One-third of U.S. teens are victims of cyber bullying !!!!

This is a title in Tehran time newspaper on which was published at the morning . It shows that in each three teenagers one of them experienced cyber bullying and it is a horrible statistic. This cases can be threatening or sexual harassment , defamation and other types of bullying which has been discussed in the previous blogs, but there is two important unanswered questions :
1. What happened to this people , I mean the people who was getting bullied???
2. How many teenagers getting bullied and didn't tell anyone?

In my point of view , damages of cyber bullying get more serious when the victim keep it as a secret. In this situation there is a probability of commuting suicide or other things. Families , governments and police should be trusted for the teenagers as much as if the victim did something wrong , he/she can refer to one of them.
There is many cases of blackmailing that the victim can't go to the police and of course blackmailer taking advantage of the situation........

Limitation or Education????!!!!

I think "education or limitation" is one of the most serious challenges in every family , society and even country. Some countries like IRAN choose to limit people instead of educate people and some other countries like United states choose freedom with education and finally some countries like Malaysia choose limited limitation with education.
Of course each of these choices have advantages and disadvantages. For an instant limitation , in short run, can reduce the side effects of technology like cyber bullying but education will show its substantial results in the long run , but it has it's victims......
parents can make limitations for their children in internet usage or they can teach them how to use it, All in all this issue is a major problem in all levels from governments to families......
please leave your opinion as a comment..............

Some notes for parents.....

According to the past discussions , parents play an important role in preventing damages come from cyber bullying cases in their children. Here is some useful notes for parents who want to control and supervise their children activity in the cyber space :
1. Centralize the computer :
Assign a particular room for the computer and internet which you and your children use mutually. It will help you to have a insensible control on your children activities while working in the same room.


2.Consistent communication :
Discuss different issues with you children. Let them talk to you and express their problems. Assure them that there is no punishment when they express they faults with you.


3.Online experience and knowledge : 
It is necessary for the parents to be up to date an have knowledge and experience about computer issues. If you don't have knowledge , its not late , start today ;) .


4.Blogging, Chatrooms and social network sites : 
 Chat with your children , send them a funny email , create a facebook account and make them feel you in the cyber space. It will make them closer to you.


By using these advices , parents and children make a close relationship in the cyber space and it will make you the first one who get informed about the online problems like Cyber bullying....






Source : http://www.cyberbullyalert.com/blog/

Cyberbullying , Prevent or Cure ?

Recently i've read an article with this title :"Officer offers tips in avoiding cyberbullying" , It is an interesting article which is provided by www.signonsandiego.com . This police officer explains different ways for parents to deal with cyberbullying cases , but the point is that it is mentioned that there is no way to prevent cyebrbullying and all we can do as parents is to deal with it after it happens. 
In my point of view there is still some substantial ways to prevent cyberbullying for families and also government. The first step is to increase the degree of awareness of public about the consequences and punishments of the cyberbullying . When cyberbullying create cases like suicide for teenagers , the related punishments should be hard and harsh. 
The other point is that people should know there is nothing like anonymity in the cyberspace. When people know that if the will be detected and punished if they do something wrong in the cyber space , I think the number of cyber bullying cases will decrease in the long-run.
By the way this article has some useful tips and notes for parents........
you can read this article through this link :
http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/2010/nov/05/officer-offers-tips-in-avoiding-cyberbullying/

Written communication and cyber bullying....

After studying different cases of cyber bullying I asked this question from myself : "Why people do this? How they dare to insult each other like this? Why the cyber bullying cases become more important than traditional bullying???". 

I think a reason can be the nature of the written communication. When you send a message or write an email, you can insult or threat the receiver easily because you wont receive back the answer immediately. Imagine you want to tell your friend that you hate him face to face , you will think that what he will do after that. Cry?? , Slap you?? whatever it is , you prefer to send him a SMS or email to avoid the immediate feedback.

Another reason that people think that they have the anonymity advantage in the cyber space. In many cases offenders didn't estimate that they will be caught. So this idea help them to the things that they wont do in the real world......

I do believe that the only way to prevent cyber bullying is education. People should know that the consequences and conditions of doing the wrong things in the cyber space is same an even more than the real world...

How the law addresses cyber bullying

In this note , I'm going to explain the different aspects of cyber bullying and discuss the related law issues.Cyber bullying can be studied under the civil law and criminal law.
1. Civil law :
1.1 Defamation : If cyber bulling causes damaging reputation of a person it would be consider as defamation case. Temporarily damages called slander and the permanent defamation called libel. There is two probable defenses for the person who is accused of libel . The first one is that he can say that his statement was true. The second one is he can say that he just innocently reproduced the statement.


1.2 Creating unsafe environment : For example schools are responsible to provide a safe place for students. If any student threat his or her classmates and make an unsafe environment , school authorities should take any action to make the school a safe place.


