5 Steps We Can Take to Avoid Being Cyber-Bullied

by Philip J Reed, on behalf of Westwood College
(Mr. Reed is a Guest Writer for EOPC)

“Cyber-bullying” is a term we hear more about each day. There are always more examples – all too many of which end in tragedy – of the internet and other technologies being used to torment, browbeat and humiliate otherwise innocent people.

Frequently these targets are children or young people, but a new study conducted by professor Andy Pippen for Plymouth University in England has revealed that adults are increasingly becoming targets as well. Pippen looked only at teachers, but he found that one in three teachers has been cyber-bullied… and that a quarter of those cyber-bullies were other adults!

Cyber-bullies aren’t just children, and neither are the victims. It’s a serious cause for concern, and it’s something everybody should understand, and be aware of the steps they can take to avoid it. Being cyber-bullied can ruin a life, or dramatically increase the quality of that life. Know the facts in advance, and keep reading to find our five tips on how to avoid being cyber-bullied.

1) Keep Your Information Private!
There’s a reason we’re putting this one first, and that reason should be obvious. As Thomas Hobbes once said, “Knowledge is power.” The more you tell your cyber-bullies about yourself, the more ammunition they will have to use against you. And, perhaps, the more they will be able to manipulate you in the hopes that by playing along you will prevent them from releasing (or misusing) more of your information.

Of course, nobody knowingly “provides” their cyber-bullies with personal information. Unfortunately, information provided to otherwise benign websites and databases can either be accessed or hacked by a devoted cyber-bully. Don’t provide any private information about yourself to any site unless it is absolutely necessary. And we don’t just mean your address and social security number. Sensitive information can include (but is not limited to) the town in which you live, your mother’s maiden name, the names of your pets, or even the fact that you’ll be going on vacation for two weeks. Any of this can be used to find you, manipulate you, or access your private records. (A fairly recent high-profile case involved the hacking of Sarah Palin’s private email account, simply because the hackers listened to her interviews and used that basic personal information to solve her security questions!) Take cyber security seriously! The bullies certainly do!

2) Do Not Play Along!
If you are being cyber-bullied, know that it is serious! Do not engage them, do not encourage them, and, most of all, do not try to bully them in return! If a cyber bully has picked you as a target, they are prepared. Any attempt to bully them in return is almost guaranteed to backfire.

Ignoring cyber bullies can actually work, to some extent. If you don’t reply to their emails or instant messages, they can either become bored or convinced that you are not reliably reachable in that way… even if you are. This can encourage them to move on to another target.

Of course, ignoring them won’t work every time, especially if you’ve been singled out by a bully specifically. They may keep emailing, texting, or even calling in the hopes that you are being rattled by their methods. Ignoring them may not stop this behavior, but bear in mind that it does stop them from obtaining any new information to use against you. If you were responding to them, you’d be giving them more ammunition, or just inflaming the situation further. Avoid doing either of those things like the plague!

3) Inform the Authorities!
There’s a fine line between teasing and bullying, but, typically, we know bullying when we see it. Once you’re sure that you’re being legitimately harassed or tormented (rather than, say, a friend playing a joke on you), take it to the police. This is especially true – and important! – if you are being actively threatened. The police need to know, and they need to know soon!

Modern computer forensics techniques can uncover a great deal of information about your bullies, and the sooner you report them, the more likely they can be traced. Of course a technologically savvy bully can cover his tracks in many ways, but don’t assume that they’ve done so successfully! Let the authorities do their best to track them down.

Bear in mind that the police may not be able to do much when the bullying is small scale, but by completing an incident report early on, you will have a stronger case if the bullying continues, or increases, down the line. Don’t wait to report it. If you know you are being bullied, call the police!

4) Always Think Before Responding!
Sometimes bullying can be defused, but often it cannot, or at least not by the victim. Always think twice about responding to any unsolicited messages. If you do not recognize a screen name that is sending you messages, even if they seem friendly, be sure to find out if you actually know this person before divulging anything at all. Tell them that they have three chances to tell you who they are and how they know you, and if they still don’t tell you after the third time you ask, block them.

It may seem callous or even rude to do this, but you can’t be too safe. Even one incident of cyber-bullying can scar a human being for a lifetime; it is not worth the risk.

If you do intend to speak to somebody you don’t know, whether in a chat room or on a message board, always try to be polite. Even if you are blocking or ignoring somebody, rudeness can only inflame situations, so avoid it at all costs!

Which leads us into our final (but not least important) tip…

5) Be Aware of What You’re Doing Online!
The best tip to avoid cyber-bullying is simply to avoid angering a cyber bully in the first place! Of course this is not always possible (for many obvious reasons), but you can minimize the likelihood of becoming the victim of cyber-bullying simply by monitoring your own presence online.

If you are rude to people, the odds are very good that they will be rude in return.

If you compromise somebody else’s security for any reason, you leave yourself open to retaliation. Behave yourself in internet discussions. Be calm, be rational, and be understanding of the viewpoints of others. You will never know what may set somebody off, be it your opinion about politics, religion, or last night’s episode of The Office, so watch how you phrase things, and always be big enough to back out of discussions completely when you see them getting out of hand.

Again, this will by no means insulate you from cyber-bullying overall, but it will help to minimize the potential of becoming a target. The sad fact is everybody on the internet, from the least-knowledgeable young girl with her first computer to the college-educated systems administrator with a degree in information security. Nobody is exempt, and everybody has responsibility to themselves to stay vigilant, to stay alert, and to stay safe.

You've Got H@TE MAIL!

Remember the time when new netizens were discovering the joys of e-mail and chat? When we watched Meg Ryan in You've Got Mail log on and send messages to Tom Hanks. That was cool, way back in 1998, when that film was released. It explored the concept of what happens when the virtual world and the real world intersect at some point.

All that is old hat now. We send emails, we chat, we message, we scrap, we follow each other on Twitter, we scribble on Facebook's wall. We have SecondLife. The possibilities are endless. Your gmail inbox could be an excellent pointer. "Where are you now? I'd like to add you to my travel network”, says one mail. “XXX added you as a friend on Facebook” says another. There are join-us requests from at least three other social networking sites. And then, some blog comments that you have to moderate. So, cleaning the inbox could well take up an hour or two of your working day. All thanks to social networking. We live in an over-connected world, you see. Everyone's connected to everyone else and their cousin, thrice removed.

So, what's wrong with being connected? Nothing, except that we tend to lose perspective on who's a friend, who's not, and how much of our emotional investment needs to go into all this. Benign, harmless scraps, blog comments and messages are still tolerable. All you need to do is hit the delete button. But then, what about hate? What about those comments that hurt? What happens if there’s a sensitive person on the other end, who takes the hate personally?

