Sticks and stones will break your bones, but words will never hurt you... Wrong! Mean words do hurt you. They can cause emotional devastation and drive some to suicide or murder. In some ways, mean words contributed to the death last year of a sweet and troubled 13-year-old, Megan Meier. It all revolved around the scandal of a parent who lived in Megan’s neighborhood posing as a cute teen boy named Josh on MySpace. The parent wanted to trick Megan into trusting him and sharing confidences. Megan committed suicide after "Josh" turned on her, calling her names and attacking her reputation.
Megan is not the first teen to take her own life following online harassment and torment. It is becoming a disturbing trend and a growing risk. Neither is she the first to be targeted by an adult online. Sometimes adults target kids to get back at their parents. And, notwithstanding the lack of familiarity with the law in this area, existing laws punish people who pose as someone else, use the Internet to target a young teen for exploitation, or anonymously communicate online with someone to harass them.
There have been many similar cases (although without the adult harasser component) over the last few years. One form of harassment that’s on the rise is cyberbullying -- when one young person is targeted by one or more other young persons using interactive technologies. The most common cyberbullying platform in recent years takes place on Web 2.0 networks, like MySpace and YouTube Inc. Cyberbullies use these sites to post real or made-up information designed to embarrass their target and to get others on board. In some cases, online surveys are created to vote for the ugliest, fattest, most unpopular kids in school, post mean comments about them, and display pictures intended to humiliate them.
I speak with about 10,000 students every month, most between the ages of 8 and 16. At each presentation, I poll them about cyberbullying. I don’t ask them if they were “cyberbullied” since each person defines it differently. Instead, I list the kind of things that constitute “cyberbullying.” (You can learn more about this at StopCyberbullying.org.)
Over the last two years, I have polled about 45,000 students between the ages of 10 and 14 on this issue and have never gotten fewer than 85 percent of the students at a presentation or more than 97 percent to admit that they had been the target of cyberbullying at least once over the past year. Yet, less than 5 percent of the students report that they would tell their parents about it. The leading reasons for not saying anything are fear that their parents will make the situation worse by calling the other parents or school, over-reacting, blaming their kids, or taking away their computers.
What’s the answer? When the harasser is an adult, you need to get legal help. Criminal charges need to be pressed and lawsuits filed. (Cyberbullying is minor to minor. When an adult is involved, it's cyberharassment.) When the harasser is a minor, education can help. Our StopCyberbullying.org program can be used by schools and parents to educate kids about the consequences of cyberbullying and how to avoid it.
But, the most important thing parents can do to prevent tragedies (aside from holding the harassers accountable) is to communicate their concerns with kids in a supportive way. Parents should put aside the lectures, the incriminations, and the desire to take on the bully. Be a comfort, not an avenger.
Some cyberbullying is very dangerous and has offline physical risks. Some pass quickly when kids have a falling out and access to each other’s passwords and secrets. Police need to get involved if there is any question about offline threats. StopCyberbullying.org provides first responder kits for law enforcement, as well as a checklist for parents on ways to tell the difference between children being rude and dangerous activities. As one young teen confided, “Cyberbullying is worse than offline bullying. You never know if it’s your worst enemy or your best friend. You never know whom to trust.”
Cyberbullying hurts. Take it seriously!
— Parry Aftab, Cyberlawyer, privacy and security expert, and Executive Director, WiredSafety.org, the world’s largest and oldest cybersafety and help group
It's hard ot determine whether something is rude or harassment. The line isn't as clear as it is offline, when someone walks away with a black-eye.
Netiquette should be promoted with kids and adults need to remember that there are people on the other side of a post.
Sometimes we do mean things because we can. It's that simple.
Networks need to decide whether they will police their networks better or leave them open to self-help. Many build them without thinking and without risk-management. It's the nature of the industry to build traffic and ignore the outrageous if it promoted eyeballs and more usage.
That may work in the very short term, but not once they become mainstream.
I am contacted daily from sites and networks that want to do it right. They want to know how. I spend a great deal of time teaching them. But few want to be cybercops, even on their own networks. That's one of the reasons we are building WiredTrust, to do it for them.
I had a law firm office in Moscow for years. There are cyberharassment laws there that could apply, but it is unlikely that anyone would prosecute under them. :-(
This helps support the fact that this happens worldwide.
thanks for sharing this. Your help would be appreciated in building awareness in Russia. My Russian is "ochen hooliganka." :-)
thank you for your words and support. I feel like I've heard about the case you're talking about, or maybe that was one of the kind. It reminds me a lot of my own case, but it happened in Russia, unfortunately we haven't any federal laws concerning that so far. It's great that there's one in the States. Your article and response inspire me to pay attention to the problem of cyberbulling and cyberharassment in my country, hopefully it might help the other victims to overcome that.
I read your article with keen interest and I've noticed that there is a lot of cyberbullying going on the Net. I myself have fallen victim to this type of bullying in a few forums. Sometimes it's so subtle that the "bully" uses writing techniques that don't resort to mere insults but rather to ridiculing ones ideas. It's sad how things get sometimes when there is no respect.
Thanks for sharing this. While most people focus on the harassment of kids online by other kids (cyberbullying), few understand how frightening it can be to be stalked online by someone with too much time on their hands and a vindictive intent.
We help thousands of victims every month on this issue. The vast majority are adults. I know someone who had been harassed by a former co-worker who made up hateful things about her and sent them to everyone on her board of directors and clients with an intent to discredit her and get her fired.