2 Criminal law :
2.1 Harassment : It happens when what you said frighten someone else.There is no matter that a person has intention or not . He/she will charged for harassment.
2.2 Defamatory libel :Defamatory libel is punishable by up to five years in prison.




Reference : 
http://www.media-awareness.ca/english/resources/educational/teaching_backgrounders/cyberbullying/cyberbullying_law2_h4.cfm

Different forms of cyberbullying

As it has mentioned in previous blogs , cyberbullying has different types and approaches , what is important is that they must occur in the cyber space. In this article i'm going to define and discuss different types of Cyberbullying.


Harassment :
   When someone repeatedly send insulting and nasty messages to others.


Uploading :
    If you share a picture of your friends , classmates or other people , particularly in an embarrassing situation, without permission.
It also include sharing emails and personal notes without permission.


Targeting :
   Encouraging other people to attack a particular person.


Insulting :
   Distracting someone's reputation by posting spreading false information.


Identity theft :
    Introduce yourself as someone else and communicating under someone else identity.


Excluding :
   Pressuring people to exclude someone from a particular community.


These are all defined types of cyberbullying , in the FutureI will explain how criminal and civil law address different types of cyber bullying.......








Reference :
http://www.mediaawareness.ca/english/resources/educational/teaching_backgrounders/cyberbullying/cyberbullying_law2_h4.cfm

www.kidshelp.com.au a 24 hour counseling hotline for kids!!!!!!

Kidsfelp.com.au is one of the most interesting and effective actions which is supervised by NCAB (National Center against bullying) in australia. Kids , teenagers and young adults can call 1800551800 anytime (of course in australia) and get consultant services from relative professionals. 

I think establishing this website is a big step toward preventing cyberbullying cases in this country.

It is mentioned in the first page that " We care and we listen any time and for any reason". This website also provides educational consultancy for parents and teachers. 

The interface and appearance of this website is colorful and full of shapes to attract kids and also in this website all the steps for reaching  a counselor is mentioned.

I think Establishment of websites and information centers like this will reduce the cyberbullying cases but it is clear that it will not fully prevented. we should educate our children to use these tools and not to make decision without the help of parents or consultants.......

"9 teens arrested in Phoebe Prince cyberbullying case" Kim LaCapria , March 29, 2010

Once again cyberbullying has resulted in commiting suicide by a teenager. Phoebe Nora.Mary Prince was an Irish teenager who moved to Massachusetts. She has commuted to suicide after she got bullied by her classmates on January 14, 2010 .
After investigations , Police announced that it has been arrested 9 suspects as below :

Sean Mulveyhill, 17, of South Hadley who is charged with statutory rape, violation of civil rights with bodily injury resulting, criminal harassment and disturbance of a school assembly.

1.Kayla Narey, 17, of South Hadley who is charged with violation of civil rights with bodily injury resulting, criminal harassment, disturbance of a school assembly.

2.Austin Renaud, 18, of Springfield who is charged with statutory rape.

3.Ashley Longe, 16, of South Hadley charged with violation of civil rights with bodily injury resulting as a youthful offender.

4.Flannery Mullins, 16, of South Hadley violation of civil rights with bodily injury resulting and stalking as a youthful offender.

5.Sharon Chanon Velazquez, 16, of South Hadley who is charged with violation of civil rights with bodily injury resulting and stalking as a youthful offender.

and the other three person has not been named.

As you can see , cyberbullying cases are getting more serious than before in the students and teenagers. The question is that who is responsible for the death of this innocent girl ? Parents? Teachers? Police ? Suspects ? or Society?

I do believe that Parents and schools have major roles in this situation but both if them should have information and get educated. Regarding this issue a book has been published in the malaysia recently which will be reviewed in this blog in the future.........

Source : http://www.inquisitr.com/68188/phoebe-prince-arrests/

CBS News(March 29, 2010) : Alexis Pilkington, 17, of West Islip, Long Island, N.Y., killed herself after what may be been cyber-bullying.

(CBS)  Police are investigating whether cyberbullies contributed to the suicide of a teen in the Long Island, N.Y. town of West Islip. The nasty messages continued to show up online even after her death, reports CBS News Correspondent Jeff Glor. 

Soccer star Alexis Pilkington, 17, took her own life March 21 following vicious taunts on social networking sites -- which persisted postmortem on Internet tribute pages, worsening the grief of her family and friends. 

Alexis' parents downplayed the role the Internet played in her suicide, saying their daughter was in counseling before she ever signed up with FormSpringMe.com, a new social networking site, where many of the attacks appeared. 

However, Glor points out, the incident underscores the growing trend of cyberbullying. A bill aimed at preventing it is now being considered in Washington, D.C. It would make electronic communication intended to coerce, intimidate or harass a federal crime. Fifteen states have such laws, and Massachusetts is considering one. Among kids, Glor notes, a whopping 42 percent say they've been bullied online. And the relentless taunting has helped push several of them over the edge. 

