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The Rise of Cyber Bullying 803

Posted by simoniker from the the-inevitable-cyber-wedgie dept.
santos_douglas writes "The Detroit Free Press has an article detailing the problems schoolchildren now face in the form of online cyber bullying. As if parents didn't already have enough to worry about! Examples include rumor spreading typically via text messaging, threatening emails, invasive pictures taken with camera phones, and the most extreme - creating entire websites to criticize/threaten/harass another student. The article suggests many tips for combating the problem - chief among them being the establishment of specific school policies. I suppose this is another example of an inevitable downside to the interconnected world. Mandatory Google search for your added reading pleasure."
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The Rise of Cyber Bullying More

The Rise of Cyber Bullying

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  • Oh man... (Score:4, Funny)

    by PurdueGraphicsMan ( 722107 ) * on Monday November 17, 2003 @04:50PM (#7495892) Homepage Journal
    Wow. Man am I glad that I didn't have to worry about this stuff when I was in elementary school. I was a fat kid that got picked on by two scrawny girls I now call the "Joslin Twins". I don't think I could have handled it if they would have setup a website detailing all of my shortcomings and reasons why other people should hate me since I was fat. It's a good thing that they've forgotten about me and they're white trash. They wouldn't even begin to know how to put up a website.

    Does Front Page Express still come free with Windows? I hope not...

    • Nobody that picked on me had the brains to put up a website! In fact, I didn't gain the respect of the jocks until CompSci class when they would ask me to help with their work. Of course, it was all on Commodore PETS (gawd, I feel old...).
      • Yeah, but anybody with a computer and Front Page can put together a website (albiet a bad one).

      • Re:Nobody picked on me (Score:5, Interesting)

        by ebh ( 116526 ) * <ed.horch@org> on Monday November 17, 2003 @05:12PM (#7496158) Journal
        Right. But this sounds more like a girl thing, where bullying is verbal--rumors, character assassination, etc.

        I was a Scrawny Geek(TM), and I got the bejeezus knocked out of me on a regular basis (until I finally learned how to fight). But when I saw what was done to my female counterparts, I was glad all I had to deal with was getting the occasional beatdown. All an asshole jock could hand me was some humiliation and maybe a trip to the hospital.

        The girls got utterly destroyed, in ways no physical harm could match.

        My theory on this is that from middle through high school, boys form a linear hierarchy of individuals. We're constantly moving up and down on it, usually within a fairly narrow range, within which most boys find their small circle of friends. With few exceptions, each boy is on there somewhere.

        Girls form a hierarchy of groups whose position is fairly fixed. The girls within a group are of roughly equal stature, but there might be one or two leaders. A particular girl is either all the way in or all the way out of a particular group, and some are out of all the groups altogether. Very few boys ever have to deal with that level of alienation (and most of the boys I know who were that far off the hierarchy were off by choice).

        Having never been female, though, that's just speculation; feel free to correct me if I'm wrong.

        • Re:Nobody picked on me (Score:4, Interesting)

          by monique ( 10006 ) on Monday November 17, 2003 @05:54PM (#7496622) Journal
          Being female, I took a moment to compare your theory to my high school experiences. The thing is, none of it seemed to apply. My crowd had both male and female members; so did every crowd I can recall. In middle school, I caught some nasty abuse, but in high school, I was unaware of any true bullying. It probably existed, but I wasn't aware of it. There were fights in my high school, but they tended to be between girls fighting over some guy (no, really!).

          Just some random thoughts ...

  • Something to ponder .... (Score:3, Interesting)

    by i_want_you_to_throw_ ( 559379 ) * on Monday November 17, 2003 @04:51PM (#7495896) Journal
    If I decide to start bullying someone on the ACLU message boards [aclu.org] will the ACLU take it down? Wouldn't it violate my speech rights if they do even if it is slander?

    I am not taking a position pro or con on the ACLU but it does seem like an interesting situation.

    Just as an interesting thing to add, the ACLU does have a student rights forum [aclu.org]

    • Re:Something to ponder .... (Score:5, Informative)

      by leerpm ( 570963 ) on Monday November 17, 2003 @04:54PM (#7495935)
      Slander is not a protected form of free speech. You have every right to voice your complaint about someone or some company, but if you start posting lies in a public forum, intending to harm a third-party, then you are opening yourself up to a libel suit.

      Bullying is not protected by the First Amendment.

      • More to that, as I was once a victim (Score:5, Interesting)

        by DJ Rubbie ( 621940 ) on Monday November 17, 2003 @06:08PM (#7496750) Homepage Journal
        I was once bullied too via a website, and that person decided to put that site on Angelfire. I complained to Angelfire via their webform, but they didn't reply quick enough (was not looked into for two days), and so I sent them this email...

        The homepage at "http://angelfire.lycos.com/xxx/xxxxxxxx" has violated the parts of the Terms And Conditions of Lycos Network (URL: "http://www.lycos.com/lycosinc/legal.html").


        Violation includes (but not limited to):
        6. Members Conduct - Prohibited Conduct:
        c. Upload, post, email, otherwise transmit or post links to any
        Content that exploits the images of children under 18 years
        of age, or that discloses personally identifying information
        belonging to children under 18 years of age.
        h. Impersonate any person or entity, including, but not limited
        to, a Lycos Network official, employee, forum leader, guide or
        host, or falsely state or otherwise misrepresent your
        affiliation with a person or entity.