Out of sheer curiosity, I log on to my Orkut account, and check out the hate communities. There are harmless "I hate to wake up early" to "I hate rain"communities. Soon, it turns ugly. And scary, if one may add. Take "Kill me, I'm fed up of my life" It had a whopping 3,000 members when one last checked. There's “Guns n Guts”, there's “I hurt myself; so you can't” with 7,000 members.

A web of distrust
One of the communities even suggests various methods to commit suicide. This community has a whopping 2,000 members at last count. Isn't this hate reflective of society itself? Surely, something's gone wrong somewhere.

According to psychologist Sonali Nag of the Promise Foundation, "Hate is a fundamental human emotion. As most other emotions, it is neither negative nor positive. It could be generated in response to something strongly repugnant to oneself and one's values. It could also be born from a sense of inadequacy. Both forms are seen on the Internet. It provides a screen to one's identity and offers a medium to express emotions with lower levels of restraint. ‘Snarking’ is an example of using the anonymity that the Internet provides to be snide and unrestrained in one's responses to someone else's postings. I would suspect that if one examined the personality of a 'snarker', one would find a sad, unfulfilled and frustrated person hiding behind his or her snarks."

There are hate communities directed at individuals and some very respected personalities at that. And then, countries. There was legal trouble when a ‘We hate India’ community was set up on a social networking site.

Omar Abdullah’s ‘alvida’
Social networking was also held responsible for the death of 16-year-old Adnan Patrawala from Mumbai, who was kidnapped and murdered by his Orkut friends. While social networking sites and blogs are excellent platforms for celebrities like an Aamir Khan or an Amitabh Bachchan to put across their points of view, they also make them vulnerable to hate comments.

You only have to check out Ram Gopal Varma's blog to see the kind of comments his posts elicit. But RGV blogs on, undeterred, responding to his readers sharply. But, then, it could get very serious.

Take the case of politician Omar Abdullah, who used the blog http://jknc.org/blog/ to air his views on Kashmir. He started his blog in mid-April, but by August, the comments and the hate got to him. His last post, titled 'Alvida' says it all. Sample this:

"Last night as I finished my last post I realised that I was filled with dread at the heap of personal abuse I was expecting when I logged on this morning and I was not wrong. We truly are a bunch of intolerant people. We want to be heard but do not have the strength to hear, we want to have an opinion but do not believe anyone else is entitled to one. So after almost 42 posts from me and more than 900 comments from all of you I am signing off and I will not be coming back."

Faceless dread
A clear case of cyber harassment. The nature of the Internet, as it is evident now, is that it is an open, free world, where everyone has the right to vent their views, or form communities without much social responsibility. The very fact that the bully is a faceless, unknown person, adds to the helplessness of the victim. Terror too, has spread its scary shadows on the Internet. Terror mails are sent from random IP addresses. As recently as September 2008, newspapers reported that a community called 'Indian Mujahideen' was banned from a social networking site, following the blasts in Delhi.

A presentation on 'Tracking terrorists in cyber space' made by J Prasanna, an Information Security Consultant, at a seminar organised by Digital Society Foundation of India, in Bangalore, acknowledges that most terrorists and spies indeed use the Internet. They use the Internet to leave a message on a website like orkut, Linkedin or a matrimonial website that looks normal. Only they understand where to look and what to read and it's difficult for others to find out. This is called a covert channel. Also, terrorists use anonymous proxy (with encryption) to transmit messages.

So, do we regulate the internet?
According to Na Vijayshankar, cyber law campaigner, the police are supposed to monitor any anti-social activities in society and can take action on their own. Vijayshankar, who is also the Chairman of the Digital Society Foundation of India, says the organisation proposes to act as a vigilante unit. He points out that his organisation even filed a PIL in connection with denigration of Gandhi on You Tube. "I personally try to keep the police informed. I strongly feel the police should maintain contact with voluntary organisations to act as cyber informers."

But does this not infringe upon freedom of expression and privacy? Agrees Na Vijayshankar, "It is a fact that sometimes privacy interests conflict with law enforcement."

However, Naavi cites a India Supreme Court judgment, which says “that the person’s ‘right to be let alone’ is not an absolute right and may be lawfully restricted for the prevention of crime, disorder or protection of health or morals or protection of rights and freedom of others.”

During the seminar on Privacy Rights and Data Protection in Cyber Space, he expressed the need for balancing the Privacy and Data Protection legislation with law enforcement and suggested that the forum would collect the opinion of experts and forward it to the government for necessary action when the Personal Data Protection Bill 2006 and ITA Amendment Act Bill would be taken up for discussion in the Parliamentary session.

“What the ITA 2000 fails to protect are cases such as 'cyber stalking' where privacy intrusion through e-mails or SMS messages creates problems for individuals. If such messages can be brought under "Obscenity" then it may be covered under Section 67 of ITA 2000. If it is indecent or threatening, it may be brought under IPC. This is essentially the protection that is available,” he points out in his presentation.

However, there is the issue of what constitutes privacy rights. When the police on a crime trail end up on a social networking site , there are commercial interests that try to block the police from accessing information which may be vital to solving the crime. Often the defense put up by the sites is that the information is protected by the ‘Privacy rights’ of someone else or that they are to be treated as ‘Intermediaries’ and should not be harassed, explains Naavi.

Which brings us back to that old question of freedom and responsibility. Particularly so, with reference to democracies, where one’s rights cannot be divorced from one’s responsibilities. Where there’s freedom, there’s responsibility. Now, if only those hate mongers understood.

Impact on children
As with all other aspects of helping children learn to live life completely, shielding them from cyber bullying is not an effective answer. An emotionally secure home environment that allows exploration and experimentation constantly backed up by support and introspection, would help them develop strong identities. A strong, self-accepting identity, would neither bully or be bullied, the psychologist explains.

The bullies and their victims

• In March 2007, high-profile technology blogger Kathy Sierra of the United States became a victim of cyber bullying. She received anonymous death threats on her blog and violent comments were made against her. Kathy was so scared that she stopped blogging. The incident triggered a movement in cyberspace, and hundreds of bloggers reported to have been victims of cyber bullying at some point in their online lives. An Anti- Cyber bullying Day was observed on March 30 that year, in protest.
• Another American citizen, Megan Meier, a 13-year-old girl committed suicide in October 2006, when personal comments on her looks and appearance got to her on a social networking site.
• Not many Indian bloggers would have forgotten the vicious personal comments and washing of dirty linen on the blogosphere, when a noted youth blog (youthcurry.blogspot.com) had a post about a management institute.
• Ironically, the Internet is also an excellent resource for parents who are worried about their children becoming targets of vicious attacks. There are websites dedicated to cyber bullying. Some of them include: http://www.cyberbullyalert.com/blog/ stopcyberbullying.org.

