5 ms·

Girl’s Suicide Points to Rise in Apps Used by Cyberbullies

30 points by kenjackson 13y ago

DanBC 13y ago
(Be aware that this article uses weirdly graphic descriptions of a completed suicide. That kind of description should be avoided because of the Werther effect.) ask.fm received some press coverage after youths in the UK completed suicide. (http://www.bbc.co.uk/search/news/?q=ask.fm http://www.bbc.co.uk/search/news/?q=ask.fm) (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-leicestershire-23825049 http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-leicestershire-23825049) (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-23756069 http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-23756069) (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-23752923 http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-23752923) (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-23751909 http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-23751909) (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-23727673 http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-23727673)
fixermark 13y ago
"“Don’t ignore your kids,” Ms. Norman said, “even if they seem fine.”" That seems like the best piece of advice in the article.
- jdludlow 13y ago
  That and don't give kids unmonitored access to the internet and text-capable cell phones. There's really no reason at all for them to have those things, aside from "everyone else does."
  - Bud 13y ago
    Yes. Because keeping your kids from playing with the other kids the way everyone else is playing has always worked so very well, as an infallible means of preventing bullying. This is just a simplistic idea. "Unmonitored" is the only useful word in it. It's true that parents need to monitor what their kids are doing.
    - muuh-gnu 13y ago
      By your logic it would be wrong to prevent your kid from taking drugs (or partaking in any other personally destructive vice) because all of their friends take drugs and would bully her if she doesnt. Dont you see how taking the route of least resistance (negotiating with terrorists) can not work in the long term? The list of things she shouldnt be allowed to do but you have to allow to prevent bullying would grow day by day and make her life more and more miserable because she would be bullied into doing countless things she doesnt really even want to and instead of helping by preventing it, her parent indirectly helps the bullies by inaction. The bullies have to be attacked directly, not indirectly. Appeasement never works and has never worked.
- buo 13y ago
  I know I'm in the minority here, but my offspring will only have smartphones when they are old enough to buy them and pay for their plans themselves.
  - sixbrx 13y ago
    I can agree with that, I've given a smartphone to my teenage daughter, but have had to take it away on weekdays because it's turned into an all-consuming "permanent distraction device". It's amazing how much kids are addicted to social media, it seemed to be leading to the development of a very short attention span before I pulled the plug. We'll see how things go "unplugged".
- ChuckMcM 13y ago
  I raised 3 daughters, I was tremendously fortunate in that my wife was able to manage home schooling them through their middle school years. (Trust me, nobody asks "but what about interactions with other kids" when we're talking about middle school :-). We also always had dinner together and both my wife and I had a set of 'ice breakers' if you will which if the kids weren't talking we'd bring out. And we'd ask the negative questions too (what was the worst thing about today?) But generally talking, starting from a young age, and working very very hard to keep trust levels high helped (not perfect but nothing is). And I gave my girls monitored access to the Internet (not in their rooms, but in a common area). That too was a subject of discussion and negotiation. (my eldest loved to write up contracts we would all sign). The common theme though is it takes active parenting, and for some parents it is hard to see the 'value' of being involved in their kids lives. And part of that is never excepting "oh its nothing." as an answer. Easy to say, hard to do.
k-mcgrady 13y ago