        This homepage impersonated me and exposed information about me (under 18) and IT must be REMOVED IMMEDIATELY, or LEGAL ACTIONS may be taken for not reinforcing the Terms and Condition. When the homepage is removed, please notify this e-mail address at "xxxxxxxxxxxx@hotmail.com"

        I was about 16 then, trying in vain to sound like a lawyer. Anyway those kids posted pictures a blurred out scanned picture of me from the yearbook, and posted some false information about me, and went to an online game I played and spread the link.. slight damage was done, but whatever, after I sent that email the site was gone within 24 hours, and they replied saying that had been taken care of.

        Then again, if those kids knew how to set up a personal server.... DDoS time.
    • Your post is offtopic, really. But since you asked:

      ACLU Message Board Policy [aclu.org]

      Fairly self-explanatory. You're pretty safe to post whatever you want as long as you aren't being a serious asshat.
    • I agree this this sucks for the victim but the solution lies with the parents or law enforcement. It is frankly none of the schools buisness what kids do when they are not there. I've heard too many cases where schools have attempted to play god and punnish students for activities that too place on weekends etc. If a kid does something bad off school hours, this would qualify, then the parents are responisble. A School is there to teach and keep order/disipline while the kid are there. Now if this was
  • some kid had set up a website devoted to hating this teacher, school found out about it and he got excluded. This isn't limited to schools of course, anyone can be the victim of these, but seriously, in real life this would cause you trouble, but on the internet things like this are easily avoided.

  • You're looking at this the wrong way . . . (Score:3, Funny)

    by bedouin ( 248624 ) on Monday November 17, 2003 @04:52PM (#7495918)
    Wouldn't this be a perfect opportunity for the nerds to get even with the bullies?
    • Comment removed based on user account deletion
    • what would be even better would be to use new technologies to document the bullying - then to catalog it all, and sue the fsck out of the bully kids shithead parents for damages (bikes, locker contents, clothes, glasses, etc) and for emotional distress.

      if bullys can use their genetics to beat up on us little guys, we should be able to do the same.

    • Re:You're looking at this the wrong way . . . (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Lord Kano ( 13027 ) on Monday November 17, 2003 @05:09PM (#7496123) Homepage Journal
      Wouldn't this be a perfect opportunity for the nerds to get even with the bullies?

      I did precisely that, by embarrassing them. What could be worse for the "cool guy's" tough image than getting kicked in the throat by the fat nerdy black kid?

      Before you ask, yes I did this. Later that same year, I lifted a kid 2 years older than me off of his feet and blackened his eye with a haymaker right hand.

      We need to start teaching children how to defend themselves. Regardless of school policy, legally you have the right to defend yourself. If bullies are pushing your kid around, if bullies are beating your kid up, give your child the means to defend him/herself. Let your kid know that even if he/she gets in trouble at school for standing up for him/herself, you'll back him/her up.

      Thankfully my mother let me off of the leash, so to speak, that the school tried to keep me on. Beat the bullies senseless two or three times, and guess what, they leave you alone.

      LK
      • Well, that's a nice theory, but in this case the problem was that the girl didn't even know who did it! Does she have to beat the kids up?

        Cyberbullying is another problem entirely. When you see an embarrasing picture of you broadcasted to all emails of your classmates, there is very little you can do to catch the sender, as you don't even know who he is...

        I do believe we need a cyberpolice that would have the right (with an appropriate warrant-like paper) to get IPs of any user in a reasonnable timeframe
    • 1) Bully hurts nerd 2) Nerd makes website insulting bully 3) Bully hurts nerd worse

  • my boss (Score:2, Funny)

    by malus ( 6786 )
    has been bullying me with email for years. "Communicate with the customer or else!", and that type of thing.

  • the persistence of boners (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Sebastopol ( 189276 ) on Monday November 17, 2003 @04:54PM (#7495937) Homepage
    i'm totally at a loss for this one. what could suck more!? every embarassing thing i did in 6th-8th grade now only resides in the distant memory of classmates. i'd probably kill myself if it was part of the internet for ever and ever. (hell, i'm still embarassed by dumbass posts i made to usenet in the 90's!)

    this is a very interesting side-effect of the 'net. i don't know if this can be remedied, but it does imply that children now have accept the possibility of total transparency in their lives. as hard as it is to swallow, maybe this is how the new culture begins...

    i would say i'm glad i'm not her, but this could, in reality, happen to ANYONE. it's just harder to ignore as a child, and it's harder to sue for libel/slander. but still, who to sue?

    gah.

    the transparent society is gonna suck.

    • Re:the persistence of boners (Score:3, Funny)

      by Anonymous Coward
      I was always embarassed when I had a persistent boner at school, too.

    • Re:the persistence of boners (Score:4, Insightful)

      by jd ( 1658 ) <imipak@ y a hoo.com> on Monday November 17, 2003 @05:54PM (#7496623) Homepage Journal
      In "real" terms, it's impossible to remedy. Any kid who is determined enough will always be able to put abusive material on the Internet. Worse, with the simplicity of most tools, these days, that material need not be genuine. Anybody with Paintshop Pro or Photoshop can edit a photograph, for example.


      In practical terms, there are no technical solutions, but there are solutions nonetheless. It is somewhat rare that a kid is abusive for no reason, and the two most common reasons are a disturbed family and being sufficiently different from other kids that it's vital to them to obscure those differences.


      The first problem can be solved, but it requires that the family unit as a whole recognises that it's up shit creek, and needs to make some adjustments. The kid's behaviour, in this specific case, is merely a symptom. You've got to treat the disease, if you want to make a difference.