Stand up to a bully!
According to psychologist Sonali Nag, “It is an extension of the bullying that seems to be integral to the human predicament, be it on the school playground or between countries. The only difference between the school bully and the Internet bully, perhaps is that anonymity allows the cyber bully an easier chance of getting away. The bully is usually a coward who melts away when confronted.

Here again low self-esteem and deep feelings of inadequacy seem to characterize the bully. Interestingly though, the bullied sometimes, want the relationship with the bully to continue. For the price of being bullied, they gain the reward of being the bully's protege and of being protected by the bully. However, for those who want to be released from this form of abuse, the bullied can be empowered to stand up to a bully.

original article found here

Hate & the Internet

Does the internet encourage insidious and bullying behaviour?

I remember the first time I logged into a chatroom. It was 1996, and I was using my mum's AOL account to mooch around the world wide web, which was still very much in its infancy. I was in that glorious, unrestricted period of life between college and reality, and the web seemed to offer splendid, unrestricted access to the outside world in a way that no generation had known before.

So it was with cocky confidence that I joined the "general" room as "Dan" (of undisclosed gender) and instantly discovered the thrill of anonymity. Behind my digital mask, I began a brief but satisfying tirade of mockery, contrariness and antisocial behaviour. Of course, compared with the stream of epithets that Xbox Live users encounter playing online, my efforts were pretty tame – I didn't question anyone's sexuality, make any racial slurs or say anything particularly negative about anyone's mother. But the sense of release I experienced in 10 minutes of childishness has remained at the back of my mind ever since I started studying the web; it helps define our behaviour online.

For some, this new technology not only facilitates, but actively encourages insidious and novel social ills. Blogs and forums are no-go zones for people who hope for rational conversation; cyberbullying has been blamed for several recent suicides; and white power, homophobic and jihadist organisations have colonised the web, preferring its potential to old-fashioned pamphleteering. It looks as if the web makes it possible for us to hate one another more easily, more efficiently and more effectively.

My mantra is that the web is an agnostic communication platform: it can do nothing to us except reflect who we are. However, as my own little descent into cyber-trollism attests, there are aspects of it that do encourage antisocial behaviour.

The biggie is anonymity, according to Dr Karen Douglas from the University of Kent, who studies the psychology of hatred online. We can log into a forum under a pseudonym, lob a hate bomb and then fade away into the digital ether. It's like playing a trick on Halloween; it's childish, it seems insignificant, and it's kinda fun. Unfortunately, such actions can have real-life consequences depending on who the hatred is directed at, how often it happens and whether there's support in place if the victim needs it.
But is anonymity alone the issue? Philip Zimbardo, professor emeritus at Stanford University, has been studying why people do evil since the 60s, and he says that environmental social cues are equally as important. In his famous Stanford prison experiment in 1971, a random selection of psychologically stable subjects were transformed into brutal prison guards after being given mirrored sunglasses and uniforms and told to play the role.

To reindividuate anonymous members of online crowds, forums, blogs and news sites – including the Observer's – are increasingly asking commentators to register their real names before posting any material (even if they then do so using a pseudonym). It's believed that the forging of this simple link between the virtual and offline persona is why relatively few counter-normative attitudes are expressed on sites such as Facebook, where exposing yourself as racist can turn you into a social pariah. Unless, of course, your friends are racists too. And that's a more difficult problem to solve.

Data traffic indicates that, online, we are increasingly talking to people just like ourselves, relying on our friends' directions to navigate the web. It's ironic that, rather than opening us up to an ever-greater number of opinions and attitudes, social networking sites such as Facebook and Twitter may actually be narrowing our worldview, confirming what we already believe and reinforcing attitudes we hold already.

So what happens when we only communicate with people like ourselves, and the messages we share only reinforce our mutual hatred? It's a technique radical religious and racist organisations have always used to make sure their members conform, but now they're employing technological tools to create global communities of like-minded ideologues.

Groups such as Stormfront.org and GodHatesFags.com use the web for networking, self-promotion and recruitment. They give support and intellectual ammunition to existing members, rarely explicitly inciting violence. Thankfully, it appears that efforts to convince non-believers to convert to their cause are rarely successful – although we have yet to see the impact of their children's zones (with links to games, and alternative information for schoolwork, that reinforce their ideologies).

It's not all bad news, however. Just as the web is a powerful tool to get the message out, it's also a good vehicle to expose its flaws. The rampant opinions that dominate online life challenge users to be critical of the content they consume, and considerate in how they construct effective counter-arguments.

Online hatred is real, and it can have a very real effect. But we are in command of the technology; it's not in charge of us. And as for anonymity, back in 1996, even though I hid behind a false name, I didn't throw a hate bomb into that chatroom and run away; no, I was booted out. And frankly, my moment of humiliation was exactly what I deserved.

original article found here

Bullies & Predators Feel Invincible Behind a Keyboard

While this article talks mostly about school-aged kids and online bullies - make NO MISTAKE - adults (and cyberpaths) bully, harass, threaten and stalk online and much of the same principles apply - EOPC

Hearing that her son's life had been threatened online brought Bonnie Harris a mix of emotions.

She was scared and nervous for her son, but her heart also went out to the troubled boy behind the violent threats.

"It was upsetting. We were all torn," the former Plattsburgh resident and mother of three recalled.

"I don't know how big of a threat he really was, but the police acted on it immediately. At the time, I felt like it was a serious threat, and we were worried about it for a long time."

What started out as a friendship turned into problems that spread to the Internet and involved more than a dozen area teens targeted by an apparent "hit list" posting and an extensive police investigation.

Online bullying and harassment is something local authorities say they're all too familiar with.

"This is a huge issue," Plattsburgh City Police Juvenile Officer Robert Annis said.

"Kids (and adults) seem to be bolder when they're behind a computer, and it gets out of control. It can become an all-night thing. People are just so open online."

'FEEL INVINCIBLE'
As the only juvenile officer in the city, Annis has investigated a number of online bullying and harassment cases during the last few years, most involving girls ganging up on female classmates.

One case involved a black student who received cruel and racist Instant Messages, while another involved a girl who was viciously tormented about her physical appearance.

"I think they feel invincible online," Annis said. "Often, they (the complaints) aren't always major things, but we deal with all of them. We try to nip it in the bud as soon as possible."

State Police Computer-Crimes Investigator Jerome Miner said people "will do things online that they would never do in person," like harass others and share explicit photos and personal information.

Miner, too, has seen his share of teen-related computer complaints, like creating fake MySpace pages to embarrass and insult others.