Even when this was proven to be from this person, it leaves slime behind it. This person ended up leaving her job in disgust.
Many of us who are well-known online face hate and threats online. The best thing to do, initiially, is to ignore them. And response, even threats, tends to fuel their fire. They want to get to you and your responding shows that they succeeded.
The new federal law can help. I am not aware of any prosecutions under this law yet, but suspect it's more becasue no one knows about it, rather than lack of caring.
But local police tend to react the way the police officer did in your case...sticks and stones may break your bones but words will never hurt you.
I am sorry you had to face this. It sounds like it has stopped. But it is scary and dangerous.
that is the good point, but even if taught 'not to take things people blog/e-mail/chat o hart" - it's no easy even for an adult. I know that from my own experience, and I remember how hurt and confused I was being an object of cyberharassment. Just couldn't understand why people I even don't know (?) would say such things and treat me that way...So, for a child I guess it might be even more difficult. My point is that the cases both of cyberbullying and cyberharassment should be thoroughly investigated and the offenders should be punished..
I felt like responding to your post, as I totally agree with you on the point that more and more people are isolating themselves from direct communicatons and prefer to live their on-line lives with teir on-line friends and communites..It's threatening, but I prefer to be optimistic about that. Once I also found myself spending almost all my time with my laptop, chatting, communicating, facebooking. As well as I also found myself getting more nervous, having sleep disorders and puttng on weight! I couldn't possbly get along with the last point, and changed my daily routine trying to spend more time with my "live" friends on the open air etc. Hopefully that is the circle every "thinking" adult go through, unfortunately it's more problematic with teens, as not all of them are so health-conscious as we are. I mean adults. And I'll be happy if I'm mistaken about that!
It's important to not that cyberbullying doesn't just affect children. Although when adults do it we have fancy names for it like harassment.
I recently fell viction to aggravated harassment that took place over email. A former co-worker who never worked for me decided that 7 years after he got laid of for stealing he should get even with me. He emailed me off an on for about a year. Every time he emailed me I responded and told him that I had called the police. And I did call the police.
After asking them for 8 months to do something about it and them saying that he hadn't broken the law, which boggled my mind because I know there are laws against harassment. Finally, the guy slipped up and said he was going to get even with me. I still don't know what he was getting even with me for, but that was enough for the police.
But the, surprise, surprise! The detective sat me down and explained how she would be happy to help, "but there are more important things going on here." After several weeks of hearing nothing from her, she called me and said that the DA refused to press charges because this isn't viewed as a credible threat to my safety.
My point is not to attact attention to my case and the ineffective policing, but rather to make the point that cyberbulling occurs. It doesn't effect children exclusively. It is getting more and more common.
And our legal system has no way of understanding the risks involved to personal safety.
After reading this blog as well as the responses I'd like to add a few words.
Firstly, I strongly agree with those who said that parents need to find better ways to communicate with their children. There's been an exponentially, increasing gap between parents and children for a long time now and with the uprising technology of the last generation I see how the future for the following ones is quite unpromising.
Which leads me to another point i'd like to make. The use of the Internet in chatrooms, myspace etc. seems to me as humans' incapability to truly connect. This is coming from a 21 year old college student who's admitting that it's easier to chat with people online rather than face-to-face. I'll be analyzing more this conception on a post i have in mind.
To return back to the issue of cyberbullying or molestation I think there hasn't been found the right way to confront it. Not only that, but media even exploits this problem to benefit itself. I'm referring to a show I watched for my first time last week. The show is called "To Catch a Predator" (http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/10912603/) The idea of this show is basically catching molesters by tricking them into meeting with them (the show's host and police).
After watching it for as long as i could since i didn't find it as amusing as those around me did I found my thoughts being split in half. On the one hand the Internet is cleaner by arresting this molesters, yet on the other hand, the fact that it is on a show i feel that it doesn't alert people the right way. It's one more of those shows where human pain, obscurity and reality is being abused for the amusement of the others. How is this issue going to be treated when it's being presented that way? Judging by the reaction of those around me, I feel like this is definitely not the way to be doing it.
This is my first blog ever, so excuse my language as well the slight shift of the subject to a more general molestation that occurs on the Internet.
Emiddio
P.S. I know this might be a bit random yet i feel the urge to post on my response. Since I'm highly interested in Film, and I find films and television as crucial factors to humanity's development here's a movie, one of my favorite ones, that explores partially this difficulty to connect with people and the issue of molestation online. The movie is called "Me and You and Everyone we know" by Miranda July.
you have made a great point. A good relationship and mutual trust between child and parents can ease so many things...one of them is not taking things people say/blog/e-mail/chat to the heart. If raised in a "supportive and informative" environment, a child (even at a young age) should be able to decide whose words are important and whose are not. And if there is some doubt, they should be able to ask their parents and receive meaningful answers.
People think that guiding their children through life has changed so much because of the Internet. While there certain technical things to teach which are new (don't send your credit card number/password, etc..), the morals are the same. Be honest but careful. Be determined but open-minded. Be friendly but do not have trust until earned. (I am not trying to give parenting advice to anyone, I am just giving examples.)
So Parry,
educating parents and children on cybercrimes is certainly important, adding to the "informative" side of the environment. On the other hand, teaching a parent to be "supportive" is a much more challenging task... if not performed by their own parents and teachers starting at a young age.
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