      The second problem requires more teachers and smaller classes. Improving the ratio of adults to kids will allow for better attention to what is going on and why. It also allows greater understanding of the kids, which would allow for better organization, and therefore less alienation.


      Beyond those two steps, I really don't think anything can be done. Suing won't help, it might even make things worse. (Gives the kid who is sued a bigger audience, for a start.)


      You can't do nothing, but virtually everything that you can do is potentially disasterous. There are no easy answers, even if there are plenty of easy questions.

  • If I see (Score:5, Funny)

    by Timesprout ( 579035 ) on Monday November 17, 2003 @04:54PM (#7495939)
    anyone posting AC here I'm gonna kick your ass, I know who you are and you better have your lunch money with you tomorrow.

  • Gimme your lunch money! (Score:5, Funny)

    by digital_milo ( 212475 ) on Monday November 17, 2003 @04:54PM (#7495945)
    I guess we've found yet another use for micropayments.
  • I got in trouble for bullying when I told a kid I had a trojan on his computer and had more access to it than he did (I was bsing) :)

  • Funny that... (Score:5, Funny)

    by Leebert ( 1694 ) on Monday November 17, 2003 @04:54PM (#7495952)
    My little brother's website (which includes photos and comments sections) was spammed pretty bad by a member of a rival football team.

    My the profanities! I'm thinking of making Apache redirect to goatse.cx the next time someone comes back from the offender's /24.
    • And redirect everyone from that ISP to goatse? Also, if that bully finds the goatse shit, he'll say your little brother is a fag. You can't fight back - unless you actually try to WinNuke everyone from that /24 who visits your site...
  • I know ever since camera phones/pdas came out the first thing that came to my mind is taking a picture of every cute girl that walked by :)

    You could look all professional on your pda and secretly snapping pictures of her butt. Sure it's not ethical, but when technology makes it so easy... :)

  • At least... (Score:2, Insightful)

    by JPelorat ( 5320 )
    They're not getting the shit kicked out of them anymore.

    Being bullied is getting pushed down a flight of stairs, not getting an anonymous text message about how dopey your shoes look. Sheesh.
    • Mod parent up. I got a lot of snide comments and puts downs in elementary and middle school, but I would hardly consider that at the same level as actually getting beat up.

    • Re:At least... (Score:5, Insightful)

      by bhtooefr ( 649901 ) <bhtooefr@bhtooefr. o r g> on Monday November 17, 2003 @05:04PM (#7496069) Homepage Journal
      Sorry, but "sticks and stones can break my bones, but words can never hurt me" doesn't hold true. Verbal abuse is just as bad as physical abuse. BTW, I didn't think SMS was anon - I thought it'd give you the phone number (there are many services that WILL send anon SMS, though - just over the internet)
    • I'm with you. This shit is just over-sensitized, ridalin fed, drama-queen bullshit. These kids need a good old fashioned Burt Reynolds style ass-whooping to understand what bullying is. What happened to writing, "For a good time call 555-1212" on the bathroom walls after finding some asshats phone number somewhere? That was bullying. This isn't bullying.

      "How many guys did you have sex with?" What the fuck? You think that's bullying? I'm sorry, but having that written on the blackboard before your c
    • everyone on slashdot's got a bully story, be it on one side or the other. i'd like to hope that most people would find physical abuse only a shadow of what a good mind game can do, but now i'm wondering how likely that is. as a high schooler, i'd have rather been slugged in the arm a few dozen times rather than have my shoes made fun of. no one's ever suggested where bullying stops and assault begins, though.

      how many of you parents taught your kids how to fight? and how many taught your kids how to blo

      • Re:At least... (Score:3, Informative)

        by LittleGuy ( 267282 )
        how many of you parents taught your kids how to fight? and how many taught your kids how to block, but not fight? and how many of you just dont condone any of that? i wanna know how the 2003 slice rates up.

        I know that, with the advent of zero-tolerance, even 'blocking' is considered fighting and grounds for suspension/expulsion. It's to a point where the victim can be half-dead and in a coma and still the administrator can only wring his/her hands, say that s/he has no leeway, that it's School Policy, and

    • Re:At least... (Score:4, Insightful)

      by McSpew ( 316871 ) on Monday November 17, 2003 @05:09PM (#7496116)

      Actually, it's been shown that psychological pain causes the exact same portion of the brain to react as from physical pain. In other words, your brain can't tell the difference. And let's face it: Physical trauma (up to a point), doesn't leave the lasting emotional pain that psychological trauma can.

      And you can stand up to a bully who's threatening you physically and get him to leave you alone (at least, it worked that way for me when I was in 7th grade). How do you stop anonymous rumors and character assassination?

    • Informative and insightful? You don't think psychological bullying can ruin someone for the rest of their life? I knew a kid (as in, he was in my class and I knew him personally) in my elementary school (grade 7, there's no junior high where I live) who almost committed suicide because of the bullying! But no physical contact, so I guess it wasn't REALLY bullying after all!

      How would you like to feel like the scum of the earth, like you had no reason to live anymore because everyone hated you, because you h

    • Re:At least... (Score:5, Insightful)

      by poot_rootbeer ( 188613 ) on Monday November 17, 2003 @05:11PM (#7496146)
      Being bullied is getting pushed down a flight of stairs, not getting an anonymous text message about how dopey your shoes look. Sheesh.

      No.

      Clearly you weren't one of the kids who got called "Fatty fat fat fatass" every day in junior high school... if you had been, you'd know the kind of lasting damage that words can cause.