I'm really curious about one aspect of cyber-bullying. With regular bullying in schools you have to face the person bullying you everyday and without the intervention of an adult it's difficult to stop the abuse. With cyber-bullying you can just close your account and the cyber-bullying stops. You may still encounter the problem in the real world but the cyber portion is finished. I'm not trying to trivialise it and I understand when you're on the receiving end of bullying it might not seem this simple but every time I've seen one of these stories recently it's a question I've asked myself. Is there any data to show why people who have been cyber-bullied don't just shut down their accounts?
- grannyg00se 13y ago
  Wondered the same. Her mom closed her facebook acct and took other measures, and the girl went back to other sites. I suppose that if there is a massive concentration of social activity online and you want to be part of it you will endure the bullying rather than be an outcast. Very complicated situation, I'm sure. Can victims become addicted to the attention, even if it is negative?
  - gametheoretic 13y ago
    Break it down further - the attention isn't monolithic. There are bullies, there are friends, there are friends who bully, bullies you want to be friends with, shit's complicated. That emotional confusion can get you stuck in a loop. You don't realize you're on a rollercoaster, addicted not to the highs or the lows but the difference between them. Stability, flat ground, feels like flatlining. You're a junkie, and nobody knows it, least of all you, because every inch of it is in your head, where you make sure never to find it. E.g., "Love The Way You Lie."
- DanBC 13y ago
  See link given below where the sister of a girl who completed suicide described the "addictiveness" of social media apps. > it might not seem this simple Quite. Someone feels sad and alone. Social media might be the channel for abuse and bullying, but it might also be where their friends are.
aznjons 13y ago
I feel like this kind of horrific tragedy must be addressed and especially in the context of virtual/computer facilitated environments by developers and engineers. Here is a problem that I would like to see combated with machine learning and sentiment analysis. Combined with moderation and report functions efforts can be made to identify extreme bullying and address/stop the perpetrators. Indicators of suicidal thoughts in, for example, Google searches could be a channel for parental notification to prevent these kinds of tragedies. I am not an expert, but leveraging the technology available to help in the fight against extreme bullying seems like a worthy pursuit alongside education of parents and children as well as stricter legislation on harassment and bullying that leads to injury or death.
enupten 13y ago
Given all the backdoors and remote access stuff that are in place already, surely it should be a piece of cake to give parents some sort of remote access to their children's phones ?
- grannyg00se 13y ago
  This mother actually did close facebook, even moved her kid to a new school. She did quite a bit more than many parents would have and it still wasn't enough. I don't think it is reasonable to put a 24/7 multi-year, constant surveillance burden on the average parent. And what about enforcement? So you see bad stuff on your kid's phone repeatedly...in the end all you can do is take it away. Then they go to the computer. Then you take that away. Then they stay after school to use the computers there. Really I don't expect the symptom mitigation solutions to be very effective.
- jafaku 13y ago
  I'm sure that's illegal in most places.
  - mikeash 13y ago
    Unlikely. A child's phone is almost certainly the legal property of the parent, who can do more or less what they wish with it.
    - jafaku 13y ago
      Lol, where do you get that from? That logic won't take you far in a courtroom. Children have the same basic human rights you have, you can't violate their privacy just because you own something they use.
kleats 13y ago
I operate a social network with many young teens, and in nearly all of these cases, they are actually sending the messages to themselves, just like what ask.fm said about that girl that committed suicide.
- jsdalton 13y ago
  > they are actually sending the messages to themselves, just like what ask.fm said about that girl that committed suicide What are you referring to? I did not see this in the article.
  - mynameishere 13y ago
