Cyberbullying grows bigger and meaner with photos, video

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All Ricky, 16, knows is the fuzzy yet distinguishable portrait ofhim in English class showed up on MySpace, on a page that claimedto be his. And the fake profile, titled "The Rictionary," not onlyidentified his school but also said Ricky loved dictionaries— a swipe at his school smarts — and was gay (he'snot), one of the most common schoolyard taunts.
Tall, big and bookish, Ricky, who lives on a farm in Lake County,Ind., had been picked on since he was in kindergarten.
Insults flung in the heat of anger always inflict some pain. Butwords — and pictures — posted on the Internet, wherethey can be seen by anyone, have taken bullying to a whole newlevel.
"I was completely devastated," Ricky says.
As younger and more kids get their hands on cellphone and digitalcameras and nearly ubiquitous high-speed Internet connections,cyberbullying is ramping up and taking new forms.
No longer are threats, taunts and insults relegated to the writtenword in chat rooms and instant messages. Now teens, children andsometimes adults are adding pictures and videos to their bullyingarsenal and posting them on sites such as MySpace, Facebook andYouTube, where anyone can see them.
And bullying has led to real consequences — from fights toteen suicides, or what some label "bullycides." States arebeginning to take action with tough new laws targeting those whouse electronic means to bully.
Kids don't always report it
Online harassment of American young people ages 10 to 17 increased50% (from 6% to 9%) from 2000 to 2005, according to the latestresearch available, a watershed report by the University of NewHampshire's Crimes Against Children Research Center. And the numberof young people who said they had "made rude or nasty comments tosomeone on the Internet" increased from 14% to 28% in the sameperiod.
But there hasn't been nearly enough research on the subject, saysCorinne David-Ferdon, a health scientist at the Centers for DiseaseControl and Prevention.
Compounding the frustration is that children often fail to reportbullying. They fear that tormentors will become angrier and bullythem more or worry that if they report being bullied over theInternet or on a cellphone, their phone and Internet privilegeswill be revoked.
"This is an emerging public-health problem" that needs attention,David-Ferdon says. The problem gained visibility with news abouthigh school girls getting in trouble after posting school fights onYouTube.
Five girls from Lakeland, Fla., face charges over an incident March30 in which they are accused of participating in the beating of a16-year-old acquaintance in retaliation for her saying nasty thingsabout them on MySpace. They videotaped the beating and planned topost it on MySpace and YouTube, says Chip Thullbery, state attorneyspokesman in Polk County.
The sheriff decided to release it to deal with news media interest,the Associated Press reported.
"Girlfight" videos have become so ubiquitous that the search term"girlfight" brings up thousands of videos on YouTube.
"You're bullied twice," says Nancy Willard, author of Cyber-Safe Kids, Cyber-Savvy Teens and Cyberbullying and Cyberthreats . "You're bullied in the real world with a physical attack, andthen you're bullied online with humiliation. It's very hurtful.Very, very hurtful."
The world sees what is said
In another publicized case, 13-year-old Megan Meier killed herselfin 2006 after receiving devastating messages from someonemasquerading as a teen boy who had developed an online relationshipwith her. Authorities prosecuted an adult, Lori Drew, 59, ofDardenne Prairie, Mo., on charges that she was behind the hoax.Drew pleaded not guilty last month in Los Angeles federal court.
"Cyberbullying is getting much worse, and it's affecting a lot ofkids," says Bill Bond, a former principal who tours the countryspeaking to principals about school violence on behalf of theNational Association of Secondary School Principals.
"Cyberbullying can be even more destructive" than face-to-facebullying "because you get a sense that the whole world is beingexposed to what is being said to you."
That's just how Ricky feels.
"When they put it on the Internet, it's like they took everythingand multiplied it by an astronomical number," he says. "It's onething if it's a mean thing that somebody put in my school paperbecause that's contained within a small area. Only a certain numberof people will see that. But when you put it on the Internet, youare opening it up to everyone in the world."
Ricky called his mother the spring day he discovered the profileand had her pick him up from school. He didn't have many friends tobegin with. But soon he found himself more alone than ever.
"I had thought about suicide," he says. "It looked very welcomingat certain times." But he says his family is helping him cope.
His mother, Peggy Alatorre, 44, tells her son he just has to makeit through two more years of high school. But she's worried. "Doesit hurt him forever? You bet. Ricky has been crushed."
In the past few months, Alatorre has done everything she couldthink of to remedy the situation. She talked to school officials.She contacted the police, the FBI, local politicians. "I evene-mailed (President) Bush."
MySpace eventually removed the profile — only after severalweeks of pestering the site, she says. Other than that, "everybodyis passing the buck."
Mike Chelap, assistant vice principal of Lowell High School, whereRicky attends, says he can't discuss personal matters aboutstudents, but the school began an anti-bullying program and willimplement it in the fall.
Some are fighting back
Barbara Paris, now principal of Canyon Vista Middle School inAustin, became an activist against cyberbullying after a girl atanother school where she worked had become suicidal after she wasthe victim of racial and sexual taunts online. "When … I hada child who was suicidal because of people like me not doinganything about it, I had a paradigm shift right there."
Politicians are starting to take note. Thirty-six states haveanti-bullying laws, according to Paris' watchdog group, BullyPolice. And several are specifically starting to addresscyberbullying. On June 30, Missouri Gov. Matt Blunt signed ananti-Internet harassment law in the wake of Megan Meier's death.
Also last month, Florida Gov. Charlie Crist signed the JeffreyJohnston Stand Up for All Students Act. The toughanti-cyberbullying law came after the 2005 suicide of 15-year-oldJeffrey, who his mother says had endured three years of torturousharassment over the Internet.
To those who say bullying is just part of childhood, Jeffrey'smother, Debbie Johnston of Cape Coral, Fla., says that's "likesaying rape is part of marriage."
Jodee Blanco, who grew up the victim of bullies, agrees with thesentiment. An author of two books on her own bullying experience,she now is a consultant who travels the country to talk to schools— including Ricky's.
"It's not that bullying is any worse today," she says. "The impulsefor cruelty is the same impulse. The only difference is that thetools to achieve that have become more sophisticated."
But all the attention over cyberbullying is "a double-edged sword.In one respect, America is finally waking up. And yes, it's due inlarge part to the Internet. The flipside of that is it's alsomotivating a lot of kids to be meaner. Because in their minds, itis such a cool tool to show off how mean they can be."
READERS: What kind of advice would you give kids who are getting'cyberbullied'? What did adversity of this kind teach you when youwere younger? Share with us in the comments.