      PS Your shoes look dopey.

  • School Policies??? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by goldspider ( 445116 ) on Monday November 17, 2003 @04:57PM (#7495973) Homepage
    "The article suggests many tips for combating the problem - chief among them being the establishment of specific school policies."

    Am I the only one who sees a problem with giving schools control over students' lives beyond campus grounds? Why is it that some people are so quick to abdicate control and responsibility of their children to a government beaurocracy? Are today's parents really that bad? Is the government that eager to monitor/regulate every aspect of our lives?

    It's time for people to stop blaming the school system and making out kids the taxpayers' problem. If your kid is a fuck-up, be a goddamned parent and put them in their place! Stop automatically run crying to the government!

    • "The article suggests many tips for combating the problem - chief among them being the establishment of specific school policies."

      Am I the only one who sees a problem with giving schools control over students' lives beyond campus grounds?

      I was wondering the same thing. My first thought on seeing the above quote was... How does this have anything to do with a school?
    • Actually, if you read the fine print of my high school's computer policy, the rules apply at home too (and they're extremely draconian - no games?!?!? no pr0n, no hacking, educational use only, bla bla bla...)
    • Ok, how? See often the parents of bullies are jerks themselves, or just don't care. Ok, so if they won't discpline their kid what do you do? Beat the crap out of the kid? Well sure, that would probably work, and land you in jail. Or I guess you could call the cops, which would use even MORE of the taxpayers money, tie up the police on piddly shit, not to mention be a little harsh for just childhood bullying.

      Well, that means the only real feasable avenue left is the school. They can punish the kid, even if

    • Re:School Policies??? (Score:2, Insightful)

      by marcop ( 205587 )
      "specific school policies" != "beyond campus grounds". I agree with you that policies that extend beyond campus grounds are overboard and unenforceable. However, I don't have a problem with schools making policies for student conduct on school premises. Read the "extreme" BBC article. Besides the web site, this girl was harrassed on school premises. The school should have a non-tolerant policy for on-school harrassment. Expell the students who conduct in this behavior. By forcing abusive students to

    • Re:School Policies??? (Score:3, Informative)

      by dema ( 103780 )
      Are today's parents really that bad? Is the government that eager to monitor/regulate every aspect of our lives?

      Yes, and yes. I'm not saying I don't agree that it is pathetic, but it is the fact of the matter. All through high school binge drinking (keyword: binge) was a HUGE thing in this lovely little Wisconsin town. And the worse part about all of it was that parents are well aware of this, and in some cases even supply beer to their children. Parents are that bad, and they would be glad to blame

    • If they weren't children... (Score:5, Interesting)

      by Dr. Evil ( 3501 ) on Monday November 17, 2003 @05:55PM (#7496630)

      A couple things to think about in regard to 'children' in schools and 'bullying'.

      Children are

      • Legally required to be in school
      • Unable to access law enforcement for all but the most serious crimes comitted by their peers
      • Subject to the daily realities of theft, slander and assault
      • All but immune to persecution for theft, slander and assault
      • Legally required to face their assailants/theives the next day
      • Legally required to face their victims the next day
      • They have known nothing else

      Worse, it's up to the victim's parents whether or not to act... leaving those with the worst homelives the most vulnerable... either to bullying or being bullied.

      IMHO, if you can legally require the separation of the bully from the victim, you may have really helped one kid.

      I also think the comment in the article that "... while these comments may seem silly to people who have matured, they are very devastating to the young people on the receiving end..." ignores the above reality.

      It's tough to draw analogies to adult life, but what if you were legally required to show up for work? What if somebody spread a similarly scandalous rumour about you at work? Oh... let's see... while kids might think it cool to grab a peer's breasts, the reverse might just work for adults. So, your coworker starts telling people that you grabbed her breasts, and you're making passes at her all the time. So your coworkers begin to shun you. You can't quit... you're legally required to be there. You can't call the police, they won't do anything because this is just a little bit of workplace bullying. Now your boss... who happens to be 150% of your height, twice your strength and twice your weight, might just believe the person spreading the scandal, so it will be your word against theirs.

      Your friends at work no longer want to be seen with you, because anyone can fall victim to such harassment... so you become ostracised... Some even join in to dispel rumours that they too might be perverts. Few people really believe the rumours, but they know you're not a safe person to be around because you... and anyone you're around is a target.

      Seeing that you have no allies, people begin to pick on you, steal your office supplies, scratch your car, slash your tires.

      So you keep going to work, despite all this, because you're legally forced to.

      Now we're getting close except: kids don't get paid, have little control over their homelife and they've never known anything else.

    • Re:School Policies??? (Score:3, Insightful)

      by cpeterso ( 19082 )

      School teachers should spend their time teaching, not babysitting. I think that mandatory school attendance is stupid. If kids don't want to show up at school, then that is their parents fault. Rowdy, misbehaving kids are ruining the education of the kids who WANT to learn. Let the bullies and truants skip school, commit petty crimes, grow up without a high school education, and end up in jail.
  • until bullies beat our kids up for Paypal passwords.

  • Technology changes nothing (Score:3, Interesting)

    by EmbeddedJanitor ( 597831 ) on Monday November 17, 2003 @04:57PM (#7495979)
    Technology only provides a comms tool. What's the difference if kids text eachother or pass notes? Write "Tammy is easy" on the boy's room wall or a web page? If anything the computer based comms makes it easier to trace and clamp down on.
  • This sort of thing is being done by little geeky kids probably right? Ok, great, get some REAL bullies to track them down and beat the snot out of them. That'll teach 'em!

