(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.........
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