Jim Liebelt's Youth Culture Watch

Dark Side of the Internet

Just in case you had any doubts that there is a darker side to the Internet (and I'm not even referring to Internet pornography) consider this current example:

• Eleven-year-old Jessie Leonhardt (aka "Jessi Slaughter" and "kerligirl13") has a computer, unsupervised internet access, and web cam - with her parents' approval.

• Through her online interactions, she started collecting "haters" - people who would post negative comments about her and her posts.

• Jessie responded to the "haters" by recording and uploading a video of herself - in a verbally explicit rant against them (one that might make Mel Gibson proud).

• Given the viral nature of online video, the video was re-posted repeatedly and ended up on a popular "trolling" website. These websites are known for attracting people whose intent is to select individuals and harass them online and offline.

• Internet users began attacking Jessie online with comments, posting her personal information (address, phone number, email, social networking information). Jessie's family was deluged with phone calls, pranks, and threats.

• Jessie posted another video (crying) and her dad jumped in and began yelling into the camera. This video went viral also. Some of the Jessie videos have received over a million views.

• The harassment continued with posts of rumors that her father had given Jessie PCP and that she had committed suicide.

• Jessie was eventually placed in protective police custody.

What can parents learn from this? Jessie's story underscores the importance of proactive parental supervision of their kids' Internet usage.

In an interview with the website MomLogic, Jessie's mother remarked that all of Jessie's friends have computers and web cams and that they video chat with each other. She said that she was unaware that Jessie had been making videos. She said that she can't be in the room with Jessie 24/7.

But, Jessie IS ONLY eleven-years-old, has acquired knowledge and vocabulary that would make many adults blush, and clearly Mom and Dad did not set any sort of appropriate boundaries or consequences for violating their expectations.

The Internet is perhaps the most powerful information and communication tool ever invented. But, it does have a dark side. In my mind, while I understand that even in the best circumstances parenting is difficult, the major cause of this sad story has to do with Mom and Dad's lack of proactive and protective parenting.

Source: Momlogic
Warning: The videos embedded in the Momlogic link below contain explicit language.
http://www.momlogic.com/2010/07/exclusive_interview_mom_defends_11_year_old_youtube_sensation_jessi_slaughter_jessica_leonhardt_dianne_leonhardt.php

NYC Wants Teen 'Sexting' Ban, In School And Home

Parents and schools struggle with the role technology plays in kids' lives. But a new push to keep them safe has some saying it goes too far.

New York City schools now want to punish students caught "sexting" -- no matter where they do it.

The Department of Education wants to ban both cyber bullying and sexting in New York City's public schools at all times, even outside of school hours.

The sexting proposal has drawn the opposition New York's Civil Liberties Union. 

The proposal would let a principal do anything from hold a parent conference to expel for cyber bullying.

Not only does the Department of Education want to ban sexually explicit text messaging that students may do off hours on nights, weekends and summer vacation, but they also want to punish them for it, handing out up to a 90-day suspension.

Some students said this proposal is going too far. 

Yet parents find it less of a black and white issue.

"I wouldn't want them punishing my child, but somehow if we could prevent sexting and cyber bullying and everything I would be in favor of that," said Brooklyn resident Betsy Davidson.

Source: WCBSTV
http://wcbstv.com/local/sexting.nyc.sexting.2.1760507.html

Chubby Kids Get Bullied More Often

The danger of bullying has been making headlines recently, and now a new study shows heavy kids are more likely to be picked on than their normal-weight peers.

The study confirms other research that chubby children are more likely to be the victims of bullying. About one-third of kids in the USA weigh too much.

Researchers at the University of Michigan-Ann Arbor analyzed the bullying incidents of 821 children ages 8 to 11.

The study, reported today online in Pediatrics, found that obese children were more likely to be bullied than normal-weight peers, regardless of gender, race, socioeconomic status, school demographic profile, social skills or academic achievement.

Source: USA Today
http://www.usatoday.com/news/health/weightloss/2010-05-03-chubbykidsbullied03_ST_N.htm

A 'Watershed' Case in School Bullying?

Last week I posted on the criminal charges brought against nine Massachusetts teenagers in the wake of 15-year-old Phoebe Prince's suicide on January 14. An interesting article today in USA Today provides more details, an overview of bullying in our culture, and how prosecuting these teens might become a watershed case for American schools in how they might have to deal more aggressively with school bullying in the future as a result.

At first, it seemed like a morality play: school officials stand by as an innocent high school freshman, new in town, is harassed into suicide by a pack of older teens.

A week after criminal charges were filed, the case of Phoebe Prince seems more cloudy and complicated, much like the insidious national problem that may have helped kill her: school bullying.

Parents might not realize that the stereotypical bully of generations past — a swaggering schoolyard lout, low on self-esteem, quick to lash out, easy to identify — has become as anachronistic as the blackboard at many schools.