DRAMA
School officials have also found that online issues outside of school can find their way into the classroom.

"The technology has been a problem and an issue for sure," AuSable High School Dean of Students Suzanne Miller said.

"And it's hard for us sometimes because how far can our reach go outside of school? It's something that we're really concerned about. The anonymity factor is huge and leads to problems."

Emily Lennon, who just graduated from Saranac Lake Central School, said she hasn't been harassed online but has heard of many instances of it, especially among younger Internet users.

"The drama and problems are so much worse with younger kids, like Middle School students," the 17-year-old said.

Bailey Annis, 16, of Saranac Lake said Instant Messages and social-networking sites let teens communicate faster in both positive and negative ways.

"It kind of elevates the gossip," she admitted.

Kelly Petrashune, who just finished her junior year at Saranac Central School, has seen mean pictures and nasty comments posted online.

"And I see MySpace pranks all the time."

WIDESPREAD ISSUE
According to a national i-Safe America study of teens across the nation, about 42 percent of students reported having been bullied online. One in 4 say it has happened more than once.

About 35 percent report having been threatened online, while 21 percent of a random sample have reported receiving mean or threatening messages.

More than half of the students interviewed admitted to being mean or hurtful to their peers online.

Annis said many area schools have become proactive about trying to prevent and stop online harassment, which can lead to criminal charges, such as aggravated harassment.

SPECIAL TRAINING
Law-enforcement agencies have also been beefing up their training and technology to deal with the array of new online crimes.

One aspect of the Plattsburgh City Police Department's annual training is for threat assessment, including online warnings.

"We've dealt with hit lists being put online, and that's one of our biggest fears ... a school incident," Annis said.

"We basically go on alert mode if that happens."

He said that often the first step to bringing online harassment and threats to light is for teens to tell their parents.

"Sometimes, parents don't want to pursue charges; they just want it to stop."

Harris said she didn't know about the online threats until her son was confronted over the phone.

"He (the offender) had messaged him before, but I didn't know. I think a lot of kids don't tell their parents what happens online, and it's important that they do."

original article here

Cyber Bullying: A Virtual Menace

By Tejaswi Agarwal

Key Primers
Bullying has been defined as a behaviour that is intentional, harmful, repetitive, and reflects anabuse of power. In today's hyper-connected world via social media, bullying has taken a gigantic form whereby the perpetrators utilise the technological means to harass, denigrate and stalk people. In order to put it in words of Ben, Cyber Bullying involves the use of information and communication technologies such as e-mail, cell phone and pager text messages, instant messaging, defamatory personal Web sites, and defamatory online personal polling Web sites, to support deliberate, repeated, and hostile behaviour by an individual or group that is intended to harm others.

Contemporary Situation
In today's socially connected world, accessing information has become the easiest tasks. The evil elements of the society never leave a chance to defame anyone. In the current scenario, cyber bullying has taken various forms. The defaulters send angry confrontational messages, often using explicit and vulgar language, referred to as flaming this often results in hypothetical situations leading to havoc in the society. Approximately 32% of all teens who use the Internet regularly have reported being victims of cyber bullying, according to a 2007 poll by project. The exodus of the North-Eastern residents of India was one such act of Cyber Bullying which tore apart the well fabricated sheet of harmony. All sorts of chat rooms are one of the prime locations of virtual harassment which results in hazardous consequences. Recent instances of Meier, Ryan, Tyler Clementi reflects the serious consequences of the matter concerned. 

Global Efforts
Bullying, an initiative of The Alanah and Madeline Foundation conducts National Coalition Against Bullying Conferences every year which hold testimony to the fact that people are uniting against the menace of bullying. Numerous reports by NCAB elaborates on the emerging issues of Cyber Bullying. Evelyn M. Field, psychologist, writer and a Board Member of NCAB authored book," Bully" targets the uncovered issues of bullying in real as well as the virtual world. There are all sorts of help available on the internet which will guide one to avoid being bullied online. bullying.org, cyberbullying.ca are such efforts in the right direction.

Legislation Against Cyber Bullying
As far as India is concerned; there is no law that directly regulates cyber bullying. The Information Technology Act of 2000 (IT Act) are a set of laws to regulate the cyberspace but hardly do they focus on interpersonal criminal behaviour such as cyber stalking to the fullest.

In United States of America, Megan Meier Cyber Bullying Prevention Act was brought before the House of Representatives to prevent further events which happened with Megan Meier. Every State's legislation refers to the cyber crime laws with utmost seriousness. 

Word of Caution

• Keep your internet connection password protected. 
• Do not provide personal information like credit/debit card details to anyone on chat. 
• Don't open a message from someone you don't know on Facebook, Orkut or Google+. 
• Read the terms and conditions properly before providing personal details on any website. One needs to make sure that your personal information is utilised wisely and for appropriate purposes. 

Public View
Saurabh Jha, a prolific blogger feels that any form of bullying is no good to the society as it deeply hurts a person psychologically. There is a dire need for new legislations in India which bring about a change and also a fear among the perpetrators.

"Cyber Bullying has created a fear among the common people who use internet for their daily purposes. The social networking websites such as Facebook, Orkut have become a direct medium to bully innocent people. The current situation calls for an urgent mechanism in these websites to filter content which aims at hampering the social harmony "- says Ravi, a third year B Tech student at VIT.

original article found here

When Hate Comes to Your Homepage

The suicide of a young teenager shows we must wake up to the crossover between the virtual world and real cruelty

by J. Turner

A psychotherapist friend was explaining why she had forbidden her 12-year-old daughter from joining Facebook. It had driven several of her patients, around the same age as her daughter, to the verge of mental breakdown. But surely these girls were unusually fragile: if not Facebook, wouldn't there have been some other catalyst? Maybe, she said, but few young egos are strong enough to deal with this stuff.

I thought she was being alarmist and somewhat old-fashioned. Our generation merely utilises the internet: our children have it hardwired into their synapses. It is their medium, just as ours was television: our parents fretted similiarly - and impotently - about its new-fangled consequences.

You are supposed to be 18 to join Facebook. But you can lie about your age; no one checks. When my sons signed up I thought it sweet when they befriended their aunties and old babysitters, sent virtual pina-coladas to far-flung godparents. Then I realised they're all on there! The entire lower school, the whole prepubescent lot of them, “poking”, posting preening party pictures and telling each other “u are soooo pretty!!!”.

My friend's warning was amplified this week when a trial with implications for the future of social networking opened in Los Angeles. Megan Meier, 13, was befriended on MySpace by a boy called Josh Evans who flirted and flattered and told her she was “sexi”. When he dumped Megan abruptly, saying the world would be a better place without her, she went up to her bedroom and hanged herself with a belt. It transpired “Josh” was a 49-year-old mother called Lori Drew who, it is alleged, believed Megan was bitching about her own daughter online. Drew is charged with conspiracy and accessing computers without authorisation, not murder. But the prosecution case is that Drew “fully intended to hurt and prey on Megan's psyche” through MySpace.