    No idea why people would make such a reference without explaining it. He means this http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2389212/Hannah-Smith-Suicide-teen-trolled-say-Latvian-website-chiefs-Ask-fm.html http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2389212/Hannah-Smith... ...it would explain the question, "Why didn't she just close her account?"
ChuckMcM 13y ago
I would support making the parents of children who bully liable for civil penalties in cases like these.
- grannyg00se 13y ago
  How? The parents wouldn't even know. Sounds like you want to legislate a certain parenting rigor involving a high level of parental involvement.
  - pstack 13y ago
    Naw, let's put the onus on the internet and force everyone to submit their anonymity and browse only via a paid-for internet license using their real identity, instead. That way nobody ever gets their feelings hurt and no adults have to get off their asses and do the hard work of raising or looking after children, be they parents of bullied kids, parents of bullies, school administrators, teachers, or cops. If we just skunk the internet, we can save all these poor souls from doing any heavy lifting. Parents wont' have to go to the school or police or other parents about their poor kid. Other parents can continue to say "kids will be kids" and teachers/administrators can continue to watch youtube videos during class while pretending not to be aware of the harassment and violence occurring in their classrooms and hallways five feet away from them.
  - ChuckMcM 13y ago
    Well in general there are three things that go along with this; 1) Creating the legislation/framework which is to say put into place the structure about how people can be found complicit and sanctions based on various schemes. 2) Outreach and awareness to the at risk population that help is out there and that the behavior is unacceptable and that something other than a scolding is at risk here. 3) Civil actions in high profile cases which reinforce the message and provide case law to guide other actions. An analog might be civil actions against bars for serving alcohol to clearly inebriated patrons. We did a booth where we sold beer at an Art & Wine festival and had to get mandatory training on the signs so that we wouldn't do something that made us liable under California's laws if we served drunk people and they later did something bad. But before we got to the 'how' we should probably make sure that we agree that this a parenting problem. In my day reporting bullying to parents was often met with a shrug rather than action, and school expulsion a temporary set back for bullies.
aperture 13y ago
I don't want to knock down the issues of cyber bullying, but I don't feel this article does anything to fix the situation. All this article tells me is this girl was a victim, her mom stopped it, then her mom relaxed and suicide resulted after further bullying. The article hints that there was some drama with a boyfriend, but doesn't flesh any of that out. I want to address the bullies. Did they realize the impact that they were having? Were they angry at her perhaps spreading rumors, acting superior in school, what was the bully's perspective of this girl? As hinted by other comments here, why do teenagers choose to go more and more into the negative feedback loop they create in social media. It is also worth considering what social applications can do about this. All a social app needs to say is "Hey, here's a person from your old school who bullied you. You should be his friend." and all the ads marketing towards advil after her google search? Cyberbullying is a field I have so many questions about. This article serves to show that we know so little about cyberbullying, but it is a serious concern.
NAFV_P 13y ago
If this had happened to me 20 years ago, my parents and teachers would have said, "you are too sensitive, you need to ignore it". This may have been said to me in front of the perpetrators. Then I would be reminded that I must be careful regarding my behaviour, I must not place the reputation of the school in disrepute.
lcedp 13y ago
> You’ve reached the limit of 10 free articles a month. So a link on a Hackers' site suggests me to buy subscription in order to obtain information about (possibly important) social topic. Is it acceptable for hackers' culture these days?
- DanBC 13y ago
  > Is it acceptable for hackers' culture these days? Yes, paying for content that you consume is generally acceptable. Or working out a method to circumvent the paywall.
  - lcedp 13y ago