Educational psychologists describe a new kind of bullying. The perpetrators are attractive, athletic and academically accomplished — and comfortable enough around adults to know what they can and can't get away with, in school and online.

Last week, the district attorney here created a sensation when she took a rare step, filing criminal charges against nine South Hadley High School students who allegedly bullied Phoebe Prince until she hanged herself at home Jan. 14.

Felony charges against six of the teens, two boys and four girls, range from statutory rape to stalking and civil-rights violations. Three other girls were charged as juveniles.

The students will be arraigned this week. Whatever the resolution of the charges, "this case feels like a watershed" for American schools, says Elizabeth Englander, founder of the Massachusetts Aggression Reduction Center at Bridgewater State College. By bringing criminal charges, "the D.A. really vaulted this into another class."

Source: USA Today
http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2010-04-04-bullying_N.htm

Teen Suicides Prompt New Prevention Ad Campaign

A public service ad campaign launching today is designed to help troubled teenagers before it's too late.

Suicide is the third leading cause of death among 15- to 24-year-olds, following accidents and homicides, according to government data.

In an effort to reduce such tragedies, the government worked with the Ad Council and the Inspire USA Foundation to create "We Can Help Us," a national public service advertising campaign. It includes TV, radio and print PSAs as well as posters in schools and malls.

This campaign comes on the heels of a number of recent Associated Press reports of teen suicide:

•Phoebe Prince, 15, of South Hadley, Mass, hanged herself at home in January after experiencing a wave of severe taunting, bullying and physical threats by some fellow students in school and on Facebook.

•Marie Osmond's son Michael Blosil, 18, committed suicide in late February, jumping from the eighth floor of his apartment building in Los Angeles. He left a note in which he referred to his life-long battle with depression.

•Two sophomores from Norwood, Pa., died in an apparent suicide pact in February when they stood on train tracks and were killed by a high-speed Acela train.

•Six confirmed or suspected suicides have occurred this academic year at Cornell University in Ithaca, N.Y.

Source: USA Today
http://www.usatoday.com/news/health/2010-03-31-suicideprevention31_ST_N.htm

9 Teens Charged in Girl’s Bullying

In January, I posted about a Massachusetts teen, Phoebe Prince, who committed suicide following months of bullying by classmates. Yesterday, Massachusetts authorities charged 9 teens who allegedly harassed the 15-year-old student in the months before her suicide. While we won't know the outcome of the prosecution for some months, it seems appropriate that law enforcement officials are charting a proactive course in dealing with extreme cases of bullying, one that might serve as a cautionary example to teens in the future.

Parents should also be mindful of potential consequences of bullying, for both the bullied and the bully. Parents who are aware that their child is being bullied or is bullying, should take action to intervene.

With sharp words and a strikingly aggressive prosecutorial stance, authorities yesterday spelled out a litany of charges against nine teenagers accused of subjecting 15-year-old South Hadley student Phoebe Prince to months of tortuous harassment before she hanged herself in a stairwell at home.

Northwestern District Attorney Elizabeth Scheibel, who outlined the charges, also faulted officials at South Hadley High School, saying her investigation determined the girl’s harassment had been “common knowledge,’’ contradicting administrators’ previous assertions that they had been unaware of problems until after her death.

Scheibel described in painful detail Prince’s last day at school, saying that her investigation found the Irish immigrant was taunted in the hallways and bombarded with vulgar insults. As she studied in the library during lunch, the accused students allegedly hounded her openly while other students and a teacher looked on. The witnesses alerted school administrators only after her death.

“It appears that Phoebe’s death on Jan. 14 followed a tortuous day for her, in which she was subjected to verbal harassment and threatened physical abuse,’’ Scheibel said. “The events were not isolated, but the culmination of a nearly-three month campaign of verbally assaultive behavior and threats of physical harm.’’

The nature of the charges — ranging from criminal harassment and civil rights violations to stalking and statutory rape — hints at a forceful strategy of taking many legal avenues in the pursuit of convictions, legal specialists said.

The vast majority of the bullying took place during the school day, Scheibel said, and online harassment played a secondary role.

Source: Boston Globe
http://www.boston.com/news/local/massachusetts/articles/2010/03/30/da_charges_9_teens_faults_school_officials_in_s_hadley_bullying_case/

Physcial Bullying on the Decline

In a recently released study in the Archives of Pediatric and Adolescent Medicine, authors David Finkelhor, Heather Turner, Richard Ormrod, and Sherry Hamby found that the percentage of youth (2-17) reporting physical bullying in the past year went down from 22 percent to 15 percent between 2003 and 2008. The study also found that the percentage reporting a sexual assault decreased from 3.3 percent to 2 percent.

Finkelhor, who lead the study, pointed out that declines in bullying and sexual assault, were problems that have been aggressively targeted by school programs and other prevention efforts in recent years. "This suggests that some of the decline may be the fruits of those programs," he said.