It is an outlandish and extreme story. Yet what struck me was how Megan's mother's reacted when her daughter came to her sobbing about Josh's cruelty. She told her she shouldn't get into silly arguments and shouldn't have been on her computer anyway. Clearly, she believed her daughter was wasting real emotions on something which was “unreal”, since it took place online. Many parents, I guess, would have been equally dismissive.

It is a quandary we have not yet addressed, despite Britons spending more time online (an average of 14 hours a week) than any other European nation and with half of us now members of social networking sites: can the virtual world cause real pain? Facebook seems so harmlessly middle-class, like an endless online evening drinks party. For us sad, solitary home-working types it is a simulacrum of cheering human contact.

But my friend suggested I look at Facebook with a 12-year-old's eyes. She pointed out the popular “honesty box” application where you ask a question - “What do you really think of me?” etc - which then anyone can answer anonymously. Like a ouija board, evil yet so tantalising. My inner pre-teen came out in a terrified sweat.

Besides, said the psychotherapist, it is the ordinary stuff which devastates her patients, the photos of a sleepover to which you weren't invited, your best friend ignoring you and chatting on someone else's “wall”. And everyone will know, by how many friends you have, whether you're a big, fat loser. It's not even proper bullying, just crude kidult passive- aggression. But, boy, does it hurt.

Even so, her patients cannot stop themselves logging in. They have to look. And so the mean-girl snubs, the whispering behind hands, follow them home and upstairs into lonely bedrooms.

We think as adults we are tougher, that something as remote and notional as a chat room cannot hurt us. Indeed, it is a blast, a liberation, when talking online to say what you really mean for once, to make mischief, to dispense with uptight British niceness, or even assume the guise of an atavar, a pumped-up, better-hung version of our own weedy workaday self.

In the glow of our screens, safely at home, we think our egos are armour-plated. But there is no protection as we step on to the ten-lane superhighway of a billion heartless strangers. It can smart like hell, that withering rebuke from someone you'll never meet. A friend, who frequents a jolly and supportive parenting website, was devastated when another mother posted “I hope your child fails the 11-plus”, particularly when she discovered the woman was a neighbour, who'd always harboured a secret grudge.
We are a fighty nation at present, itching for a scrap like a railway station drunk. Perhaps, because we feel impotent in the face of huge economic forces, we lash out at more accessible targets - Ross and Brand, Haringey social workers, the judges on Strictly Come Dancing. And our anger spews onto the BBC's Have Your Say messageboards, blogs and newspaper websites.

This morning I was forwarded a letter from a reader who berated me about something I wrote last month, with the use of two C-words and sundry other curses. From the handwriting - and by the simple fact it came by snail-mail - I could tell it was written by an elderly person. It had no address and was signed “No Nonsense Norm”. Poor Norm, I thought, with his thin notelet, shaky pen and his probably painful walk to the postbox. With a computer he could have enjoyed the same secret thrill of hate in an instant, and free.

Most journalists, me included, find the honesty box below our words bracing: in the democracy of the web, why should we claim a monopoly on thought? Others, though, find the comments too confidence-destroying to read. (If you blog about us, do we not bleed?) Although few, like the hack hero in Tim Dowling's hilarious novel The Giles Wareing Haters' Club actually track down and confront their tormentors.

Maybe future generations will learn to deal with the strong and confusing emotions engendered by the virtual world. Friends with older teens say that they log into social sites before breakfast, know the etiquette, how seriously to take it, where to complain. And later my friend rings to say her daughter just 'fessed up to having a secret Facebook account. What can we do? Not much. Online we're elderly residents of a new world, just like Norm.

SOURCE

Cyberharassers: You Can Hide, But You Can Not Run

If you think using a false identity will allow you to slander or harass people online, think again. Anonymity will not save you.

By Dan Tynan

You gotta love the InterWebs. You can get away with saying practically anything about anybody-- and if you hide behind a fake identity, nobody will ever be able to tell it’s you. Right?

Well, no. You can’t just say slander or harass someone without repercussions. If what you say or do would break a law in physical space, it will also break laws in cyber space. And I don’t care how anonymous you think you are, your identity is only a subpoena away.

(REMINDER: Every victim who's predator/ harasser has been exposed on EOPC has to sign a legally binding document that holds EOPC harmless. The post(s) is the FULL responsibility of the victim who sends the information to be posted.)

William Lawrence Cassidy found this out the hard way after he posted some 8,000 nasty, threatening, and disturbing tweets directed at one woman: Alyce Zeoli, a Buddhist leader in Maryland.

Cassidy, who also went by a variety of aliases including Tulku Urgyan Tenpa Rinpoche and Marshal Jim Duncan, probably thought he was being clever by posting the tweets via fake names. He wasn’t. He's now cooling his heels in a Maryland jail cell, awaiting trial for cyber harassment.

Per the New York Times:

… in response to a subpoena, [Twitter] revealed the Internet protocol address of the computer used to post the messages. The authorities found Mr. Cassidy at home in a small Southern California town called Lucerne Valley. Similar rants were posted on blogs that law enforcement authorities say they traced to him.

I had a tiny taste of something similar myself recently, after I made a joke about the Tea Party in a blog post. I said that before I friended anyone on Facebook I always make sure they’re not ax murderers or Tea Party members. After this lone comment prompted a handful of “news” stories on right-wing sites, I tweeted out a formal apology – to ax murderers.

You’d think I’d bitch slapped Sarah Palin while strangling a puppy. I cannot repeat here most of the nasty NSFW things these people said about me in blog comments and on Twitter.

But the worst one was the pseudonymous a**clown who made a “joke” by tweeting about my alleged fondness for kiddie porn. I informed him that he was flirting with a defamation suit, but he didn’t care – he seemed to think he was immune.

I’m not sure what these people thought they’d achieve by this campaign, but I think they proved my point about why I wouldn’t want to friend them.

Some free speech advocates argue that Twitter is a public forum where all voices should be heard. In Cassidy’s case, his alleged harassment of Zeoli seems to go well beyond free speech and into threats against her physical safety.

In my case, well, I’m a big fan of the First Amendment – I use it every day -- but I don’t think it gives you a license to slander or knowingly spread falsehoods. And I’m not alone.

“There is a whole litany of things that are not protected by the First Amendment, including illegal activity and copyright violations,” notes Bennet Kelly, a Los Angeles attorney specializing in cyber law who’s also an award-winning blogger for the Huffington Post.

