Cyberslammed Hot Topics

Sexting: "I thought it was going to make him love me."

9/4/2012

photo: 9news.com

A young woman in Denver learned what so many girls are learning the hard way. In her case, it's the classic scenario of what cyberbullying expert Nancy Willard calls "Experimental Sexting," which is completely different from "Cyberbullying Sexting." This is when teenagers are negotiating the terms of their relationship and both parties are willing to share Sexting photos.

This young woman, who was a teenager at the time, took nude photos of herself to cement the relationship with her then-boyfriend. As she said, "I thought it was going to make him love me." Then, when inevitably, the relationship ended and turned bitter, the ex-boyfriend showed the pics to everyone.

"I never thought they would get out," the unidentified woman said of the Sexting photos she sent to her boyfriend at the time. "I never thought anyone would see them."

The fall out was deeply painful. "I tried cutting myself. I tried [strangling] myself," she said. "I thought that was the easiest and best way for me to get away from everything. I never went to sporting events. I missed my junior and senior prom because I didn't want to be around everybody."

See more of the story here.

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

Imposter Profile to kick off the new school year

8/30/2012

School hadn't even started for this Arizona boy when an imposter website set up in the boy's name threatened to ruin his reputation. According to The Sahuarita Sun, "The trouble started late Saturday night when the child checked his Facebook page and discovered the phony page. The still-unknown creator of the page had replaced the boy’s last name with a sexual euphemism and portrayed him as homosexual.

The page also said that the boy was planning to start a fight at school the following Monday. In addition, photos taken from the Facebook page of his mother were used on the fake page, including a photo of the boy as a baby being held by his grandfather."

To read the full story go here.

Two points worth noting here, no three--

1. Defuse The Words The most common insults that are used to cyberbully both straight and homosexual kids are the words "gay" or "fag"--and for girls, they are commonly "whore or slut." Come up with what we call “pre-play” strategies with your teens for potential conflicts or ones that are already occurring. Pre-play the use of this word in a potential cyberbullying situation and devise a number of ways they can choose to react to it. Bullies know these words hold power and hurt when wielded publicly. Teach teens to strip the power right out of these words. Now, how do you do that in a realistic situation? (Not some "the More You Know" type of public service announcement advice that make teens roll their eyes right out of their heads.) Besides the classic advice of "ignoring it," I just looked to see if there were any verbal techniques to handling this--all I could find is a yahoo thread giving advice. Some of this advice just antagonizes the aggressor, some of it is just dumb, but I saw one or two lines in there that seemed realistic enough to demonstrate to the cyberbully that the teen isn't all that bothered by their use of the word (i.e. disabling the power.) Modifying one piece of advice in here, I especially liked the mature approach:

"Say 'Dude I'm not gonna play your game. Just because you say that I am doesn't mean i am. Sorry to disappoint you."

2. Ditch The Conflict "The page also said that the boy was planning to start a fight at school the following Monday."

The article doesn't give enough detail about this, but suffice it to say, the boy was fully in conflict with someone or a number of people offline before the incident happened. As we keep saying, the problem is the behavior, not the technology. No matter what age your teen or tween is, your teen is always going to encounter conflict with a classmate, a friend, a romantic partner, at some point. And whatever conflict that starts offline has the potential to go online and vice versa. Our Imposter Website chapter provides specific conflict resolution exercises to help teens avoid the behaviors that get them enmeshed in this tactic.

3. Protect your online privacy "In addition, photos taken from the Facebook page of his mother were used on the fake page, including a photo of the boy as a baby being held by his grandfather."

Parents--we can't say this enough-you contribute to your own children's cyberbullying when you inadvertently allow the public to view photos/video or any other sensitive information about your child. If the cyberbullies can't find something on your kid, they'll look to see who else they can "lift" content from. So be vigilant about keeping your social media profile protected from public view. Teach your kids to keep their online content (called their digital footprint) private and neutral. With their online comments, postings, video, photos, etc.— it’s all traceable—and highly usable to a potential cyberbully. Get them in the habit of self-monitoring everything they transmit through Facebook, Twitter, texting, etc. and see if any of their content can be used against them or can start or add conflict to something else.

Have a safe start to the school year.

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

Imposter MySpace profile: what to do?