    Seriously though, things like this just prove that in basically any group, you'll have bullies. Even if you take all the geeks and seperate them, bullies will emerge from the geeks.

  • Kids need to deal with it! (Score:5, Interesting)

    by kramer2718 ( 598033 ) on Monday November 17, 2003 @04:59PM (#7496000) Homepage
    In grade/middle school some people resented me because of my grades/intelligence. You know what I did when I got picked on? I picked back. A witty remark will often slow a bully quite well. Sure, this isn't a very civilized situation, but who ever said that kids were civilized?

    At least, there is no physical harm done in cyber-bullying. There's also no reasonable way to stop it. Shall we enact rules for school children that they never say anything that isn't nice on school time or off? Some of the examples amount to slander, and if they get particularly bad, you could bring a suit, but c'mon there are enough lawsuits now without every school child suing every other child for slander.

    I realize that being made fun of isn't very pleasant, but that's something that kids have to deal with. Their parents should help put it in perspective.

    • Clearly.. (Score:4, Insightful)

      by FsG ( 648587 ) on Monday November 17, 2003 @07:23PM (#7497487)
      You were never a victim of the really serious bullying/picking-on - I'm not even talking about the one idiot who won't leave you alone but, say, a group of 5 idiots who do everything possible to humiliate you every day, for several years. You have no idea what that can do to a person, and I can't believe you would have the gall to blame the victim.

      From the perspective of a victim, your comment is the equivalent of blaming the woman for getting raped. Yes, it's that bad.

    • Re:Kids need to deal with it! (Score:4, Insightful)

      by Agent Green ( 231202 ) * on Monday November 17, 2003 @08:14PM (#7497906)
      Interesting points...though none of the physical bullying I endured hurt more than the wounds themselves. I'm more concerned about the emotional scarring which bullying does...and the smaller the school is, the worse the problem can be. You can taunt back, but that does nothing to correct the problem in the first place. Kids can be the most cruel sometimes...and it's tough for a genuinely nice kid who gets picked on to savagely fight back.

      This is going to sound wrong, and probably modded as such, but the more bullies continue to fuck around, the more likely we're going to have another school massacre. Kids do have breaking points just like anyone else...and it seems like a lot of people don't remember that. If it gets bad enough, they'll kill themselves or someone else.

      I disagree that parents can put things in perspective. For example, I was walked out on at a dance when I was 14 in front of most of the school. It was quite the funny event to a lot of the school. Importance now? Zero. Importance then? Catastrophic.

      Taken insults...if done so over a long enough period, a kid can get so closed off that it can cause nearly permanent emotional damage and stunt the development of normal peer relationships. "Suck it up" is an inadequate strategy.

      I have to agree with several other posters on this thread that the school has no jurisdiction as to what happens outside of school property and school hours. Then again, I'm not proposing answers.
      • In fact, "suck it up" is the worst thing a parent or advisor can say to a bullied kid. It tells the kid that he's on his own, with zero parental or adult support, and confirms to him that "adults just don't care".

    • My witty remarks usually got me a swift ass-kicking. I quickly learned to be sullen and withdrawn. I got my ass kicked less. As the years of school abuse went by I became more and more depressed and cared less and less about anything. When I started going to school I got to go to a private school, when I was five I was starting to do multiplication and such, learning a little spanish, learning how to use computers. When I was in high school I spent most of my time just avoiding being made to do things I di

  • soap box miss used. (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Brigadier ( 12956 ) on Monday November 17, 2003 @05:00PM (#7496014)


    At first read I found this laughable but after a bit of thought I see a rekindling of an already occurring problem. Children will always be children, they will always be immature, they will always be impressionable. The problem herein is parents. I have a 10yo, and 11yo. They do not go on the internet without permission and they conduct themselves as we dictate. No chat rooms, no e-mails from anyone we dont already know. The parents of all there friends form a network with us via e-mail and the children are aware of this. They also respect it understanding the inherent dangers of the internet. Using yahoo parental controls anyone sending them e-mails with profanities or pre flagged words gets reported to us. If the account they are using is linked to a parental account reporting it to the parent is easy. So before someone starts blaming the internet look to the Parents.
    • It seems that you belive that by stopping your child from seeing profianities in their typed form is protecting them. As if they don't hear worse at school.

      And I dissagree with your comments, that children should be taught not to talk to unknown people online. I believe that the ability to converse with people they have never met, and most likely will never meet, is one of the most important things your child can be taught.

      Thanks to the Internet, your child can make acquaintances with people from a multit
  • You can block instant messages.

    All my bullies either insulted me behind my back or to my face where they could beat the crap out of me and take my stuff afterwards. Everyone was either out to get me or unwilling to interfere, even the teachers.

  • Mandatory? (Score:4, Funny)

    by Call Me Black Cloud ( 616282 ) on Monday November 17, 2003 @05:00PM (#7496016)
    Since when are Google searches mandatory? Did I miss a memo? Oh wait, I know, I bet in was in that memo with the thing about the TPS report cover sheets. Damn, looks like I'll be working this weekend to retrofit my submissions...

  • Same tune. Different method. Cyber bullying is no different from physical bullying in the sense of how it should be handled. The serious lack of discipline and the whole "My kid would NEVER do that!" attitude shows how poor parenting is a breeding ground for these activities. Last thing a school should do is add MORE policies. But in the end, rules and laws are created to protect us, right? Give me a break.