Kelley often represents people who’ve been harassed or stalked online, typically by people posting anonymously or via a fake identity.

“These people think they’re immune, that they can hide their identity and get away with anything,” says Kelley. “But the victims usually have a pretty good idea of who these people are, and if not, we can investigate and find out.”

The simplest route: Take the account information and/or IP addresses used by the harasser, and demand their real identity and contact info from their service providers.

Once Kelley approaches the harassers, they usually take the offending material down to avoid further legal consequences.

Unfortunately, cyber harassment doesn’t get the attention it deserves, says Kelley. “People get all upset about cookies invading the privacy,” he says. “When’s the last time someone committed suicide over a cookie?”

TY4NS blogger Dan Tynan hasn’t sued anybody yet, but there’s still time. Visit his snarky, occasionally NSFW blog eSarcasm or follow him on Twitter: @tynan_on_tech.


original article here

ARE YOU A CYBERBULLY? - TAKE THE QUIZ

Often our cyberpaths, once found out and/or exposed turn into a cyberbully to silence their victims. We have had threats of lawsuits against victims. (No predator really wants their lies or cover-up exposed!)

Other predators have threatened their victims' families, children, friends, jobs, reputations. Two even started hate sites about their victims, blaming them for everything. Both were even so childish as to think she was US!! (They only see their exposes and not the slew of the rest of them!!)

Our very first exposed predator, Charles 'Ed' Hicks still claims its "all false" and is back online doing the same all over again as well as being WANTED for jumping probation! In fact he tells new potential victims he's suing his ex-wives, Very Bad Men, Dr. Phil and the court system in Virginia for their supposedly false accusations and writing a 'tell-all' book with the 'truth!' LOL. Don't hold your breath, readers.

Of course there's the old "SHE'S JUST A SCORNED WOMAN" or "HE'S A JILTED LOVER" excuses in cyber affairs. Real life affairs use them too when the predator wants to play victim and make everyone feel sorry for him - including new targets. It's a joke. (Our advice? The minute you hear that 'scorned woman' defense? Make it your business to contact this 'scorned woman' or 'jilted man'! Someone with no secrets or destructive agenda wouldn't care if you spoke to their ex! Same applies to women predators.)

So let's find out - did your online love or cyber-friend turn into a cyberbully? Or were they a cyberbully all along?
from: DEATH BY 1000 PAPERCUTS:

Cyber-harassment, cyber-stalking, cyber-group bully, cyber-Gossip: all of these categories fall under the tactics of a cyber-bully.

Here is a quiz, take it and see it you’re a cyber-bully or if you've ever pulled some other cyber-bullying tactics during your time on-line.

Have you ever done this?

1.Signed on with someone else’s nic and password to get information.
While this does not seem like cyber-bullying if this information was to be used for ill-will, then, yes, it is cyber-bullying.

2. Sent an email or online greeting card from someone else’s account.
Again, some may claim that this is not cyber-bullying, if the email or online greeting is used to stalk or harass someone, then it falls under cyber-bullying.

3. Forwarded a private IM or email without permission.
This could be construed as a “grey” area. After all, it’s merely passing on a private email or IM and some would argue as fairly innocuous.

It boils down to intent.

Was the private conversation/email sent to someone or others with the intent to spread gossip or do harm? While most likely the victim may never know their communication has been forwarded to others, this is still harmful to that person. This is not direct cyber-bullying, more like back-stabbing cyber-bullying tactics.

4. Hacked into someone’s PC, website or blog
Not only is this cyber-bullying but also cyber-stalking and illegal. A 33-yr-old man in Florida was just sentenced to prison for 110 years after being convicted of hacking into MySpace teenaged girl’s PC’s. He threatened to harm to them or their families if they didn’t send him lewd photos.

5. Sent a virus or Trojan Horse?
This is malicious behavior with intent to do harm.

6. Posted rude, nasty or vicious (miscontrued) comments about someone online
Back to intent. Some blogs or forums can get heated and contentious but if someone’s intent is to solely post rude, nasty or vicious comments about another poster then this is cyber-bullying and cyber-gossiping.

7. Teased or frightened someone during IM chats
Teasing that goes over the line, that is meant to chip away someone’s self-esteem. The victim cries foul, the perpetrator claims “teasing.” Boo! (Not that kind of fright) Frightening someone can mean making threats to do harm.

8. Joined in a clique on a blog, website or chatroom that enjoyed driving other posters offsite
Not often talked about are the “community” blogs or chatrooms where “like-minded” posters form cliques. Part of their activities are to single out other posters for the sole purpose of driving the target off the site. This is often done in the guise of “for the good of the blog or chatroom.”

9. Accused someone of a crime online without proof
The person who is unfairly accused of committing a crime online usually has nowhere to turn. The accusers are for the most part, anonymous, the “accusation” gets spread without proof.

10. Followed someone across the Web
Kept track of other online posters, following them from blog to blog, chatroom to chatroom, site to stie. This is a form of soft-core Cyber-stalking. Not the same as showing up at their door but enough to creep anyone out. (Cyberpaths do this to see if any of their victims are "talking about them" to anyone else and then raging on as "being the victim" themselves!)

(many of our victims feel that they need to find out if their cyberpath is "doing it again" or "harming anyone else." EOPC does NOT consider that cyberstalking but accountability as well as compulsory in order to stop these predators from throwing one life away to start destroying another)
Did you answer "yes" to any of these?

Only you know the answer to that question. If you did, maybe it was a one-time occurrence. Only you know the answer to that one, too.

If you were guilty of any of these actions, you should think about changing your behavior.

Unless you want to be a cyber-bully.

ORIGINAL ARTICLE FOUND HERE

iPredator

Cyberbullying, cyber stalking, cyber crime, cyber terrorist, Internet predators and online users who engage in harmful, nefarious and malevolent activities meet criteria for iPredator. The term iPredator was developed by iPredator Inc.’s founder and partner, Dr. Michael Nuccitelli. Now made available to the public are the factors he used in the formulation of his theory.