    I don't mind anybody paying whatever they wish for and I'm well aware about user-agents, tor and stuff. Though paywall link on hackers site looks unnatural to me. It's all about sharing and openness. At list informational content should be accessible. "oh look such a tragic story, keep your children safe subscribers (we don't care about non-subscribers' kids, though)"
LinaLauneBaer 13y ago
I was a victim of cyber bullying myself: 12 years ago. At that time a class mate simply registered a domain and put a guest book up there. Many of my other class mates used the guest book to backbite me. The hottest topics were my sexual orientation (I was 14 years old back then, so no fun), my stupidness, and so on. It was very bad. The guest book can still be seen in the web archive(.org) and every time I do so I start crying. It was a horrible time. Granted: Cyber bullying was only one part of the bullying against me. I saw those haters every day in school. In school I was physically beaten. At home I was beaten psychological by this guest book. Even people I did not know or interacted with back then suddenly began writing bad things about me in this guest book. When I got better in programming I wrote a small script that checks the availability of that said domain. A few months ago that script told me that the domain is now available. I immediately registered the domain. It is now in my possession.
- e40 13y ago
  Wow, the bully held onto it for 12 years? That's amazing. Have you thought of putting up the tale, on that domain, of what happened to you?
  - LinaLauneBaer 13y ago
    Yes the guy held onto it for 12 years. Putting the story up there would be a bold move... I am still traumatized by it.
    - e40 13y ago
      I am still traumatized by it. I can image you are. Telling the story might enable you to own the trauma in a way you haven't until now. I can't, however, say that would be best for you to do. Only you know that. I hope you find the healing you deserve for this.
javajosh 13y ago
I'm not normally a fan, but this seems to be a good application for some traditional vigilante justice. Yes, it's distasteful, but if done correctly (think "The A-Team") it can be a force for good. Imagine, a team of elite hackers, roving the internet, protecting the weak. Bullies who think they are safe and secure behind the parents, the schools, and the society that ignores the reality of the fact that "mere words" cause a great deal of pain (and, as http://xkcd.com/1216/ http://xkcd.com/1216/ points out, words cause far more pain than any physical torment). I can imagine that such a team would often target the power structures around the kids, first asking parents or teachers to intervene, and if that doesn't work, resorting to things like straight-up blackmail (find some dirt on the parents to force them to force their bullying kids to stop going on line). I imagine that for 90% of cases it would be enough to a) notify the parents and b) send them email notifications every time their child (tries to) say something hateful. And, at the very least, it's a fun web serial concept.
static_typed 13y ago
There will always be bullies, especially in the school years, the big difference is now that the internet gives them further reach, if, the victim allows it. Not that the victim should have to avoid any websites, but thankfully there is that option, whether they choose it, or a parent or guardian is able to step in and do so. I think the bigger problem is this - how do we setup online environments, social platforms where bullies can be quickly outed? Make all posts public? Moderated posts only? In in ideal world, the parents of the bullies would be informed of the actions of their offspring, which does in some cases happen, and in a few cases work, but is harder to enact online. The one single thing I always advise parents with children online is simple - be the person paying the bill, own the admin rights, and until the mid teen years, make sure you keep an eye on the sites and contact. Only step in if there is a real problem.
bloodofheroes 13y ago
The writer successfully alerts us to the problem of how these apps are being used, but I'd like to hear more about this girl's family life. Why no mention of her father? Why does she have different last name than her mother? Why was she "dating" at such a young age? Why is her mother portrayed in isolation rather than as part of a healthy community? Everything in the article seems to be symptomatic of the issues that we should really be talking about.