  • Who is responsable? (Score:4, Insightful)

    by TrippTDF ( 513419 ) <{moc.liamg} {ta} {dnalih}> on Monday November 17, 2003 @05:01PM (#7496026)
    I'm sure I'll get modded Troll for this one but...

    Is it really a school's responsibility to deal with this?? Would a school be held accountable if signs of a derogatory nature were put up around town?

    The school should do something if the site is created on school property, but I don't know if there is anything they should have to do otherwise.

    Still, this sucks. I can't begin to say how glad I am that this was not around when i was in school.

  • Time to educate kids (Score:5, Insightful)

    by vanyel ( 28049 ) * on Monday November 17, 2003 @05:01PM (#7496034) Journal
    For one thing, such e-messages are traceable records; bullying in person is insidious because they're usually careful to make sure that no one actually can prove they did it. Parents and school officials can use these to deal with the bullies promptly.

    On the other hand, kids need to be taught how to deal with stuff like that, and probably the tabloid press is a good place to use as an example: show them how some celebrities take it too seriously and waste a lot of time an energy fighting it, while others make fun of it and ignore it.

    They can also make use of it to find out who their real friends are. People who believe everything they hear without checking at the source aren't much of a friend in the first place.

  • Just remember: (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Xzzy ( 111297 ) <sether@@@tru7h...org> on Monday November 17, 2003 @05:02PM (#7496036) Homepage
    "The article suggests many tips for combating the problem - chief among them being the establishment of specific school policies."

    it's a double edged sword [reviewjournal.com]. I personally do not think the schools have any business moderating events that take place outside of school.

  • ..send threatening texts/emails to Federal officials, put up "i'm going to kill the President" diatribes on their websites, use their computers to h4x0r merchants and steal financial info...come on, this is the *perfect* situation to turn their weapons against them.

  • Jurisdicition problem (Score:4, Interesting)

    by crow ( 16139 ) on Monday November 17, 2003 @05:02PM (#7496047) Homepage Journal
    The idea of schools having policies about what students can do online (from their homes, not from school) is absurd. Sure, schools don't like it, but there's a much more serious problem of schools imposing jurisdiction outside of school. Schools have responsibility for students when they are on school grounds, participating in school functions, or on school-provided transportation. Other than that, the minute a student steps off school grounds, the school should have no jurisdiction over him.

    Granted, if a student posts pictures on a private web site, and those pictures were taken at school in violation of a stated policy, then there could be room for action.

  • Tragic... (Score:3, Informative)

    by Mysticalfruit ( 533341 ) on Monday November 17, 2003 @05:03PM (#7496048) Homepage Journal
    1. I'm sure somewhere a senator/president/judge is figuring out someway to use this to further erode our rights in this country.

    2. Why doesn't the current hate speech laws on the books take care of this sort of thing?

    If some kid puts up a site about how I'm a piece of shit and offers to pay anybody 20 dollars to beat me up, don't I have recourse to go to the police?

    What's considered a hollow threat and what's considered authentic?

    I also stand proudly among the many fellow geeks who were pushed around and told repeatidly that I was going to die either at lunch, in the hall or after school at the hands of [insert random roving band of fucktards].

    That's it, my child is going to he homeschooled. I figure the money I save on bulletproof vests and lunch money, I can put towards social interaction classes ;-)

    • Re:Tragic... (Score:4, Interesting)

      by dheltzel ( 558802 ) on Monday November 17, 2003 @05:52PM (#7496598)
      That's it, my child is going to he homeschooled. I figure the money I save on bulletproof vests and lunch money, I can put towards social interaction classes ;-)

      You got that right. I was so disturbed by the way other kids treated me (and other kids, whenever they weren't harrassing me) that as a teenager I vowed I'd never have kids at all, because I didn't want them to go through what happened to me (or worse, become one of the bullies).
      Then, in college, I was introduced to some families that homeschooled and their kids sure were different than my school peers were. Now I have 3 kids (11 to 16) and they are/were homeschooled until they decided to on their own to change (younger 2 are still being homeschooled). It's a really great option and the people who complain they aren't being "properly socialized" must be the parent of bullies who want more victims for their kids.
      My daughter was 15 when she had her first ride on a public school bus. She was a little disturbed by the misbehavior of some of the other students, but she understood that their parents (and teachers) set different standards for them. She has adjusted much better than I ever did (I was in public school from kindergarten on) and is a model student in both grades and extra curricular activities.

      There is no question that home schooled kids are "sheltered" from the real world. But I think that's a positive. My kids never learned how to cut down their peers with viscious words or physical violence. They assume that being friendly with people will be to their advantage and they act much more grown up than many adults I work with.

      You can write this off as being a "proud father", but I'm very happy my kids were home schooled during the years when it matters most. We geeks understand the pain that can result from "proper socialization" better than most people, and the idea of home schooling is really very logical for us.

  • If a teacher/principal/administrator tries to deal with a cyberbully, s/he will find a knock on their door, courtesy of Ashcroft for the Patriot Act, and/or RIAA/SBA lawyers for violation of the DMCA.

    Tattling is Fun *AND* Patriotic!
  • When did bully's figure out how to work a computer?
  • What ever happened to being stuffed into a locker?
  • ..was horrified to discover an entire site had been created to insult and threaten her.
    Why should this surprise anyone? 20 years ago this would have been '..was horrified to discover an entire bathroom wall had been created to insult and threaten her'.

  • necessity (Score:3, Funny)

    by thoolihan ( 611712 ) on Monday November 17, 2003 @05:05PM (#7496079) Homepage
    Now to invent a cell phone that can give wedgies...