In Dr. Nuccitelli’s article, he presents a brief overview of the 20 factors that were used in the design of the iPredator construct and all iPredator Inc.’s products, services and educational materials. Although Information and Communications Technology will continue to advance in both technology and applications, the 20 factors described by Dr. Nuccitelli, he believes, will be relevant for decades to come. A brief description of Dr. Nuccitelli’s construct that the 20 factors were used in its construction is as follows:

iPredator: A child, adult or group who engages in the exploitation, victimization, stalking, theft or disparagement of others using Information and Communications Technology (ICT.) iPredators are driven by deviant fantasies, desires for power and control, retribution, religious fanaticism, political reprisal, psychiatric illness, perceptual distortions, peer acceptance or personal and financial gain. iPredators can be any age, either gender and not bound by economic status, race or national heritage.

iPredator is a global term used to distinguish all online users who engage in criminal, deviant or abusive behaviors using Information and Communications Technology. Whether the offender is a cyberbully, cyberstalker, cyber criminal, online sexual predator, Internet troll or cyber terrorist, they fall within the scope of iPredator. There are three criteria used to define an iPredator including:

I. A self-awareness of causing harm using Information and Communications Technology.
II. The intermittent to frequent usage of Information and Communications Technology to obtain, exchange and deliver harmful information.
III. A general understanding of Cyberstealth used to profile, identify, locate, stalk and engage a target.

When an offender profile includes these three characteristics, they meet the definition of iPredator. A fourth criterion, not included in the triad defining an iPredator, is what Dr. Nuccitelli has termed iPredator Victim Intuition (IVI) and reserved for seasoned iPredators. IVI is the aptitude to sense a target's online vulnerabilities, weaknesses and technological limitations increasing their success with minimal ramifications. iPredators, through practice and learning, develop a sense and/or skill of being able to experience an intuition to know what online user will be a successful target.

As Information and Communications Technology, social media, virtual reality and the Information Age rapidly expands becoming integral to humanities daily activities, understanding the basic tenets of these new dimensions are preponderant. In 2011, the Internet celebrated its 20th birthday. In 2012, most of humanity continues to fail in understanding the golden rule of all new territory exploration. What always comes with opportunity and new frontiers are elements unknown and potentially dangerous. It is these unknown and dangerous elements lurking within cyberspace online users must be vigilant about ready to practice iPredator Protection.

As Dr. Michael Nuccitelli has stated, “The twenty factors I used in the development of iPredator can each be expanded upon and researched as to the relevance they have to cyberbullies, cyberstalkers, cyber criminals, cyber terrorist and online sexual predators. The development of iPredator is the first step in the journey to fully understand the modus operandi of all iPredators.”

iPredator Inc. was founded in September 2011 to provide educational and advisory products & services to consumers and organizations on cyberbullying, cyberstalking, sexual predators, cybercrime, Internet defamation, cyber terrorism and all forms of cyber abuse. Their goal is to reduce victimization, abuse, theft and disparagement from online assailants. Their website is the first step to educate online users on the dangers on the Internet. Dr. Nuccitelli has extensive media experience and truly enjoys educating the public on iPredator Awareness, Internet Safety, Forensic Psychology & national criminal news.

Website: http://www.iPredator.co

(EOPC publishes this for information only and it should not be construed as an endorsement)

How True Love or Tragedy is Only a Click Away

The Dangers of Online Relationships & Stalking:
How True Love or Tragedy is Only a Click Away
The Story of Kerry Kujawa
Author Raymond Chan was a classmate of Kerry Kujawa's for several years in Sugar Land, Texas. Kerry's tragic story serves as a poignant example of the dangers of online relationships with offline consequences.

An Unexpected Phone Call
Late last April I got a phone call one afternoon from a good high school friend of mine who attended Texas A&M University. Not expecting the call, I good-naturedly asked how things were going.

It was not a social call. There was no good news, and things were not going well.

Earlier that day police had identified the body of Kerry Kujawa, a fellow A&M student and an old classmate that we had gone to school with for years. Kerry's body had been found, badly decomposed and unidentifiable, in a field on a remote ranch in the Texas hill country. The story around Kerry's tragic death would come out over the next day, and its nature shocked all of us who had known him.

Kerry had been having an online relationship with whom he thought to be a young woman under the screen name 'kelly_mc', meeting and communicating through an online chat room. Her real name was "Kelly McCauley", and seemed to be a nice pre-law student who was trapped in a destructive relationship, and Kerry was one of those people who wouldn't let her stay in such an emasculating position. They seemed to grow closer and closer over the months, and eventually Kerry started to ask Kelly to meet face to face, so that he could help her. He apparently grew insistent on helping her, and on April 7th, 2000, Kerry left campus to meet her in San Antonio.

A week or so later Kerry's family and friends received an email from Kerry saying that he was ok and would be staying with Kelly for a little longer. Online, Kelly had been telling others in the close-knit chat room that she and Kerry were engaged and would be getting married soon.

In the end, this fairy tale fantasy would prove to have been a terrible tragedy. A couple weeks later Kerry's friends started to worry about his continued absence from school and field a missing-persons report. Just the day before, police had discovered Kerry's body, but had not yet been able to identify it. The news came as a crushing blow to Kerry's family, friends, and all those who had known him.

Who was 'kelly_mc'?
Kerry's online love interest, 'Kelly', was not who he or anybody else thought she was. By interviewing the operators and frequent participators of the chat room, police obtained the phone numbers and addresses that the person had given out to contact her at. Authorities were also helped by carefully examining the computers Kerry had used to send and receive emails from 'kelly_mc'. 'She' was actually 31 year-old, 6' 2" Kenny Wayne Lockwood, a former McDonald's assistant manager who lived with his parents in an upscale neighborhood in San Antonio. He had no felony convictions and described by one neighbor as being the "last [person one would assume] for being involved [in the murder]." Others neighbors described him as "quiet, a real computer geek."

It would later come out that Lockwood had used the persona of 'Kelly' to talk with other young men in addition to Kerry, luring them with an appealing story and pictures of an attractive young woman to further the ploy. To conceal his identity, Lockwood met Kerry under the pretense of being Kelly's brother, then shot and killed him and disposed of his body. To delay the discovery of the murder, Lockwood sent the email purporting to be Kerry and continued to assume the persona of 'Kelly' in the chat room and furthering the story of the two supposedly in love.

Remembering Kerry
To those of us who had known and grown up with Kerry, the news of his death came as a terrible shock. The story of his murder, however, came as an even greater surprise. Kerry was a smart, highly intelligent, and computer-savvy individual. He was not the stereotypical 'computer geek' who spent his entire social life in front of a monitor and kept indoors or a 'jock' who would have been ignorant and not understanding of computers and the inherent risks. Instead, he was a sociable individual, an avid track athlete, and a notable engineering student.

Having talked with him on an almost daily basis throughout high school, I can say that Kerry was not a soft hearted, idealistic, or romantic individual. Furthermore, he was one of the brightest minds at my high school, ranked high in the class and one who took a challenging schedule of AP courses and extra-curricular activities. I would never have guessed that Kerry would be one to be tricked into such a deep and deceptive ploy by someone else; if anything, I can recall some of the joking pranks that he had played on others. All of us who previously had read or heard stories of failed online relationships in the media and dismissed them now had to rethink our beliefs. We had to re-examine our online lives and our hollow belief that we were somehow invulnerable to the situations that these stories presented.

