Safe Internet Alliance

A member of our Alliance, Wired Safety released a survey it conducted recently that found that 85% of teens have been a victim of cyber bullying at least once. The group questioned 40,000 middle school students and discovered the vast majority of them (95%) wouldn't tell their parents if they were being bullied.

This survey comes as more and more special interest groups and politicians are pushing for stricter legislation on cyberbullying. For instance the Jeffrey Johnston Stand Up for All Students Act, if passed, would "makes it a crime in the state of Florida to use a computer to kill another child." The Act is being supported by a coalition led by Debbie Johnston, mother of 15-year-old Jeff Johnston, who hanged himself using his own book bag strap after two years of cyber bullying.

The coalition organized three panels on the Hill this week that dealt with cyber bullying and sexting:

The purpose of the event was to bring together influential voices to talk about reaching those who could address the problems, said Parry Aftab, Wired Safety's executive director. The first panel focused on identifying the stakeholders in stopping cyberbullying. Representatives from two other members of our Allliance, Microsoft and the iKeepSafe Internet Safety Coalition, along with representatives from the Girl Scouts and Build-a-Bear Workshop, talked about educating parents, school officials and children on the prevention of cyberbullying.

Some states have already passed laws regarding this issue. Last year, Missouri passed one because of the Megan Meier case, in which the teen hanged herself after being harassed by a neighboring parent.

This week we saw that law in effect, when a ninth-grader was arrested for creating a website attacking another teen.

School district authorities in Troy, Missouri, where the female student attends the Troy Buchanan Ninth Grade Center (pictured at right), alerted the sheriff last Thursday after the female target of the site told the principal about it, a sheriff’s spokesman told Threat Level.

“The website had very troublesome things posted on it by an individual who obviously had a dislike for the other female in the school,” said Lt. Andy Binder, a Lincoln County Sheriff’s Department spokesman.

The name of the website, which has since been taken down, included the target’s name and “cunt.com,” Binder told Threat Level, and it hosted photos of the target. A couple of posts on the site, which were written anonymously, referred to the target as a “slut” and disparaged her for the male company she kept. The author of the posts also indicated that the target “would be better off if she just died” instead of hanging out with so many boys, Binder said.

Since the law was passed, there have been several other arrests, notably:

* A 21-year-old woman was charged for allegedly sending harassing text messages to a 16-year-old girl and allowing others to use her cellphone to leave vulgar voicemail messages for the victim threatening her with rape, among other things. The perpetrator allegedly targeted the teen over a jealous dispute involving a boy.

* Two St. Louis men were charged separately with sending harassing text messages to their ex-girlfriends.

* A man protesting the development of a proposed resort was charged with sending a threatening e-mail to city hall staff.

* A 28-year-old woman was accused of sending harassing text messages to her ex-husband’s girlfriend.

* A 19-year-old man was charged with sending some 17 text messages to his mother’s husband.

* A 17-year-old involved with a classmate in a dispute over a girl is accused of sending the classmate death threats via text messages.

However, such laws have met protest from some, including social media experts who argue that they could be interpreted too broadly and that online communities are incredibly hard to police.

Either way, schools have begun taking the issue much more seriously, issuing no-tolerance approaches for cyber bullying. As more high-profile cases emerge, more and more educators have set about issuing formal policies, rather than handling them on a case-by-case basis. As the schools become more engaged in these spaces, they'll be able to better understand the best way to deal with students who decide to use the Internet as a bully pulpit.