    -t

  • For every problem there is a solution (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Call Me Black Cloud ( 616282 ) on Monday November 17, 2003 @05:07PM (#7496096)
    aka revenge of the nerds. A website where picked-on kid reports the bullying action and the names of the bullies, to include e-mail address, cell phone number, IM nick, address, etc. Sympathic souls would take up the cause to harass the bully in creative ways. I envision it as the slashdot effect for punks...
  • The google search and all... but I want links to sample pages. This has to be far too entertaining to see!

  • I'll show you who the bully is! (Score:5, Funny)

    by orthogonal ( 588627 ) on Monday November 17, 2003 @05:07PM (#7496100) Journal
    The article sux0r5, and so does the author, MIKE WENDLAND!

    MIKE WENDLAND, I've got embarrassing pictures [freep.com] of you [freep.com]!

    And I know where you work [freep.com], MIKE WENDLAND!

    I'll be watching to see if you write any more of your "columns" [freep.com], MIKE WENDLAND!

    Yeah, don't you forget it MIKE WENDLAND. I'll be watching every Monday [freep.com] and Friday [freep.com], and alternate Tuesdays [freep.com] and Thurdays [freep.com].

  • 5 years ago it was a problem too (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Call Me Black Cloud ( 616282 ) on Monday November 17, 2003 @05:19PM (#7496234)
    I can't believe it hasn't been solved by now...that was one whole president ago! Here's the old news [edweek.org].

  • An interesting bias to the replies (Score:5, Insightful)

    by RollingThunder ( 88952 ) on Monday November 17, 2003 @05:22PM (#7496265)
    I find it interesting that a lot of the replies here deal with "how nerds can get back at the cyberbullies".

    Very few, if any, are assuming that the nerds ARE the cyberbullies.

    Bullying is about strength. In the real world, that can be physical or political/social. In the internet, that can be technical prowess. He who hacks better, bullies better.

  • Cyber bullying on Slashdot (Score:5, Insightful)

    by MsGeek ( 162936 ) on Monday November 17, 2003 @05:30PM (#7496356) Homepage Journal
    Ironic that this would show up here on Slashdot because this kind of shit happens here all the time. Note: the vast majority of people here don't abuse this site...I have a small minority of abusers in mind as I write this.

    Let's face it, guys, cyberbullying happens here all the time...a few twits calling each other queer, indulging in the cyber equivalent of towel-snapping in the locker room, modding people down as "flamebait," "troll," and "overrated" just because you don't agree with them or they rub you the wrong way...the irony is so thick it's not even funny.

    MsGeek.Org closed down because of a group of cyberbullies and their extended attack on the site. Many of the people responsible still post here, and often. The crapflooders never have, and never will, provide anything of value on this site...they just shovel out the same crap, the same disgusting gay porn and disguised links to goatse and tubgirl. Someone needs to hit the entire lot of the crapflooders over their collective heads with a clue by four...it stopped being "cute" or "funny" years ago.

    I kicked the WIPO Troll off my site and got his account pulled because he posted hardcore gay porn pics to my board using an IE exploit. He came by it rightly. I specifically started MsGeek.Org to give women in technology a "clean, well-lighted" environment to post on a Slashdot-like forum. The crapflooders ruined that, up to and including running exploits against the board software itself. The security issues got to be so much for the good people at Hosting Matters that we mutually decided it wasn't worth it.

    I wish that Taco and Hemos and the rest of the founders here had the cojones to pull the accounts of those who have made posting here uncomfortable for many people. I have no problems dealing with it...I'm a 10-year Usenet veteran with the virtual purple hearts to prove it. But I have gotten emails from women who don't read Slashdot because the crap posts are so disturbing to them.

    Anyway, this is why I continue to have comments turned off on my journal. I wanted one place where I couldn't be shouted down by a small minority of obnoxious idiots, and I have it. I am sorry that the stupid yahoo.com address always gets filled up with spam and people can't get email to me there. I intend to find another webmail account with a bit more space so you have some way of contacting me. I might even break down and pay Yahoo for a bigger mailbox. Whatever.

    I was going to post this anonymously, but screw it...do your worst. Mod it down to Kingdom Come. I don't care anymore. Karma is worthless at this point anyway...I posted for awhile under an identity I used when posting from work, and it took me a grand total of 2 months to go from newbie to the 50 point cap. W00t. That account could have been used to troll like a mofo...instead, I retired it, Blade Runner stylee. I don't even remember the password on the account anymore, fuck it.

    I'll chime in every now and again, but right now the main reason I use this site is to blog. My /. journal almost like still having MsGeek.Org, the only diff is that someone else has to worry about security issues and assholes. It's too bad... /. used to be fun a few years ago.

  • I smell a new hit reality show!!BULLIES! (Score:3, Insightful)

    by t0qer ( 230538 ) on Monday November 17, 2003 @05:42PM (#7496482) Homepage Journal
    I think the producers of cheaters should start a new show.

    BULLIES!!

    Parents who have a kid that's being bullied can call up the shows producers. The producer then sends a private investigator with a video camera (and maybe a couple gorilla's in case things go bad) to follow the victum around school and after school with hidden video camera's.

    Bully gets caught on tape. Shows producers go to bully's parents and say "Let us use this tape or we give it to the victums parents to SUE YOUR ASS FOR AGGRAVATED ASSAULT!! Bullies parent gladly signs away the rights to avoid civil and possible criminal court time. Bully get's publically humiliated on national TV.