6/1/2012

We have copied this from our recommended Internet Safety forum, ConnectSafely as well as the MOD's response to this young man as a way to take action in a similar situation.

Query

To make it short i am a 16-year old public school student who recently recieved a phone call from a friend saying that, someone has made a myspace as you.

So not to be a homophobe but it said all this stuff about how i was gay, not only that someone took the time to customize the myspace, with tons, and tons of half nude gay men. Now usually ive asked all my friends and nobody knows anything, i have 2 guesses about who it is but, they wont admit to anything.

Ive told my parents but it seems to have backfired, they just said tonight that im signed up for catholic school indefinitly. I dont want to go into a different school, but, by the time september rolls around and it hasnt disapear or has gotten worse,it may be the only solution.

I just wish that one of the 2 kids would have the balls to man up and say it was them it would save me alot of troube, because if i pick the wrong one to get in a fight with...well it would be a mess.

Also i was wondering if there is any legal consequences, my school really has no rules about this, im from philadelphia but now i live in this hick new jersey suburb, and i would just love to find out who this redneck is so i can set his cornfield ablaze and slash his tractor's tires,im only kidding. id really like some answeres/suggestions on what to do, thanks

***
MOD Response

I'm so sorry this has happened to you. It's definitely a tough situation to resolve because there are bullies and harassers out there who seem to have too much time on their hands and just create a new one as soon as a profile gets deleted. I suggest 2 things: 1) Start the process of getting your imposter profile deleted by emailing [email protected] with its URL and your situation or - better - just go to this page in MySpace's Help section to find out what they need to delete it. Give it a week or so because, with more than 100 million profiles, MySpace gets a few requests like this. Let us know (after you give the process a chance) if it drags on too long. 2) If you can, try to have a calm, unemotional conversation with your parents about how MySpace works - how anybody can create a profile about anyone for free in a very short amount of time, that this is usually just fine and a great vehicle for self-expression and keeping in touch with friends but can also go very wrong. For just a few examples of the downside, they click around these search results in NetFamilyNews. If they'd like, they can email us at [email protected] (if they need this coming from someone besides you).

I think you're smart to try to do some info-gathering yourself, but I'm sure you're kidding about and already know that picking fights rarely works (physical ones, I mean, since somebody already started a digital fight, it appears). It's important to remember that the more strongly you react the more gratification a bully gets (which usually only perpetuates the problem, so it's a good idea to ignore his/her behavior as best as you can can while you're getting the profile taken down. Don't give this person any "power" or satisfaction with a big public reaction (not that you would).

I hope this helps a bit. All best,
Anne
--
Anne Collier
ConnectSafely co-director

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

Student's Rating Website just like Mark Zuckerberg's!

5/30/2012

An Illinois student once already expelled for rating 50 girls on Facebook with humiliating comments about their looks and alleged promiscuity did it again. . . and likely got the same punishment. But in this instance, two of the girls who were targets of this Rating Website tactic spoke up--not just to the school administration, but to the media. Read the whole story here.

It's probably not ironic that the bully chose to use Facebook as his technological medium. Mark Zuckerberg, the founder of Facebook, started his career by creating a Rating Website called Facemash, (which has now been recreated once again) Once, again, the popularity and subsequent power of this tactic relied on how many bystanders played the role of the bully's supported.

"Hundreds of students cheered him on,'" Haley Rea told local news network CBS 2.

"They didn't see the fundamental wrong, and the sexism and racism of it, and the misogyny of it," Julia Levy added.

More than ever, teach your students and teens the potential pitfalls of posting certain photos of themselves online. Yes, sharing photos for fun with friends is more than not, a fun, innocent pasttime, but teens always have to remember that every photo can be used against them online--especially in the case of a Rating Website. Tools such as Google+'s "Find My Face" feature--an opt-in feature that allows friends to tag one's photos and Facebook's "tag" feature are the latest examples of facial recognition technology creeping closer to the horizon than ever. Do a photo inventory with your teens in class or at home each month to clear out the ones that can be misused and abused.

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

New Samsung Commercial: Funny Videojacking?