Source: CNET News
http://news.cnet.com/8301-19518_3-10464303-238.html

Too Familiar: Another Teen Taunted by Cyberbullies Commits Suicide

Even in death, Phoebe Prince was bullied. On a memorial page dedicated to the Massachusetts teen who had recently committed suicide, Facebook members left taunting comments that had to be removed.

The 15-year-old -- a recent immigrant from Ireland with a pretty face and a soft brogue -- was found dead in her South Hadley, Massachusetts home Jan. 14, according to police.

Afterward, her fellow students came forward to tell school officials that Prince had been teased incessantly, taunted by text messages and harassed on social networking sites like Facebook.

The Prince family recently relocated from a tiny village in the west of Ireland. But Phoebe had trouble adjusting to her new school and became the victim of incessant bullying by classmates.

Bullying has become increasingly common in schools throughout the United States.

The National Youth Violence Prevention Resource Center estimated that nearly 30 percent of American youth are either a bully or a target of bullying.

In addition, researchers at the Yale School of Medicine, in a new review of studies from 13 countries, found signs of an apparent connection between bullying, being bullied and suicide.

"The incidence of bullying is getting more and more frequent and takes lots of forms," said Herbert Nieberg, associate professor of criminal justice at Mitchell College in Connecticut and a psychologist who specializes in adolescents.

And when the bullying moves to the Internet, the trauma to the victim is "astronomically" escalated, according to Nieberg.

"In the old days kids would threaten to beat someone up, but now it's gone into the cyberworld," he told ABCNews.com. "Kids go on to Facebook because they get a wider audience than in the hallway."

Source: ABC News
http://abcnews.go.com/Health/cyber-bullying-factor-suicide-massachusetts-teen-irish-immigrant/story?id=9660938

Sexting Results in Florida Teen's Suicide

It appears that another "sexting"-gone-bad episode has resulted in a 13-year-old Florida girl taking her own life. This would be the second known case in the U.S. where a connection has been drawn between sexting and suicide.

The circumstances not only highlights the dangers inherent with sexting, but also the role of peer bullying that emerges once sexted photos are distributed widely among students populations.

At the end of the school year at Beth Shields Middle School, the taunting became so bad that Hope Witsell's friends surrounded her between classes. They escorted her down hallways like human shields, fending off insults such as "whore" and "slut." A few days before, Hope had forwarded a nude photo of herself to a boy she liked — a practice widely known as "sexting." The image found its way to other students, who forwarded it to their friends. Soon the nude photo was circulating through cell phones at Shields Middle and Lennard High School, according to multiple students at both schools. "Tons of people talk about me behind my back and I hate it because they call me a whore!" Hope wrote in her journal. "And I can't be a whore i'm too inexperienced. So secretly TONS of people hate me … " School authorities learned of the nude photo around the end of the school year and suspended Hope for the first week of eighth grade, which started in August. About two weeks after she returned to school, a counselor observed cuts on Hope's legs and had her sign a "no-harm" contract, in which Hope agreed to tell an adult if she felt inclined to hurt herself, her family says. The next day, Hope hanged herself in her bedroom. She was 13.

Source: St. Petersburg Times
http://www.tampabay.com/news/humaninterest/sexting-related-bullying-cited-in-hillsborough-teens-suicide/1054895

Cyberbullying: Four Teens Sued for Creating Fake Facebook Profile

A good reminder for parents that they can potentially end up on the hook financially for their kids' cyberbullying. This might prove to be a good case study that parents can discuss with their kids about the potential effects of cyberbullying.

Teenagers can be cruel, and so can the Internet. Mixing the two can lead to some real drama-fests, and four Illinois teenagers are about to find out if there are consequences to using Facebook to aggressively target a classmate. The teens have been accused of creating a fake Facebook profile for one of their peers, representing him as a sexually obscene racist and amassing hundreds of "friends" as if he were running the profile himself, thus potentially running off college recruiters. The teen's mother has now filed a lawsuit against the four, accusing them of defamation and causing severe emotional distress.

According to the complaint, the group created a Facebook profile for John Doe (an apparently well-respected student involved in athletics and other school activities) by using real photos of him and posting some of his real contact information, such as his cell phone number. However, the group also made numerous statements on his profile as him, many of which were obscene, racist, and sexual.

Those behind the fake profile sent vulgar, sexual comments to various peers at school, and the complaint says that at least one person who read the profile represents a collegiate athletic team who raised concerns over recruiting John Doe as a result.

The complaint accuses the four students intended malice when creating the profile, therefore categorizing it as defamation. Not only did Doe's family suffer out-of-pocket costs in dealing with the aftermath of the profile, Doe himself suffered "severe emotional distress" and could have even been passed over by numerous college recruiters. The profile has since been removed by Facebook (after much work by Doe's family, it seems), but the lawsuit seeks compensatory and punitive damages against the four attackers.

Source: ars technica
http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2009/09/that-obscene-racist-may-be-fake-4-sued-for-profile-prank.ars