30 points by kenjackson 13y ago

DanBC 13y ago

(Be aware that this article uses weirdly graphic descriptions of a completed suicide. That kind of description should be avoided because of the Werther effect.) ask.fm received some press coverage after youths in the UK completed suicide. (http://www.bbc.co.uk/search/news/?q=ask.fm http://www.bbc.co.uk/search/news/?q=ask.fm) (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-leicestershire-23825049 http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-leicestershire-23825049) (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-23756069 http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-23756069) (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-23752923 http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-23752923) (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-23751909 http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-23751909) (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-23727673 http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-23727673)

fixermark 13y ago

"“Don’t ignore your kids,” Ms. Norman said, “even if they seem fine.”" That seems like the best piece of advice in the article.

jdludlow 13y ago
That and don't give kids unmonitored access to the internet and text-capable cell phones. There's really no reason at all for them to have those things, aside from "everyone else does."
- Bud 13y ago
  Yes. Because keeping your kids from playing with the other kids the way everyone else is playing has always worked so very well, as an infallible means of preventing bullying. This is just a simplistic idea. "Unmonitored" is the only useful word in it. It's true that parents need to monitor what their kids are doing.
  - muuh-gnu 13y ago
    By your logic it would be wrong to prevent your kid from taking drugs (or partaking in any other personally destructive vice) because all of their friends take drugs and would bully her if she doesnt. Dont you see how taking the route of least resistance (negotiating with terrorists) can not work in the long term? The list of things she shouldnt be allowed to do but you have to allow to prevent bullying would grow day by day and make her life more and more miserable because she would be bullied into doing countless things she doesnt really even want to and instead of helping by preventing it, her parent indirectly helps the bullies by inaction. The bullies have to be attacked directly, not indirectly. Appeasement never works and has never worked.
buo 13y ago
I know I'm in the minority here, but my offspring will only have smartphones when they are old enough to buy them and pay for their plans themselves.
- sixbrx 13y ago
  I can agree with that, I've given a smartphone to my teenage daughter, but have had to take it away on weekdays because it's turned into an all-consuming "permanent distraction device". It's amazing how much kids are addicted to social media, it seemed to be leading to the development of a very short attention span before I pulled the plug. We'll see how things go "unplugged".
ChuckMcM 13y ago
I raised 3 daughters, I was tremendously fortunate in that my wife was able to manage home schooling them through their middle school years. (Trust me, nobody asks "but what about interactions with other kids" when we're talking about middle school :-). We also always had dinner together and both my wife and I had a set of 'ice breakers' if you will which if the kids weren't talking we'd bring out. And we'd ask the negative questions too (what was the worst thing about today?) But generally talking, starting from a young age, and working very very hard to keep trust levels high helped (not perfect but nothing is). And I gave my girls monitored access to the Internet (not in their rooms, but in a common area). That too was a subject of discussion and negotiation. (my eldest loved to write up contracts we would all sign). The common theme though is it takes active parenting, and for some parents it is hard to see the 'value' of being involved in their kids lives. And part of that is never excepting "oh its nothing." as an answer. Easy to say, hard to do.

k-mcgrady 13y ago

I'm really curious about one aspect of cyber-bullying. With regular bullying in schools you have to face the person bullying you everyday and without the intervention of an adult it's difficult to stop the abuse. With cyber-bullying you can just close your account and the cyber-bullying stops. You may still encounter the problem in the real world but the cyber portion is finished. I'm not trying to trivialise it and I understand when you're on the receiving end of bullying it might not seem this simple but every time I've seen one of these stories recently it's a question I've asked myself. Is there any data to show why people who have been cyber-bullied don't just shut down their accounts?

grannyg00se 13y ago
Wondered the same. Her mom closed her facebook acct and took other measures, and the girl went back to other sites. I suppose that if there is a massive concentration of social activity online and you want to be part of it you will endure the bullying rather than be an outcast. Very complicated situation, I'm sure. Can victims become addicted to the attention, even if it is negative?
- gametheoretic 13y ago
  Break it down further - the attention isn't monolithic. There are bullies, there are friends, there are friends who bully, bullies you want to be friends with, shit's complicated. That emotional confusion can get you stuck in a loop. You don't realize you're on a rollercoaster, addicted not to the highs or the lows but the difference between them. Stability, flat ground, feels like flatlining. You're a junkie, and nobody knows it, least of all you, because every inch of it is in your head, where you make sure never to find it. E.g., "Love The Way You Lie."
DanBC 13y ago
See link given below where the sister of a girl who completed suicide described the "addictiveness" of social media apps. > it might not seem this simple Quite. Someone feels sad and alone. Social media might be the channel for abuse and bullying, but it might also be where their friends are.

aznjons 13y ago

I feel like this kind of horrific tragedy must be addressed and especially in the context of virtual/computer facilitated environments by developers and engineers. Here is a problem that I would like to see combated with machine learning and sentiment analysis. Combined with moderation and report functions efforts can be made to identify extreme bullying and address/stop the perpetrators. Indicators of suicidal thoughts in, for example, Google searches could be a channel for parental notification to prevent these kinds of tragedies. I am not an expert, but leveraging the technology available to help in the fight against extreme bullying seems like a worthy pursuit alongside education of parents and children as well as stricter legislation on harassment and bullying that leads to injury or death.

enupten 13y ago

Given all the backdoors and remote access stuff that are in place already, surely it should be a piece of cake to give parents some sort of remote access to their children's phones ?

