I encourage everyone to read this:
http://www.azag.gov/messages/CyberBully ... h2007.htmlCyberbullying
The Internet continues to explode in popularity among young people. More and more teens every day keep in touch through instant messaging, social networking sites (such as myspace.com) and cell phone text messaging. Unfortunately, this electronic forum has not only given sexual predators unprecedented access to our children, it has become a new, incredibly potent and potentially toxic, method of spreading schoolyard gossip, hateful statements, lies, threats and harassment.
Cyberbullying is highly varied and hard to define. At its core, it is sending or posting derogatory or hateful material on the Internet with the intent to harm another. Cyberbullying can be defamatory to a group, a team, a race or target a single victim. Bullies employ any or all cyber communications, including posts to social networking sites, chat rooms, email, instant messaging and blogs, to harass, threaten, spread lies or distribute embarrassing pictures. The Internet gives bullies a worldwide audience for taunting their victims while maintaining some anonymity.
Cyberbullying is no joke, although it often starts that way. Because of the vast reach of the Internet, it has far greater impact and can cause much more emotional damage than the same statements scrawled in alleys or on bathroom walls. Damaging words and pictures once posted are nearly impossible to remove. Cyberbullying messages often contain threats of violence, which can constitute a crime. Violent threats and inflammatory statements in cyberspace can turn into real world attacks. Last October, a racist flier posted on myspace.com sparked a fight between a white student and several Native American students at Westwood High School in Mesa.
My Internet Safety presentation now includes a short video about cyberbullying called “You Can’t Take It Back.” After visiting many Arizona middle schools, I am convinced that cyberbullying is a rapidly growing problem, infecting almost every school in our State. Parents and teachers can find this and other videos at http://www.netsmartz.org.
To promote safe use of the Internet, I offer the following tips for parents and teachers:
* Talk to teens about what they are doing on the Internet, what sites they visit and who they chat with.
* Keep a record of any rude and harassing emails, text messages or postings, but do not respond.
* File a complaint with your Internet Service Provider (ISP) or cell phone company about any cyberbullying messages.
* If the cyberbully attends the same school, inform administrators and school resource officers.
* If the cyberbullying involves threats of violence, coercion or intimidation, call the police.
* If a Web site is defaming or mocking a person or group, contact your ISP and inform police to get the Web site removed.
More information about how to use the Internet safely and wisely can be found on the Internet Safety page of the Attorney General's Web site.
Do not engage in Cyber defamation attacks on this site! Do not call names, threaten, coerce or intimidate.Do not post about it, do not PM about it, and if you feel like you have been attacked either in post or PM, do NOT respond to it, flag it with the "!", and send ME a PM about Attacking PMs and quote the message.Do not send me PMs that are provoked or incited by you. The first thing I do is find out from the other person what the deal is, if they say that you sent them a PM first, your argument just lost all credibility.
Whenever a digital note is made it can not be taken back, and there is a record of it that can be copied to US and we can read the things you say. That said, we don't want to have to delete things, we don't want to have to mediate peace between PM wars, we want a forum that does not have to be moderated, because it is full of professionals.
Remember this is a forum, and as such is open to discussion. If you have critical things to say about a suggestion or a recommendation based on personal experience, that is fine, that is good discussion. Not every negative criticism of the topic at hand is directed at you personally, however, threatening remarks and defamation will not be tolerated.
The more you post the more you are scrutinized. Do not hunt selected posters to try and intimidate them from posting, if you feel hunted, flag it and tell us about it.
When in doubt, don't post. Let time smooth things out.