5/18/2012

Anyone can see the humor in this Samsung commercial titled "Banter" between two dudes who have digital dirt on one another. As they sit around in their living room holding their Focus Flash smartphones, the one on the left ups the ante and uploads embarrassing video of his friend to Facebook.

We include this because essentially, this is textbook Videojacking and as amusing as the commercial is, see how easy it is to videotape someone without his knowledge and post it to a public website or social networking profile? This isn't so funny when it's between teens and the digital dirt can potentially ruin one's reputation or set him/her up to the target of widespread ridicule.

Our chapter on Videojacking isn't just about ways to prevent this type of tactic, but focuses on ways to cultivate empathy in teenagers so that they view a commercial like this, they see way more layers to it than just humor.

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

How To Sleuth Out A Cyberbully

5/17/2012

In the frustrating situation where you or someone you care about is being cyberbullied and you don't know who it is, there are ways to glean information even before you go to the police. Take Allison Pfeiffer, a teen who was targeted by an Imposter Profile that referred to her as a cow (among other nasty names) with the intent to ridicule her. She tracked down the email address used to establish it and turned the information over to police who tracked down the two people who created it.

Anytime you create any information electronically you leave personal information, like breadcrumbs behind. From so many people we've spoken to in our cyberbullying prevention workshops, not many parents or educators are aware of this--and even fewer teenagers know the kind of personally identifiable information they leave behind.

This is in your favor if you are trying to sleuth out a cyberbully. Did you know, for example, that just by clicking on someone's website, your computer's IP address is captured? This is a series of numbers that uniquely identifies your computer. A website owner can "see" some identifiable information just from looking up your IP address. Try it yourself. By using a technique called reverse lookup, you can find out information on your own Internet Service Provider (which includes what state you live in.) However, it's not that easy for an individual to find out your identity through this IP address, because privacy laws prevent Internet Service Providers giving out user information to just anyone.

Some of the links below will help you in your search to sleuth out an anonymous cyberbully.

How To Trace An Anonymous Email Address

How To Find Out Who Owns A Website

How To Get Someone's Computer's (IP) Address, then use The Reverse Lookup Tool.

How To Trace An Anonymous Cell Phone Number

As always, in providing this information, our intent is to help the targets of cyberbullying regain some power in combating their situations. Do not use this information to reverse cyberbully.

Megan Meier: Anatomy of Multiple Cyberbullying Tactics

5/15/2012

Whenever we write about the kids who have fallen victim to the most malicious forms of cyberbullying, it's easy to get emotional and very angry.

But to help other victimized teens find the strength to make a different choice, we have to stay focused and study what went wrong. If you don't already know Megan's story, click here. We wrote to Megan's mother, Tina, asking for her permission to include the story of Megan's Imposter Profile in our Introduction to Cyberslammed. She wrote back, granting us permission, adding, "My hope is that through the continued awareness from people around the world that we will help children and their families."

So to honor Megan, we will use this space to talk strategically about what tactics were used and how to identify and avoid them.

On The Internet, no one is exactly who they appear to be. That is Lesson #1 when it comes to your kids. We're not just talking "stranger-danger"--we're talking about enemies who pose as friends. You have to train your kids to be wary at a young age when it comes to any online communication. That will be their first line of defense when someone tries to befriend them on the 'Net on MySpace, Facebook, Bebo or any other social networking website. Tina was actually monitoring Megan's profile, had all her passwords and knew that she was talking with a boy, "Josh Evans." In Megan's case, she immediately trusted that "Josh" who befriended her was real. After all: there was his photo, his bio, his preferences. And he had a line that was sure to melt the heart of a 13-year-old girl.

"when i was 7 my dad left me and my mom and my older brother and my newborn brother 3 boys god i know poor mom yeah she had such a hard time when we were younger finding work to pay for us after he left."

Yet, all of this was fiction, set up by Tina Meier's neighbor, Lori Drew. Yes, an adult had set up this Imposter Profile with the intent to deceive a 13-year-old girl because her daughter had had a falling out with Megan. As noted on the Megan Meier Foundation's website, Drew set up the Imposter Profile to find out what Megan might be saying about her daughter.

