The Daily Mail just published a story about a 13-year-old girl near Miami, FL who was arrested for making online threats against students and staff.

The police arrested the wrong girl.

It was later discovered after much digging, that a 12-year-old rival to the girl had used her rival's personal information to set up false emails and Instagram accounts under the accused girl's name.

According to the story, "The 12-year-old girl believed to be behind the threats has now been charged with written threats to kill or do bodily harm, falsifying a police report, penalty for disruption of an educational institution, and criminal use of personal information."

Now, if the adults at this school as well as the police understood that this was a cyberbullying tactic we have termed in our book Cyberslammed as an Imposter Profile, they would have had the knowledge to prevent the trauma to this young innocent girl.

The accused girl's lawyer, Marwan Porter, said in a statement Thursday (as reported by The Daily Mail): 'It is very clear that the Pembroke Pines Police Dept. and others involved, failed to conduct a basic investigation into the false allegations which resulted in the arrest and severe emotional damage to my client."

Get familiar with the Imposter Profile tactic by reading our past blogs on this issue.

 Paul Bischoff, a tech writer and privacy expert, recently penned an article for Comparitech.com, which surveyed more than 1,000 parents of children over the age of five. See the stats on Facebook and Instagram below.

There are some very good graphics in this article which break down where and when cyberbullying happens. While kids and teens are still out of school this summer (with no guarantee that they will be returning in the fall) this is a necessary read to get an understanding what digital landscapes might be posing risks to a cyberbullied child. Click to read the full article.

A San Antonio father spoke to News4sa.com about the horrendous treatment his 17-year-old son received via a fake Twitter and Instagram accounts this month. The accounts were a version of what we call an Imposter Profile (a cyberbullying tactic that sets up an anonymous account to dupe the viewer in believing it is owned by the target).

According to News4sa.com, Leo Vasquez said:
"When I saw the Twitter accounts and really the content of the attacks and how vile and malicious and disgusting they were, that's what really upset me."


The bully created fake, anonymous Twitter and Instagram accounts to try and terrorize Vasquez's son, Matt, who'd been battling lymphoma for the last two years.

Compounding Vasquez' frustration, law enforcement provided little help and they couldn't determine how to unmask the cyberbully, who would just recreate a new account after the old one was deleted.

The only way to cut through this red tape, as we outline in our award-winning book Cyberslammed, is to work with an attorney to obtain a subpeona.

As Texas happens to have a cyberbullying law that outlaws cyber-impersonation, this subpeona could be used to unmask the perpetrator electronically so that they could move forward with criminal charges.

Learn how to protect yourself and what your state laws are. You are not helpless to fight this!

Get all of the tactics in one book and prepare your child to recognize and defuse certain types of cyberbullying.  Buy The Book

The Allure and Danger of Posting Selfies Online is the second video in our webinar series to help give you a better understanding of Internet Safety and Cyberbullying.  Kay Stephens, co-author of Cyberslammed, tells us some things to consider before posting a selfie, ways that they are being used to cyberbully and how you can help protect your teen.

Click here to watch the 5 min webinar.  

Get all of the tactics in one book and prepare your child to recognize and defuse certain types of cyberbullying. Summer Sale: $12.50 Buy The Book


Over the last six months, experts have noticed a shift in the way teens are communicating. Tired of of the transparency and parental monitoring of Facebook, many are searching for more anonymous alternatives and are gravitating toward social networking sites like Whisper and Instagram.  New month, different app, that's the way it goes. Parents and teachers can't keep up. (Not surprisingly, by the time they do, that's the cue for the teens to move on.)  Instagram, a photo sharing app that can be registered under an anonymous screenname, is like an underground speakeasy. Adults aren't hip to all the hidden back rooms yet, making it a perfect app to be used as a cyberbullying tool.

Even though Instagram's Community Guidelines prohibit nudity and graphic sexual poses, within two minutes, I was able to find dozens and dozens of pages depicting drug use, slut-shaming women, and graphic, explicit nudity. (Some of these photos I don't doubt are underage, which would categorize it as child pornography).

Yes, this is where a lot of teens have found their new outlet. And to be fair, many teens simply use Instagram the way it was intended, to share photos with friends and be social. I'm not sure why Instagram allows the other photos to stay online given their Guidelines, but just earlier this month, a Napa California police department investigated an Instagram page after receiving multiple reports  that it contained “inappropriate” images of females.

The  images were posted on a page called “napahoezexxposed." Translation: Napa Hoez Exxposed-- an Instagram page dedicated to labeling certain girls and women as whores. This is a combined Sexting and Rating Site tactic where someone uploaded photos of females (allegedly without their consent) in various stages of undress (thus Sexting) with the motive to slut-shame these girls by allowing commenters to rate them (thus a Rating Site). I've seen multiple versions of the so-called "Exposing Hos" tactic on Facebook and Twitter, but, apparently Instagram is the new technological vehicle for the same type of behavior. 

Time Magazine's recent article "What Boys Want" by Rosalind  Wiseman recently featured a fascinating article on why today's teens engage in Sexting, even when they know of the steep risks. The takeway I got from this article is that with this digital generation so used to the casual release of Kim Kardashian-type of sex tapes, snapping a nude pic or photographing a sexually explicit pose isn't as a big deal to this generation as it should be.  Certain teens (particularly those with low-self esteem) tend to have a careless regard for their own image and reputation and just don't think about the consequences to such actions.  When sending a nude photo to a someone is the only way you'll get his/her attention or keep his/her attraction, there are bigger issues here than the actual photo. The same goes for teens who request the photos as status symbols and insurance (in case of being rejected.)

Regardless, you can now see how the stage has been set for using these photos as cyberbullying currency. With teenage girls, we must keep the conversation going about alternatives to Sexting, not from a prudish standpoint, but from a reputation-destroying-forever-online standpoint. No girl wants a private "for your eyes only" photo to go virally, embarrassingly public. But, as statistics show,  it inevitably will.  And today, when a lapse in judgment results in being branded a whore on the Internet for all to comment on and judge, this is the time to talk to that teen in your life about that secret photo on his/her phone they hope you'll never find out about.


Get all of the tactics in one book and prepare your child to recognize and defuse certain types of cyberbullying. Sale: $12.50 Buy The Book