grannyg00se 13y ago
This mother actually did close facebook, even moved her kid to a new school. She did quite a bit more than many parents would have and it still wasn't enough. I don't think it is reasonable to put a 24/7 multi-year, constant surveillance burden on the average parent. And what about enforcement? So you see bad stuff on your kid's phone repeatedly...in the end all you can do is take it away. Then they go to the computer. Then you take that away. Then they stay after school to use the computers there. Really I don't expect the symptom mitigation solutions to be very effective.
jafaku 13y ago
I'm sure that's illegal in most places.
- mikeash 13y ago
  Unlikely. A child's phone is almost certainly the legal property of the parent, who can do more or less what they wish with it.
  - jafaku 13y ago
    Lol, where do you get that from? That logic won't take you far in a courtroom. Children have the same basic human rights you have, you can't violate their privacy just because you own something they use.

kleats 13y ago

I operate a social network with many young teens, and in nearly all of these cases, they are actually sending the messages to themselves, just like what ask.fm said about that girl that committed suicide.

jsdalton 13y ago
> they are actually sending the messages to themselves, just like what ask.fm said about that girl that committed suicide What are you referring to? I did not see this in the article.
- mynameishere 13y ago
  No idea why people would make such a reference without explaining it. He means this http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2389212/Hannah-Smith-Suicide-teen-trolled-say-Latvian-website-chiefs-Ask-fm.html http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2389212/Hannah-Smith... ...it would explain the question, "Why didn't she just close her account?"

ChuckMcM 13y ago

I would support making the parents of children who bully liable for civil penalties in cases like these.

grannyg00se 13y ago
How? The parents wouldn't even know. Sounds like you want to legislate a certain parenting rigor involving a high level of parental involvement.
- pstack 13y ago
  Naw, let's put the onus on the internet and force everyone to submit their anonymity and browse only via a paid-for internet license using their real identity, instead. That way nobody ever gets their feelings hurt and no adults have to get off their asses and do the hard work of raising or looking after children, be they parents of bullied kids, parents of bullies, school administrators, teachers, or cops. If we just skunk the internet, we can save all these poor souls from doing any heavy lifting. Parents wont' have to go to the school or police or other parents about their poor kid. Other parents can continue to say "kids will be kids" and teachers/administrators can continue to watch youtube videos during class while pretending not to be aware of the harassment and violence occurring in their classrooms and hallways five feet away from them.
- ChuckMcM 13y ago
  Well in general there are three things that go along with this; 1) Creating the legislation/framework which is to say put into place the structure about how people can be found complicit and sanctions based on various schemes. 2) Outreach and awareness to the at risk population that help is out there and that the behavior is unacceptable and that something other than a scolding is at risk here. 3) Civil actions in high profile cases which reinforce the message and provide case law to guide other actions. An analog might be civil actions against bars for serving alcohol to clearly inebriated patrons. We did a booth where we sold beer at an Art & Wine festival and had to get mandatory training on the signs so that we wouldn't do something that made us liable under California's laws if we served drunk people and they later did something bad. But before we got to the 'how' we should probably make sure that we agree that this a parenting problem. In my day reporting bullying to parents was often met with a shrug rather than action, and school expulsion a temporary set back for bullies.

aperture 13y ago

I don't want to knock down the issues of cyber bullying, but I don't feel this article does anything to fix the situation. All this article tells me is this girl was a victim, her mom stopped it, then her mom relaxed and suicide resulted after further bullying. The article hints that there was some drama with a boyfriend, but doesn't flesh any of that out. I want to address the bullies. Did they realize the impact that they were having? Were they angry at her perhaps spreading rumors, acting superior in school, what was the bully's perspective of this girl? As hinted by other comments here, why do teenagers choose to go more and more into the negative feedback loop they create in social media. It is also worth considering what social applications can do about this. All a social app needs to say is "Hey, here's a person from your old school who bullied you. You should be his friend." and all the ads marketing towards advil after her google search? Cyberbullying is a field I have so many questions about. This article serves to show that we know so little about cyberbullying, but it is a serious concern.

NAFV_P 13y ago

If this had happened to me 20 years ago, my parents and teachers would have said, "you are too sensitive, you need to ignore it". This may have been said to me in front of the perpetrators. Then I would be reminded that I must be careful regarding my behaviour, I must not place the reputation of the school in disrepute.

lcedp 13y ago

> You’ve reached the limit of 10 free articles a month. So a link on a Hackers' site suggests me to buy subscription in order to obtain information about (possibly important) social topic. Is it acceptable for hackers' culture these days?