As the story goes, one day, "Megan received a puzzling and disturbing message from Josh. Tina recalls that it said: 'I don't know if I want to be friends with you anymore because I've heard that you are not very nice to your friends.' "

From there, the Imposter Profile morphed into multiple cyberbullying tactics, as they so often do. Next, "Josh" shared some of Megan's private messages with a larger group of bystanders. There is not a name for this tactic (yet), but sharing private messages with an unintended third party as a way to incriminate the target seems to be a preferred method of teens who may not even realize it is cyberbullying. According to a 2010 study done by authors Dr. Justin Patchin and Dr. Sameer Hinduja of the Cyberbullying Research Center, "When asked about specific types of cyberbullying in the previous 30 days, mean or hurtful comments (13.7%) and rumors spread (12.9%) online continue to be among the most commonly-cited.

Lesson #2 Teach your kids never to reveal any personal or sensitive information online. Do not gossip online or share someone else's private messages even with people they know and trust. Anything electronic is proof and can be misused very badly against the poster in a way he/she never envisioned.

Next, the bystander group whose MySpace accounts were linked to the fictitious "Josh" account began to attack Megan online. The cyberbullying tactics turned to a Digital Pile On. This is when a ringleader gets his or her minions to "pile on" the target with mean, hurtful comments. Within this tactic, there was yet another sub-tactic: the followers were posting bulletins about Megan through MySpace, which are considered "fun online surveys", but these survey topics were designed to be cruel and ranged from: "Megan Meier is a slut" (subtactic: "slut-shaming") to "Megan Meier is fat." This subtactic is very similar to a Rating Website, outlined in Cyberslammed as well.

As the Digital Pile On progressed, Megan tried to defend herself online using vulgar language, unwittingly opening herself up to more cyberbullying.

Lesson #3: Don't Want Another Attack? Don't Fire Back. Experts consistently say the worst thing a target can do is to react with anger online. It is exactly the reaction the ringleader and his/her minions are looking for and it opens the way for harsher attacks. The best thing one can do is immediately get offline and put together a strategy to address the situation with adults.

The day Megan died, her father found what he believed to be the final message Megan saw, but it couldn't be retrieved from her hard drive. To the best of his recollection it said, "Everybody in O'Fallon knows how you are. You are a bad person and everybody hates you. Have a shitty rest of your life. The world would be a better place without you."

To read more of this convoluted case, including its legal outcomes and how this case became the foundation for a new law, click here.

The last thing we will say about this: In the age of new technological tools and fads, it is increasingly difficult to shield our teens from harmful intent online. So we must prepare them to be vigilant about their own safety, cautious about what they choose to reveal and to whom, strategic in the way they (as well as the parents) choose to resolve the conflict and lastly, resilient in the face of electronic defamation and harassment.

Know what to do a group viciously gangs up on one person through Facebook, Twitter, Ask.fm, a group chat, comments or Instant Messaging.? Our new Parent's Guide To A Digital Pile On is now available on Kindle for $2.99.

$2.99 on Kindle

When is Sexting Experimental And When Is It Malicious?

5/10/2012

Digital Show and Tell?

In April, 2010, one Bethesda, Md middle school student allegedly rented out his iPod Touch to classmates, which contained female classmates in various stages of undress. Read the full story here. The girls apparently posed willingly and most of the images were close-ups of body parts with not many faces showing. But the police determined the girls hadn't been coerced. They were all playing a game--and naturally, they never imagined would get found out. This was the classic: "You show me yours and I'll show you mine" game with 21st Century tools.

Here you have a prime example of what is often considered "experimental" Sexting as opposed to a more malicious form, known as "Cyberbullying Sexting." Parents and Educators need to know the difference and not paint every single circumstance with the same brush. That's why it is important to do a Scene Survey with your teen immediately after discovering a Sexting incident.

Get all of the facts before going to the police. And determine what your state laws are around 'Sexting' right away before making a decision.

A parent involved in this case, wrote more of an in-depth explanation to Ann Collier, Editor of Net Family News (who discussed this case in her blog) The following is his words to Collier.

"I am one of the parents involved in this issue," wrote this father of a then-16-year-old. When school administrative staff ["head principal, two assistants, director of curriculum and the possibility of more," he later told me] started their investigation the morning of Sept. 24, 2009, they knew then that they were dealing with students and nude pictures, but they continued this [investigation] all day long before contacting parents and police, even passing these phones around to other staff.... My son was interrogated by the head principal along with the director of curriculum. They called my son a sex offender, told him he would go to prison, and that he would be placed on Megan's [sex offender] list. Then he was contained in the nurse's office for over two hours. Other students were treated basically the same....

