Facebook Comment Prompts Arrests In Cyberbullying Suicide Case

An anonymous reader writes "The NY Times reports on the arrests of two girls, ages 12 and 14, who allegedly harassed another 12-year-old girl who committed suicide. The girls are facing third-degree felony charges, and the police involvement was spurred by a comment on Facebook by the older of the two. 'In Internet shorthand it began "Yes, ik" — I know — "I bullied Rebecca nd she killed herself." The writer concluded that she didn't care, using an obscenity to make the point and a heart as a perverse flourish. Five weeks ago, Rebecca Ann Sedwick, a seventh grader in Lakeland in central Florida, jumped to her death from an abandoned cement factory silo after enduring a year, on and off, of face-to-face and online bullying. ... Brimming with outrage and incredulity, the sheriff said in a news conference on Tuesday that he was stunned by the older girl's Saturday Facebook posting. But he reserved his harshest words for the girl's parents for failing to monitor her behavior, after she had been questioned by the police, and for allowing her to keep her cellphone.'"

This

[barlevg]

But he reserved his harshest words for the girl's parents for failing to monitor her behavior

Children are sociopaths until they learn better / their frontal lobes finish developing. It's the parents who are at fault here.

Why all this governmental intrusion?

[Anonymous Coward]

This is slashdot - we believe in libertarian ideals. This is the government prying into our personal lives and harassing these girls over words they posted in their private facebook accounts.
Right?
Right?!?

Or does that expectation of privacy only apply to your porn collection or your deep seated desire to make it onto one of the prepper TV shows?

Re:This

[ClassicASP]

I agree with the frontal lobe thing. I remember being bullied in Junior High. Some of my worst years in life were spent there. I don't like going back there because it brings back bad memories. I feel bad for kids going through the same thing because I'm sure technology has made the experience much worse today than it was back in my day. The truth is that kids have their own little privately-run societies in school (on a social plane) that the adults are quite powerless to have any real control over. And by granting them access to the internet, they wield a weapon that can be used to cause great harm to one another on that plane. Perhaps the internet should be regulated like Alcohol and Tobacco, where access is permitted only once a certain age of maturity has been reached. Not that I condone smoking or claim that setting an age limit has prevented drunk driving, but think of where we would be today had we legalized those kinds of things for minors. We've let them use the internet, and this "bullying" epidemic is what it has led up to. Perhaps change is in order and this is one of those lessons that should go in the history textbooks.

Re:This

[Dogtanian]

The news report states...

In Internet shorthand it began “Yes, ik” — I know — “I bullied Rebecca nd she killed herself.” The writer concluded that she didn’t care, using an obscenity to make the point and a heart as a perverse flourish.

...suggesting a blatantly sociopathic personality and the likelihood that it was far more than just "teasing" in the first place.

The "coping skills" you advocate would- in this case- consist of figuring out a way of ruining the evil bitch's life.

Re:Editors, please.

[Anonymous Coward]

[0] Yes, from the perspective of the police, "cyber-bullying" is considered Aggravated Stalking (this is the charge).
[1] Aggravated Stalking is a Forcible Felony in Florida.
  - Florida is a Stand Your Ground state.
[3] Stand Your Ground states that you may use deadly force if you believe it will prevent someone from committing a Forcible Felony.

Have A Nice Day.

[0] http://www.flsenate.gov/laws/statutes/2013/784.048 section (1)(d)
[1] http://www.flsenate.gov/laws/statutes/2013/776.08
[2] http://www.flsenate.gov/laws/statutes/2013/776.012

And what is up with the captchas? Captcha: gunshot

Re:This

[msauve]

Or instead, maybe simply expect parents to be responsible parents, instead of dual-income welfare providers.

Re: This

[goose-incarnated]

Kill yourself. Drink some bleach and die. Now. Do it now. Now. Now. Now. Uh. Did I just commit a felony?

It's interesting that in this age of near-universal anonymity that people take pride in being arseholes. Do you take similar pride in being stupid? Do you proudly walk around saying "Hey, if I'm unable to perform simple arithmetic that's your fault"? Hmm? But here you (and others) are, proudly going around saying "I'm unable to fit into society and live by its rules, and anyone who faces the fallout... well, it's their fault for being thin-skinned and not my fault for being stupid..

Re:Yeah, right ...

[nblender]

I have put lots of effort into monitoring my son's internet usage... I started with a socks5 proxy and a crowdsourced whitelist/blacklist.. He figured out how to bypass proxy settings. I've tried legislation... I've even set up my cisco switch to duplicate packets from his network port (and the wifi basestation) to a packet capture host filtering on his traffic... By the time he was 10 years old; he had learned how to disable dhcp and give himself a static address. He'd learned how to disable the proxy. He'd broken in to the neighbors wifi access point to bypass my network completely. He's not trying to do anything nefarious (that I know of); he's just a problem solver... If the firewall is a problem, he'll solve it. He's 12 now. If we take away his computers, ipad, ipod, cellphone, etc... He finds them in the middle of the night... We've reverted to education about the dangers and pitfalls. Ultimately, it's better to teach your child to make smart choices than to micromanage and microlegislate them... I'm not saying my son is smarter than I am, I'm saying he will find a way to get around whatever obstacles I put up... Every child is unique. I have friends with kids who happily stay within the constraints of 'parental controls' settings. My son got past those when he was 8.

Re:This

[sumdumass]

Yes, the cop who was called to stop her from harming herself shot and killed her because she had a knife. A lot of people were pissed over that. Some of the cops were even outraged as they had dealt with her before and knew she wasn't a threat to anyone but herself. She had mental issues and had done the attemped suicide thing a couple times before.

Re:And I blame my parents

[nospam007]

"Yes, lets rant about how prissy the 12 year old girl was for taking her own life. Because we all know 12 year olds (girl or boy) are capable of handling things like an adult should, in your perfect world."

I thought 12 year olds weren't allowed on FB, I'd sue FB, they have more money.

Re:And I blame my parents

[cusco]

The thing is, bullying is NOT unacceptable for a certain subset of parents. I remember the father of one kid giving his little monster advice on how to beat up my friend, while forcibly holding me back from interfering. Parents of popular and/or rich kids frequently ignored mistreatment of the kids of their 'social inferiors', all the way through high school. I doubt things have changed that much for the better since then.

Re:And I blame my parents

[stdarg]

1. It's a cowards way out that rewards the tormentors

I was just thinking about that. With it being more and more common to "bust" bullies and actually send them to jail, that dynamic might change. Committing suicide may become a true act of revenge against the bully, which will of course encourage people to commit suicide.