DanBC 13y ago
> Is it acceptable for hackers' culture these days? Yes, paying for content that you consume is generally acceptable. Or working out a method to circumvent the paywall.
- lcedp 13y ago
  I don't mind anybody paying whatever they wish for and I'm well aware about user-agents, tor and stuff. Though paywall link on hackers site looks unnatural to me. It's all about sharing and openness. At list informational content should be accessible. "oh look such a tragic story, keep your children safe subscribers (we don't care about non-subscribers' kids, though)"

LinaLauneBaer 13y ago

I was a victim of cyber bullying myself: 12 years ago. At that time a class mate simply registered a domain and put a guest book up there. Many of my other class mates used the guest book to backbite me. The hottest topics were my sexual orientation (I was 14 years old back then, so no fun), my stupidness, and so on. It was very bad. The guest book can still be seen in the web archive(.org) and every time I do so I start crying. It was a horrible time. Granted: Cyber bullying was only one part of the bullying against me. I saw those haters every day in school. In school I was physically beaten. At home I was beaten psychological by this guest book. Even people I did not know or interacted with back then suddenly began writing bad things about me in this guest book. When I got better in programming I wrote a small script that checks the availability of that said domain. A few months ago that script told me that the domain is now available. I immediately registered the domain. It is now in my possession.

e40 13y ago
Wow, the bully held onto it for 12 years? That's amazing. Have you thought of putting up the tale, on that domain, of what happened to you?
- LinaLauneBaer 13y ago
  Yes the guy held onto it for 12 years. Putting the story up there would be a bold move... I am still traumatized by it.
  - e40 13y ago
    I am still traumatized by it. I can image you are. Telling the story might enable you to own the trauma in a way you haven't until now. I can't, however, say that would be best for you to do. Only you know that. I hope you find the healing you deserve for this.

javajosh 13y ago

I'm not normally a fan, but this seems to be a good application for some traditional vigilante justice. Yes, it's distasteful, but if done correctly (think "The A-Team") it can be a force for good. Imagine, a team of elite hackers, roving the internet, protecting the weak. Bullies who think they are safe and secure behind the parents, the schools, and the society that ignores the reality of the fact that "mere words" cause a great deal of pain (and, as http://xkcd.com/1216/ http://xkcd.com/1216/ points out, words cause far more pain than any physical torment). I can imagine that such a team would often target the power structures around the kids, first asking parents or teachers to intervene, and if that doesn't work, resorting to things like straight-up blackmail (find some dirt on the parents to force them to force their bullying kids to stop going on line). I imagine that for 90% of cases it would be enough to a) notify the parents and b) send them email notifications every time their child (tries to) say something hateful. And, at the very least, it's a fun web serial concept.

static_typed 13y ago

There will always be bullies, especially in the school years, the big difference is now that the internet gives them further reach, if, the victim allows it. Not that the victim should have to avoid any websites, but thankfully there is that option, whether they choose it, or a parent or guardian is able to step in and do so. I think the bigger problem is this - how do we setup online environments, social platforms where bullies can be quickly outed? Make all posts public? Moderated posts only? In in ideal world, the parents of the bullies would be informed of the actions of their offspring, which does in some cases happen, and in a few cases work, but is harder to enact online. The one single thing I always advise parents with children online is simple - be the person paying the bill, own the admin rights, and until the mid teen years, make sure you keep an eye on the sites and contact. Only step in if there is a real problem.

bloodofheroes 13y ago

The writer successfully alerts us to the problem of how these apps are being used, but I'd like to hear more about this girl's family life. Why no mention of her father? Why does she have different last name than her mother? Why was she "dating" at such a young age? Why is her mother portrayed in isolation rather than as part of a healthy community? Everything in the article seems to be symptomatic of the issues that we should really be talking about.