind-your-back harassment, even though it is in some cases arguably criminal -- is not being addressed by these anti-"cyberbullying" projects.
What is being addressed awesomely well is the fear of schools of being sued like South Hadly High School was sued by Phoebe's parents. Focusing on cyberbullying and not on relationship issues is a fine way to tell kids who are inclined to bully to "take it outside" the school, but "keep it off the internet." To the extent that antibullying curricula does that, a curricula that costs $5,000 for books and "training" is cheap insurance against numerous likely cases of bullying occurring every year by students on and off campus which puts the school at risk of lawsuits with civil settlements that easily go into the six- to seven-digit range, even if they settle out of court for an undisclosed sum as happened in Phoebe's case.
Anti-cyberbullying curricula may reduce the risk of schools being sued but I don't think it does much at all in the way of advocating the rights of the victims.

concerned student of CT 8:59AM June 03, 2011