Kerry's death forced all of us in the community and schools to rethink our notions of the Internet and the online world. It is too easy to think of the Internet as a collection of web pages and dot.coms, a resource of information and services that exist in a space parallel but separate from the "real world." However, the Internet is as much a community of people as it is a collection of pages and files, and those people very much exist in the same world that we do. The difficulty one finds in trying to categorize and potentially control the content of static pages becomes exponentially more complicated when applied the mildly analogous realm of miscellaneous interpersonal communication online.

As the idiom goes, on the Internet nobody knows you're a dog.

The World of Online Stalkers
Online chat has become increasingly popular in recent years, offering a way for individuals to meet and talk with others in an environment that seems anonymous and open. As Kerry's story illustrates, it's both easy to meet new people online and easy to forget that these people can come from all walks of life. While people are reluctant to chat with a random person on the street, it tends to be considerably easier for people to talk freely and openly online, under the context of being essentially anonymous. However, a certain danger arises when this sense of security lulls online participants into divulging into their real-life worlds.

A common sentiment among the non-tech savvy in the early days of the Internet was that the online world was disproportionately populated with socially deviant individuals; a seamy underground world best to be avoided. As the online presence has grown, people have come to realize that the online population tends, in a general sense, to mirror the general one. However, the real power in the network is its power to connect individuals who previously had no opportunity for meeting in any real life context. The power to connect those with like interests, but also the power for those with socially deviant desires to seek and stalk their prey more easily and to confide in others who would never admit to their tendencies offline. Online stalkers harass and follow those they meet online, sometimes, as in Kerry's case, with tragic real world consequences.

As with all other aspects of the Internet, anonymous people online should be considered with the same suspicion and regard that is accorded to content. Given the ease by which anyone can publish content online, the source of information is often closely analyzed and critiqued before being considered seriously. Likewise, anyone can log on to the Internet and enter a chat room - it is always prudent to know when to trust and distrust another online.

The Scope of the Problem
While it is easy both to under- and over-state the problem, the truth remains - online stalking occurs with enough prevalence to justify caution and preventive measures among the online public. Statistics, given the uncoordinated nature of the Internet, are few, but an August 1999 study on cyberstalking by the US Attorney General for the Vice President paints a disturbing picture on the ease and seriousness of the problem. Given the severity of offline stalking - the report states that one out of every twelve women have been stalked at some point in their lives - the implications of online techniques are troubling. Even lacking direct quantitative measurement, the report cites anecdotal evidence from law enforcement and ISPs to show that "cyberstalking is a serious - and growing - problem." In addition, while it is tempting to dismiss cyberstalking as merely harassing emails and messages that can be easily ignored, it is a serious crime that can often be a prelude to offline offenses. Also, given the growing integration of online services into daily life, stalkers can interfere more and more with everyday activities such as email and online transactions.

Conclusions
Stalking is an issue of considerable concern in the offline world; the Internet serves to broaden their reach and accessibility. People who would normally have to self control to not harass others in public might not think of online interaction in the same vein. Furthermore, this new level of accessibility to questionable and illegal content poses another pressing problem - addiction to online sexual content.

Some Take Their Hate Online

By Rob Perez

Not content with just inflicting physical or verbal abuse, domestic violence offenders are turning to the digital and electronic worlds to hound their victims.

Those who deal with restraining orders in domestic abuse cases say they are seeing a growing number of examples in which the abuser uses text messaging, public Web sites or other forms of high-tech communication to reach their targets.

Family Court Judge Michael Broderick, who presides over protective-order requests, said he is seeing more cases of abusers turning to the Internet.

He recalled one recent case in which an ex-boyfriend wrote on a public Web site that his ex-girlfriend was great in bed, wanted lots of sex and listed her home address.

The high-tech abuse is happening even though protective orders that Broderick and other judges issue prohibit any type of contact, including e-mails and text-messaging. Someone who violates a protective order is subject to a year in jail and a $1,000 fine.

Allegations of high-tech abuse show up frequently on petitions for restraining orders.

"He is writing blogs about me on MySpace without my consent," one woman wrote in her petition, which alleged that her ex-boyfriend beat her, destroyed her treasured possessions and once threw her into the shower fully clothed and turned cold water on her after she refused to shower with him.

"Some blogs also contain our 'love story.' The whole world can basically read what was going on between us."

Another woman who alleged her husband physically abused her said he sent text messages about him having sex with two girls and kept referring to her as a "fat ugly whore."

One woman said her boyfriend threatened to put on the Web a video of the couple having sex — she said he took the footage without her knowledge — if she broke up with him. She broke up with him anyway but is still worried about what he might do.

The latest text message she got from him: "It's not over til I say it's over."

Some abusers take advantage of the anonymity of the Internet.

A Makakilo woman told The Advertiser her ex-boyfriend responded to her Craigslist ad, posing as a stranger. He sent a series of e-mails seeking more information about the item she was selling, then started asking personal questions about her social life. The e-mails eventually devolved into demeaning comments about her, she said.

The woman had a restraining order against the man, and she said he was using a fake name on the Internet to circumvent the court order.

When she reported the abuse to police, she was told nothing could be done because she couldn't prove the e-mails were from him, the woman said.

Sometimes, just the threat of online abuse is enough to get a response.

Ed Flores, executive director of Ala Kuola, a nonprofit that helps people file petitions for restraining orders, said a woman recently came to his office to complete paperwork seeking an order against her boyfriend, who had been physically abusing her.

While she was at the office, her alleged abuser called on her cell phone and threatened to write about their sex history on a public Web site if she went through with the petition.

The next day, Flores said, the woman called to say she wasn't going to pursue the restraining order because of her boyfriend's threat.

ORIGINAL ARTICLE FOUND HERE

CYBERBULLIES

CYBERBULLIES
"Cyberstalkers are often driven by revenge, hate, anger, jealousy, obsession and mental illness. While a cyberharasser may be motivated by some of these same feelings, often the harassment is driven by the desire to frighten or embarrass the harassment victim.

"Sometimes the harasser intends to teach the victim a lesson in netiquette or political correctness (from the harasser's point of view). Often the cyberharassment victim is merely in the wrong place at the wrong time, or has made a comment or expressed an opinion that the cyberharasser dislikes.

We have even seen cases where the victim is merely being targeted because they are the first ones the cyberharasser encounters when they are in a "bad mood."

Excerpted from wiredsafety.org.
The World's largest online safety and help group.

CLICK HERE FOR INFORMATION ON HOW TO CAPTURE AND STORE ONLINE EVIDENCE OF CYBERBULLYING AND CYBERPATH-ING.