"As Bullies Go Digital, Parents Play Catch-Up"

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http://finance.yahoo.com/family-home/ar ... y-catch-up

Why does it still shock me that kids would do things this awful? I mean, the first boy mentioned didn't even use Facebook himself and other kids made it look like he did.

It's stuff like this that reaffirms my online "paranoia."

Do you guys think that ANYTHING will actually curb this kind of behavior?

If anything will, it sure as heck won't be the authorities.

Cyber bulling is getting worse every year, and it's only going to get worse, until something is done about it. I hope that something gets done about it, soon.

There were bullies when cavemen were still in caves, there will be bullies when we have flying cars. All people can do is bow down or fight back.

Why are people still shocked about bullying? There has been bullying ever since schools were introduced. It's not enough that parents have to stop violence in video games, movies, TV, or "crack down" on teen drug use, or micromanage every detail of their kids lives, and nose around in their diaries, now they feel that they have to stop bullies? How are kids ever going to be successful unless they hear those character-building words: "You're a ret*d, Johnny! Go kill yourself, you're a loser Johnny!" How can kids ever be successful without facing adversity and overcoming it? It's the same faulty logic used at airports, trying to "prevent" terrorists from boarding the plane, and the same logic we used for communism. The domino theory was a load of crap, and so is this.

I grew up on a steady diet of Looney Tunes filed with anvils and dynamite, and Stone Cold Steve Austin flipping the bird and giving his boss the Stunner on live TV. My friends in elementary school said all kinds of curse words, and yet somehow I turned out all right, this while my parents shielded me from...EVERYTHING! Yet I still managed to watch late night HBO sex shows

And why are people surprised that bullying has gotten worse? Isn't it obvious that if people are nastier on the Internet, then bullying on the Internet will also be nastier? People lose about 90% of their intelligence when they get behind a keyboard.

I think bullying in general should be a sin!

Still missing the days where Facebook was just for adults...

Can we talk Mark Zuckerberg into getting off his billionaire high horse and get those days back?

Bullies are an intrinsic and unfortunate fact of current humanity. What is noticeable to me however, is that the bullies who hide behind machinery are losing their humanity at younger ages than their parents and in greater numbers. Is there an antidote for it?

Like the article suggested: greater parental involvement? Are some parents leaving their kids to be "raised/educated" by media and not taking responsibility for the unfortunate results? Or, will media influences ALWAYS be too great for parents to counteract?

Serious questions, btw--any thoughts?

It already is. Has been since before the Bible was even written.

I thought it was... have I missed something or is it just kids are bypassing the system or something?

I think parents shouldn't be buying their kids (under 16) these fancy pants mobile phones and letting them have a private computer. They are obviously not mature enough to cope with these items, therefore parents should be the ones to say when they can or can't have it. In an ideal world, all parents would be responsible enough to tell their kid, 'just because Timmy has one doesn't mean you can have one too...' Unfortunately this is a less than ideal world. My mobile phone, which I got for a mere £15.00, texts, rings, has a calculator, has a few games and has a built in torch. No internet access, no camera, nothing. Why do kids need better than that?

It was originally .He created it for college students. But now the official policy (stated in their Terms Of Service) is that users must be at least 13. So any kid who is 13 or older is not bypassing the system at all. They are acting in accordance with policy.

What is probably happening with cyberbullying is that the parents have no idea their kids are doing it. They see their kid's Facebook page. It looks ok when they look over their kid's shoulder. They have no idea what their kid is posting on other peoples' pages (they would have to click on every Friend to find that out) nor would they realize if their kid has created a page specifically to bully. They see a perfectly ordinarty Homepage and that's it. Everything looks ok to them.

In my social circle, raising kids without media influence is the expected thing to do. Parents are quite diligent about this and manage to police what their kids see and hear until.........kindergarten. The parents who thought they were doing so well keeping their kids away from media influence suddenly realize that they have no control over what happens outside their own home. No matter how well they police their own TV set and computer, their kid will be exposed. And their kid will pay strict and intense attention to anything not allowed in the home.

I thought I was ahead of the game because my daughter is autistic. While other girls her age succumbed to Hannah Montana and the Cheetah Girls whether they were allowed to watch it at home or not, my daughter liked what she liked with absolutely no peer influence. She seemed immune. It was one of those gifts of autism. I was smug for a while. But no. Even though I police what she hears at home and she never seemed to care at all what the other kids liked (autistic children are impervious to peers) she still heard the music coming out of their portable speakers. And she liked it. And she memorized all the forbidden lyrics because echolalia taught her how to do that with one listen.

So it's an awful lot harder than you think to scrub media influence from a kid's life. The only way to really do it is to raise yopur child in a microcosm that has no media, like the Amish.

Oh no, then I'd have to put a fake date of birth on my profile to get in, what a challenge that will be...

In the situation described in this article, reporting the fake profile to Facebook would hopefully get them to remove it.

Anyways, best way to deal with cyberbullies is find their IP addresses and DDoS their internet connections

In fact, most teenagers have stupidly obvious passwords and don't make sure their session has expired, so accessing their Facebook accounts and screwing with their profiles would probably be trivial.

Actually, forget that. Due to how unsecure Facebook itself is, you can access anyone's Facebook account if they're on the same WiFi network as you, no matter how good their password is.

I appear to have gone on a bit of a tangent now, so I'll stop. Also, don't actually go hacking anyone's stuff, it's baaad

its the common generational gap that has only rapidly expanded in a shorter number of years than ever before. the youth have grown up on this technology and they have nothing else to focus on, so its the sign of the times. they create these alter egos in their digital online lives and are able to trick and decieve their too busy, too naive, too unparenting parents. it basically comes down to an understanding and a willingness to understand how the young generation communicates these days. now the communication can be anonymous, instant, and wide spread before the first adult even comes to realize what has happened. communication is not a monday-friday school time/after school inperson or on phone communication now. and the generational gap explains why so many adults are like "huh?" about this issue. the only way to stop cyber bullying is to restrict and/or remove the communication device from the bully. but since cellphones are now the necessary and cool attach a long for a parent to feel that they're keeping an eye on and are in the know of their child's lives, it comes down to a parents dedication.

the only way for it to stop is to restrict access and also to teach kids the value of self respect and respect for others. and also then just a good old grounding will do them good. be proactive about it, not passive about it. it will only get worse if you allow your child to be a digital bully. an excuse of ignorance can only get you so far. you can not wish it away as much as you would like to.

we all know b.c stands for before christ
well for the young generation in the digital age, they have the right (naively as it is) to see that b.c now stands for before cellphones.

But wouldn't you need more than one computer to do that? DDoS stands for Distributed Denial of Service. So unless you have a botnet, you need to get 50,000 or so of your closest friends to get in on it with you.