It was a part of report published by CBS News online website on march 29 . As it has mentioned in the article , Alexis Pikington , a 17 year old girl has committed to suicide after being harassed in one of the most famous social network websites , formspring.com .

News argued that alexis has been attacked in the formspring.com anonymously. The question here is that why a person could be able to create a profile in a social network anonymously ? Isn't it considered as lack of security in the social network ???  And it is clear that whoever harassed or threatened this girl and forced her to commit suicide , has intentionally used this security weakness .

I do believe that this crime will be continued more and more if social network providers do not find an appropriate and effective way to control the Identities and data accuracy of their profiles. And the last interesting point is that according to the formspring.com website, this site has been awarded for its security issues !!!!!!!!!!

Please help me with your comments and notes.........

Keeley Houghton , the first prisoner related to cyber bullying in UK.....

This story is old but its interesting.Keeley Houghton is the first teenager which have been sent to prison as a Consequence of cyber bullying in the facebook. Emily Moore had committed suicide after receiving a threatening  message from keeley on facebook. This strict punishment has been determined by judge Bruce morgan.

The interesting point in this story is that keeley explained that she did not think that her messages will cause death of her friend. According to this case and other cases consequences and results of an email , message or SMS are hard to estimate and short messages can lead to horrible results.

The question here is that do this kind of punishments , especially for teenagers , can reduce the number of cyber bullying cases? 

It is commonly accepted that imprisoning teenagers has some serious side effects such as getting familiar with drugs and drug dealers. And also i think that prevention of cyber bullying need some infra structural ways instead of hard punishments. please keep leave your comments and express your different points of view in this blog......
Reference : http://www.worcesternews.co.uk/news/4752602.Facebook_bully_speaks_of_her_regrets_after_release_from_prison/

Emily Moore (VICTIM)

Keely Houghton                          

Shaheen Shariff and her book about cyber bullying....

I was surfing the web regarding cyber-bullying and I found
 a book with this title : 

"Cyber-bullying:  issues and solutions for the school, the classroom  and the home" This book has been published in 2008.  The author of this book is Shaheen Shareef from McGill. At the first look author's  name sounds iranian but after  googling i found out that it is not an  iranian author. anyway , it is an usable an interesting book  which will increase the knowledge about this phenomena in the society.  Price of this book os about $30 and its offered by Amazon  with free shipping. I should mention that it is not the only book in this area by  this author and there are  2 or 3 more books by shaheen shariff about cyberbullying.....

Text messages might result in suicide....

Allem Parents

This story is about the suicide of a young boy named "Allem Halkic" from australia. Allem and Shane was close friends , as close as shane tattooed allen's name on his back . They had a mutual friend which was also shane's girlfriend. It seems that allem had told this mutual friend of disparaging comments shane had made about her. Shane found out what happens , felt betrayed and send some text messages to Allem : "I'll put you in hospital" and ''Don't be surprised if you get hit some time soon,''  and some more texe messages like this. As a result , Allem committed suicide in february 2010 and shane was called to the court consequently.

This story tells us that how horrible the result of a SMS might be. FOr sure Shane didn't know that what will happen and he also didn't mean that , but what is happened is happened. I've brought this story in to my blog to show you the importance of cyberbullying concept and tell you think again before express your hatred or threatening in a text message or an email....

                                                            Shane

Traditional bullying VS Cyber Bullying

You may ask this question that what are the differences between cyber bullying and traditional bullying? If you refer to a dictionary (or your knowledge) you will find out that bully-ing means using your strength over a weaker person to harm or intimidate. Bullying may happen in the real world or in the cyber space . Again technology ,like a to edge blade ,shows one of its disadvantages instead of its benefits. In the other word , technology create another place , which is internet , for people who want to disturb others with more facilities . On the aggregate , bullying is bullying , what is different is the platform . In the traditional bullying people use streets , offices and parks to hurt others and in the cyber bullying people use chat rooms , emails and social networks to reach their purpose.
One of the most important points about the cyber space is that people can easily create virtual identities to mask their original identities , so people have opportunity to do things under the other's names , so it is an opportunity for people to engage in cyber bullying anonymously.

People should be noticed that the cyber space is a different space with it's specific characteristics . I do believe that behaviors like bullying is an emphasis on the necessity and importance of "CYBER LAW".

What is Cyber Bullying ?

By the definition of National crime prevention council , "Cyber-bullying happens when the Internet, cell phones or other devices are used to send or post text or images intended to hurt or embarrass another person"

In this blog , I'm going to discuss about different aspects of cyber bullying and its consequences in the society. Please help me to complete my task with your comments and opinions , there is also a voting gadget in this page which you can use it to evaluate my topic.