"My son along with [seven] other students [three girls and four boys] admitted they had a picture or pictures on their phones, etc. They told school staff who was in the pictures, etc., [but] the staff still went through [the phones].... The principal told us he didn't want to talk to the girl about this issue, saying 'he felt uncomfortable,' though he didn't mind viewing her pictures and others' as well." [By the sound of it, the police called in at the end of the school day were the best part of this experience, reportedly respectful and clear about the students' rights and what was and wasn't lawful about the school's investigation – for example, a state trooper told the dad that he would need signed parental consent or a warrant signed by a judge to go through students' cell phones. The law differs from state to state, but that's something parents should ask if they're ever in this position: Do school officials have the legal right to search their children's phones without a warrant on school premises?"

Conceding that his son and his friends were not without blame-- "These kids did this willingly, they are friends. Don't get me wrong, I don't condone this, it was stupid, but they were basically keeping this private amongst themselves, meaning no harm.... " the father's point was, the punishment was incompatible with the so-called crime.

The outcome: The students went through public humiliation, arrest (fingerprinting, mug shots, etc.), expulsion hearings before the school board, prosecution as adults, probation, fines, classes, and the possibility of felony convictions remaining on their records.

As Anne Collier's elaborates in her blog post "Of school policy on sexting", cases like this need to boil down to common sense reasoning.

"School policy and penalties should not only be sure to handle cases differently, based on what category the behavior falls into; they should also handle students differently, based on what investigations reveal about their motives. For example, if two students were involved in “experimental” sexting that led to an honest (or stupid but non-malicious) mistake on the part of one of them (such as forwarding a photo to a friend who turns around and distributes it widely), the mistake should be penalized differently from the malicious action of the 3rd party."

Teen's Facebook Sex Scam: A Cyberbullying Twofer

5/2/2012

File this one under Imposter Profile and Sexting

We're going back nearly two years for this one, but it illustrates how manipulative a person can be one one side of the computer screen and how naive and unaware the target can be on the other side.

Click for CBS video of the story.

Teen Facebook Sex Scam

An 18-year-old Wisconsin teen set up three Imposter Websites, posing as girls in his high school, then sent explicit emails to lure more than 31 boys at his high school to engage in Sexting. The perpetrator provided phony nude pics of the girls and the boys, naturally, sent nude photos of themselves to the Imposter. More than 300 nude photos of his male victims were found on his computer. He then blackmailed a few of them to engage in sex with him, rather than have the photos see the light of day.

The 18-year-old teen was charged with 12 felonies.

Use these stories on this blog as a way to broaden your knowledge of cyberbullying tactics and share them with your kids to heighten their defense. Anyone can be tricked by an Imposter Profile, which is why it is so important to keep your social networking circle small and verified. In Sexting, much of the perpetration statistically is aimed at young women, but in this case, more than 31 boys were duped by what Nancy Willard, MS, JD, Director of the Center for Safe and Responsible Internet Use, differentiates as “Cyberbullying Sexting.” This is when the perpetrator uses Trickery to get ahold of precious photographic "currency" and and Blackmail to get the target to do something in order to avoid dissemination of the image.

Most Viral Videos of 2011, Including A Videojacking

5/1/2012

When this preoccupied woman who was texting while walking in a mall fell into a fountain, it was all on camera. Security camera. The security guards allegedly uploaded it to YouTube and a viral hit spawned.

Everybody has an embarrassing moment from time to time. But who has the right to decide when it should be made public? A videojacking is when someone posts a video without the target's knowledge or permission with the intent to embarrass him/her or set him/her up for public ridicule.

Whenever you take or discover video like this, the default action shouldn't automatically be: "Let's put this on YouTube."

We're reposting this video as a teaching takeaway for schools or families to discuss this situation with teens. Think ahead before ever posting video of anyone. Have a little compassion. Ask yourself: 'how would I feel if someone did this to me?' Anticipate that your actions will trigger an overwhelming negative response toward the target, particularly if it goes viral.