Earlier this month, a 15-year old from St. Petersburg, FL was arrested for sending “hundreds of threatening text messages” over the course of eight days to former friends. Some were even death threats. The suspect used a smartphone app called Kik Messenger, which happens to be the cyberbullying app du jour, also used in the Rebecca Ann Sedwick cyberbullying case that contributed to her suicide. Kik allows users to send text messages from an Internet Desk Top to cell phones.

The tactic is called “text bombing”

Huffington Post writer Ann Brenoff deftly addresses this tactic in her article, “What Every Parent Needs to Know About Text Bombs.” Her article did a great job identifying some of the apps used to do the cyberbully’s “dirty work,” but before we get into that, let’s drill down a little deeper into the motivation behind text bombing.

With text bombing, there are two ways to inflict harm.

The first way, like most cyberbullying tactics, is rooted in emotional conflict. The ex-friend, the ex-beau, the jealous peer, etc. lashes out in anger, and in extreme moment, repeatedly texts the most hurtful thing anyone can think of, e.g., you don’t matter. Go kill yourself. I will find you and destroy you.

For example, in the St. Petersburg case, the teen suspect learned that one of her target’s relatives had recently committed suicide, so she began bombarding her ex-friend with messages to do the same.

The second way to text bomb relies on apps to do the dirty work by sending a message hundreds of times as a way to harass the target, break their phone or even cost them money. Popular text bombing apps mentioned in Brenoff’s article included SMSBOMBER (Android) and SMSBARRAGE before the Google App store got wise to it and banned them.  However, these text-bombing apps can be found anywhere. A simple Google search finds more SMS bombing apps like those from Cydia that anyone can learn to use in minutes.

With my cyberbullying columns, I’m always trying to identify the latest tactic and provide educators and parents with technological and behavior tips to prevent it.

First the tech tips: The way to block multiple duplicated messages from any sender is through Anti-SMS Text Bomb (Android). The link to this page also includes several other anti-sms bombing apps for other phones.

And according to NY Daily News, there’s a new app being developed, called STOPit, which students download to their phones. It enables students to easily capture malicious behavior with their Apple or Droid smart phone and send it to adult contacts or officials with the touch of a button — and in some cases anonymously.

As usual, the public reaction to this text bomb tactic is shrill, bordering on exasperation. Said one HuffPo commenter: “Here's an idea.....don't give a cell phone to a kid [who] doesn't think that each and every keystroke equals $$$$$$. If they are STILL too young to understand the value of a $ then they are too young for a cell phone.”

According to the latest Pew Internet and American Life study on Teens and Technology (March 2013) 78% of teens (12-17) now have a cell phone, and almost half (47%) of those own smartphones. An earlier study in 2010,  found that most teenagers with cell phones have family plans paid by their parents.

When you give a child or teenager a cell phone or computer of any type, you are giving them limitless power to do good or to do harm. And likely, you are footing the bill, so you already have leverage for encouraging their ethical behavior around texting.

An ongoing conversation needs to accompany the privilege of owning a smartphone. Do you discuss with your child:

• Sending any form of text bomb is considered harassment and will not be tolerated. Do you spell out the consequences for this behavior?
• Does your child know they don’t have the right to say anything they want? Anytime a child’s language approaches bodily threats and harassment, it is not protected by freedom of speech and it is quite conceivable he or she can be arrested.
• Does your child know some states are considering holding the parents’ liable for the child’s cyberbullying actions?

The tools, the tactics and the technology are all going to change. Six months down the road; we are likely going to have a whole new set of apps and digital devices connected with cyberbullying. But the conversation between kids and their parents (and schools) should be about the expected and appropriate behavior when handed a technological device. Are you having that conversation already?

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

It's back to school, 2013 and sadly, another year starts off with another story of a 12-year-old Florida girl who committed suicide. According to news reports, Rebecca Ann Sedwick endured more than a year of harassment, online torment and threats from a group of girls before she broke down completely and made the sorrowful choice to end her life.

As many as 15 girls may have been involved. According to the International Business Times article:

"There were strong indications that Rebecca committed suicide due to being bullied online. Social media applications on her phone showed messages like 'Go kill yourself' and 'Why are you still alive?' the Ledger reported."

Most suicide and cyberbullying experts are not as comfortable as the media is in making such a strong correlation of cyberbullying to suicide as numerous (unreported) factors might have also played a part in Sedwick's decision, but the point of this blog is to analyze the methods of cyberbullying tactics and try to provide communities with insights on how to identify and prevent an attack from happening to children you care about.

The article went on to state:

"Judd said detectives are trying to investigate the social media applications that Sedwick used, including Kik and Ask.fm, but many of the websites are based in other countries."

First the technology:
Ask.fm, we already know, is a sketchy website operated in Latvia and is a popular social networking website among teens where users can ask other users questions, with the option of anonymity. I've seen many Ask.fm profiles and the callousness and viciousness from "anonymous" users is rampant. No kid should be using Ask.fm in my opinion, unless you're looking to be slammed and cyberbullied. (In the latest twist, some kids troll themselves on Ask.fm hoping to get their friends to protect them and write good things about them in a desperate bid for attention. Source:2paragraphs.com)

After a spate of high-profile teen suicides that have been connected to Ask.fm, the company has vowed to have better regulations including making a "report" button more prominent on the site; hiring more staff to moderate comments; and creating a "bullying/harassment" category alongside the existing categories of "spam or scam," "hate speech," "violence" and "pornographic content."

I don't know if the girls who were telling Sedwick to "go kill herself" did it on Ask.fm, or through Sedwick's Kik Messenger, a smartphone app that acts as an Instant Messenger and allows the user to share other features likes videos and images.

But we do know from news reports that Sedwick's parents shut down her Facebook account and even had her change schools. Regardless, the cyberbullying followed her when she switched social media mediums (such as from Facebook to Ask.fm).

From all that I can gather, this is another classic example of A Digital Pile On, what we, the authors of Cyberslammed, have termed a situation when a group viciously gangs up on one person through Facebook, Twitter, Ask.fm, a group chat, comments or Instant Messaging.

Sedwick might have been a target of a Digital Pile On from a multiple tech devices, websites and apps--where the behavior is the same, just the media changes.

There is no "armchair psychologist" instant solution to what happened in Sedwick's case, but one thing is clear: parents and schools need to be on top of an ongoing cyberbullying situation, particularly when a mob is involved.  They need to know exactly how and what their teens are communicating about in the midst of it. Cyberbullied kids are going to be compelled to know what others are saying about them, and will be loathe to abandon social media for fear the bullies will have the upper hand. But, to heal from a cyberbullying situation, the worst thing a teen can do is constantly monitor the ongoing abuse. It's like dying a little death every day. The cyberbullies want to lure them back in, so if they see their target on different social media platform, it will start all over again.

Get the teenager away from ongoing abuse. Make a plan to find peer or adult help to shepherd him or her through this painful process. Demand the school take appropriate action or take it to the next level. And keep vigilant to make sure your teen is still talking to you and working through the situation. At this point, it is smart to have your teen's social media on a keyword monitoring system, to alert you to words like "go kill yourself."  Don't take your eye off the situation until you are sure your teen has gotten through the entire traumatic incident without relapse.

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