Sticks and Stones: Cyberbullies Hurl Taunts Online

ATLANTA (FOX 5) – The rise of internet communication has raised the stakes as childhood bullies are now able to torment their peers under a veil of cyber anonymity.  Unlike the schoolyard taunts of yesteryear, a digital assault can last forever.

Learning to deal with cruelty is part of growing up.  Very few are able to escape their teen years without having their feelings hurt and sometimes badly. 

Kathryn Hogan was just 15-years-old when people who knew her well betrayed her online and mixed truth with lies on a Myspace.com page with her name and doctored pictures.

Video: Cyberbullies: Hurtful Taunts Go from Schoolyard to Cyberspace FOX 5's Russ Spencer Reports

"It had all my information on it.  It had my address, it had my phone number, it had all these people I'd supposedly had with," said Hogan.

A year later, Hogan said the online attack still hurt.

"I think I cried.  My best friend called me and was like, 'Dude, what's up with your new MySpace,'" said Hogan.

It took a week for the Rockdale County teen to confide in her mother that she had a problem.

"I just couldn't believe that other young people had created something like this and how horrible it was,' said Hogan's mother, Mary.

Cyberbullying is serious enough that the Centers for Disease Control considers it an emerging public health issue.

Early studies suggest anywhere from 10 to 30 percent of young people have been bullied online and it happens to girls more often than boys.

While parents may be surprised by the digital viciousness, many kids are not.

"In some senses, the adult community is always racing to keep up with the teen community," said Marci Hertz of the CDC.

Hertz said the CDC's position is that cyberbullying is a challenge made more difficult by the fact that many teens don't tell their parents out of fear that parents will respond by taking away the internet or cell phones.

Hertz said a better approach for parents is for them to consider a child's time spent on the internet the same way as any other time a child spends.

"While adults may think of the internet as a place to get information, kids look at it as an actual place.  So when they go on the internet we need to say where are you going and who are you going with," said Hertz.

Cyberbullying can happen at anytime, day or night because kids have access to technology around the clock.

Dr. Patti Agatston, an intervention counselor with Cobb County Schools said, "One boy said, 'You know I really lost all my friends over this because the messages were sexually suggestive and I couldn't convince the kids that I wasn't the one who sent those messages.'"

Dr. Agatston co-wrote a book on cyberbullying and the foreword is written by a father whose son was humiliated online.

A girl pretended to be his girlfriend online and then shared his instant messages with her to the rest of the school.  The victim, Ryan Halligan, was just 13-years-old when he killed himself.

"There's a big disconnect between the parents and the kids around the cyberbullying topic," said Dr. Agatston.

Dr. Agatston said trying to block kids from the internet wasn't always the answer because most teens are tech savvy enough to get online anyway, but parents should do more to teach their children both how to protect themselves online as well as how to treat others.
     
It took about two weeks for Hogan to get MySpace.com to remove the offending page.

"It really worried me for a while.  Seriously, [because] anything could happen.  People in my future could see this.  People, you know, college and job applications they check those things," said Hogan.

Nowadays, Hogan stays busy and happy with chorus, track and student council, but the memory of what happened to her and the knowledge that it continues to happen to others is very painful.

"It's horrible and it's not funny and I don't know why people think it is," said Hogan.

There are things parents can do to help prevent cyberbullying.

Know your children's passwords so you can access their online world if something happens to them.

Learn about the digital world so you can be helpful to your kids.  Kids are generally more comfortable in cyberspace and they may enjoy showing their parents how smart they are.

Online social sites like MySpace.com and Facebook.com are doing a much better job of responding to complaints about fake pages and slanderous comments.  You can usually find a link to make those complaints on the company's site.


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