    Nothing takes a bully down quicker than public humiliation.

  • Your fundemental right to safety and dignity. (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Bowie J. Poag ( 16898 ) on Monday November 17, 2003 @06:06PM (#7496730) Homepage


    Just as I would imagine was the _alot_ of guys here, I too got picked on when I was in Junior High. For years..Got randomly spit on, punched, kicked, you name it..by a group of about 3 or 4 of em, all older than me. It was a real blast, lemmie tell ya.

    Then one day, I decided I about had enough, picked up a desk, and sent it crashing straight down ontop of one of them. Crushed his larynx. He couldn't talk for months, and even when he regained his speech, he sounded like Popeye. Karma works in mysterious ways.

    Anyway, back to the story. I got taken by no less than three teachers down to the Principal's office, where I was given a "5 day out-of-school suspension".. One notch below formal expulsion back in those days. Interestingly, my folks backed me up, and essentially told the school to fuck off, since I had no prior record of doing anything even remotely like that, the school knew this kid was a bully, and never bothered to do anything about him. Bottom line, I was back in school within a day...And even more interestingly, I never had a problem with any of the other bullies after that. Didn't hear a single peep.

    Thats not to say I advocate violence. I don't. But if you're dealing with what amounts to a juvenille sociopath who's parents can't control him, and a school who won't protect your kid, then that's what you have to do.

    I really, really don't understand how we, as a culture, arrived at the idea that we should expect our kids to "just ignore them", or "talk it out" with a bully. That has never, and will never solve anything. At the end of the day, you have a God-given right to defend yourself and your dignity. End of story.

    I'm going to be a father myself, pretty soon..And if theres anything i'd want my kid to learn from my experience, it would be that if ever gets bullied, and decides to beat the snot out of some kid to reclaim a portion of his dignity, Mom & Dad will back him up on it. Ultimately, he has to learn how to handle confrontations in life. Somewhere along the line, they're going to have to learn what "nobody walks all over you without your permission" means.

    It just seems my whole generation was brought up to think that "ball your fist up and teach the asshole a lesson" isn't an option.

    Cheers,

  • Come on. I read through the whole article and didn't see a single thing that didn't happen when I went to school, pre-Internet. Or, for that matter, I didn't read anything that I didn't hear from my parents' stories about when they went to school.

    The article spent four fifths of its copy trying to make out that teasing and gossip-spreading were something novel and Internet-age. Yeah, sure. Before text-messages, kids just had no way of insulting or passing information to each other. Certainly, no schoolgirl has ever been teased about her clothes, or boy about his sexuality, before the age of the Dark, Nasty Internet.

    Children are vicious. They learn the need to establish a social hierarchy long before they learn empathy. Paul Graham covers this phenomenon quite effectively in one of his essays [paulgraham.com].

    Sure, the "instant-on" thing is new, but really, kids will do exactly what adults do when they want to get away from unwanted IMs: go invisible, or register a second screen-name that only their friends know.

    I'm not saying it's not a problem, but it's not a new problem. I abhor lazy journalism that finds sensationalism in dressing up something as old as time (pornography, bullying, copying music) in Internet clothes, just because it's easier to scare people that way.

    Charles Miller

  • Violence and growing up (Score:3, Insightful)

    by dkhoo ( 618628 ) on Tuesday November 18, 2003 @12:08AM (#7499443)
    One of the most important parts of growing up is learning how to deal with violence. In particular, learning when to use violence, and when not to use violence. Learning when and how to escalate or deescalate a violent encounter. Violence is a part of society and of human existence. It is inescapable. As long as we have fists and teeth there will be bullying, robbery, rape and war, and the need to defend oneself from these. Violence is neither right nor wrong in and of itself. It is a merely a tool.

    For example, if a thief snatched a purse from an old woman and three guys jumped the thief and beat him up, they would be heroes and their action would be morally right. If three guys jump a random guy on the street and thrash him, they would be criminals and morally wrong. If you are threatened with a gun and you shoot back with your own gun, your use of violence would be justified. If someone called you names and you shot him, you would be wrong.

    A child needs to learn these things and more. If he is male in many societies, he will be expected to be the defender of his family and his nation. He may have to mercilessly kill and maim as a soldier if his nation is under attack, the ultimate shame and the ultimate honor. He must come to terms with that.

    How a child responds to bullying and whether or not he bullies others is part of the process of learning about violence. It will determine whether he eventually becomes a felon, a bully, a coward, a doormat, or simply a well-adjusted member of society. I feel that many children aren't learning the right lessons. The whole topic has somehow become taboo in public discourse, like sex education was in the past.

    If a child is forbidden to fight back, even after all reasonable peaceful methods of resolving the issue have been exhausted, then he will learn to be walked on. He will never learn when and how much violence is right or wrong and develop a healthy spectrum of responses to violence. These are the people who will silently be bullied one day, then kill everyone with SMGs the next, since they know of nothing between total submission and total war. Conversely, if a child is allowed to bully others, or to escalate to violence before peaceful means are exhausted, then he is on his way to jail if nothing is done.

    There is some happy medium between psychopath and pacifist, between bully and victim. It is enshrined in a society's laws and culture, and transmitted through media and family. A child needs to discover it. He needs to learn how to respond to an insult, a malicious rumor, a threat, a punch, a gun and a war. It's just part of growing up.

    Never start a fight, but always end one. Violence must be avoided as far as possible, but no further. Violence is always wrong, but sometimes it is also right.

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