Pandora’s Blog

It comes down to this: if parents can’t start talking to their kids, showing them how to behave online and showing them how to act like decent human beings to other people, then this, my friends, is only the first of many cyberbullying lawsuits we will see.

I don’t understand at what point people forget that defamation is a crime. Cyberbullying is a form of slander and libel. Is it that the younger generation doesn’t know this or is just too stupid to comprehend the concept: you can’t bully someone online just because you can hide behind a screen name or work in secrecy from your bedroom. Cyberbullying is no different than getting on the loudspeaker at school and verbally abusing your peers.

Parents, it’s up to you to teach your kids this lesson. Otherwise, this happens (below)…

And don’t try to play the “I didn’t know” card. Playing that is admitting you are a terrible parent. You should know. You should know everything your child does online. The internet is a connection to the entire world – how could you let your kids roam through that doorway unsupervised? If your child is a victim, you need to know. Even more so, if your child is a bully you must know – so you can stop it before this happens (below). It’s all the more reason to utilize technology like PC Pandora monitoring software.

Read the article and prevent this from happening to you…

Cyberbullying Suit Filed in St. Louis County Circuit Court
By Angela Riley

Another case of cyberbullying has arisen out of St. Louis.

A West County father alleges in a petition filed in St. Louis County Circuit Court that someone used a Facebook account to harass his daughter who struggles with mental illness to the point that she was psychiatrically admitted to an in-patient facility. The father wants the social networking site to release the person’s account information so he or she could be held liable.

The incident is similar to the cyberbullying of 13-year old Megan Meier in St. Charles. Meier, who had a history of depression, committed suicide after receiving upsetting messages on MySpace from a person she thought was a boy and a friend on the site. The boy turned out to be Lori Drew, a neighbor of Meier’s family and the mother of a girl Meier once considered a friend. Drew was trying to find out what Meier was saying about her daughter.

The U.S. attorney’s office in Los Angeles accused Lori Drew of using protected computers to inflict emotional distress on the girl. She faces four counts, each carrying up to a five-year sentence if convicted. Drew was arraigned June 16 in Los Angeles, where MySpace is based, pleading not guilty. The trial scheduled for Oct. 7 was postponed in order for U.S. District Court Judge George Wu to consider the defense’s motion to dismiss the case. No new trial date has been set.

According to the St. Louis County Circuit Court petition, the father’s 16-year-old daughter, SMB, had become friends with a Jane Doe who went by “Jennifer Litzinger” on Facebook. The father alleges that after Doe learned of his daughter’s psychiatric condition due partially to her obsessive relationship with a boy “JB,” Doe set out to cause his daughter emotional distress by creating a purported rival for JB’s affections.

Doe used photos of a well-endowed model as Jennifer Litzinger’s profile picture so that SMB, “an ordinary 16-year old, would feel inferior to her purported rival with respect to her physical attractiveness,” the petition said.

Doe sent messages through Jennifer Litzinger, telling SMB that “she looked like a troll,” had a “worthless life,” that she knew that Jennifer Litzinger looked better than her, that JB had told Jennifer Litzinger that she was “sexy” and Jennifer Litzinger and JB “almost had sex.”

These statements caused SMB’s mental condition to rapidly deteriorate, the petition said. She was taken to St. John’s Hospital by ambulance and stayed there four days to stabilize. This was followed by in-patient treatment at the Menninger Resident Clinic in Houston, a psychiatric facility.

Doe is the only defendant named in the case. The father is only asking for the court to order Facebook to release any information that could disclose the real identity of Jennifer Litzinger, for over $25,000 in damages for SMB’s medical bills and punitive damages.

“These are agencies take the privacy of their users very seriously,” said the father’s attorney Joe Jacobson, of Green, Jacobson & Butsch. “You file the lawsuit first, then call them up and try to work out a way to approach the court order. You want to be as unobtrusive as possible.”

The new Missouri Internet Harassment Law could not be used in this instance because it took effect Aug. 28. The incident involving SMB happened in July.

In response to Meier’s suicide, a special gubernatorial task force was assembled to study Internet harassment. Missouri prosecutors decided not to file charges against Drew because there was no applicable statutory law under which to do so.

The law updates state laws against harassment to keep pace with technology by removing the requirement that the communication be written or over the telephone. The law covers harassment from computers, text messages and other electronic devices.

However, under the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act, which is being used to charge Drew, Doe could face charges. The act was typically used to target computer hackers, but in this instance, it was used connection with a Web site’s terms of service prohibiting misrepresentation by users setting up new accounts. This is the first time that the act interpreted in this manner.

Judge Wu already ruled the act being used against Drew is not unconstitutionally vague and does not improperly delegate prosecutorial power to the owner of a Web site. But the judge still has to determine whether Drew’s violations of the MySpace terms of service are tantamount to the “unauthorized access” required by the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act.

Subtitled “A Step-by-Step Guide for Parents,” that is exactly what the book is. Though lots of Internet safety tips are written in articles, they often fail to get to the meat of the issue. And while some writings will get too cluttered with Internet jargon, Davies has purposefully kept her book simple.

“How To Keep Your Child Safe on the Internet” is divided into easy-to-read sections that cover all the main activities your kids may use the Internet for. From Internet chat rooms to gambling to social networks to cyberbullying and even plagiarism (a hugely under-noticed pitfall of today’s students), the guide covers what every parent needs to know. Within each section, Davies gives a clear summary of the activity, the dangers associated, how to stay safe and the basic key points to remember. It’s a very informative and easy read for anyone.

So, don’t worry if you have little experience on the Internet - by the time you reach the end of “How To Keep Your Child Safe on the Internet”, you will know almost as much about the internet and how to use it as your children do!

Why did Wendy Davies write this book? Because parents need it. Parents need to understand and know that there are simple steps they can take right now to protect their children. And they need an easy place to find it all. The best defense is a good offense. While this is incredibly true, when it comes to the Internet, parents are behind their kids. Many parents do not actually know what their children are doing when they are online. Parents feel left behind by the new technologies and fearful of learning them. So how then can they be on the offense?

It is important to remember that while children may well be cyber-wise, that doesn’t mean they are worldly-wise; they may be computer-literate, but they are most certainly not life-literate. That is where parents come in… and that is why parents need to catch up and go on the offense.

Experts agree that the risks to children can be reduced through a combination of technology and good parenting. One of the best solutions for technology to help parents is parental control software, more specifically monitoring software. The name that I champion as the real leader, in terms of overall effectiveness, features and affordability, is PC Pandora.

PC Pandora monitoring software records and monitors all computer activity. It starts by capturing snapshots of everything that happens on screen, but it also produces detailed records of emails, instant messenger chats, websites visited, programs utilized, peer-to-peer activity (think file sharing and downloads) and more. It also comes with features like web filters (yes, you can block MySpace!), program blocks, webcam capture and web search query recording (so you can see what things your child is searching online for). It will also email a parent at work with updates of web and computer activity. In short, it sees all and will help any parent know what their child is doing online. It’s the best all-around parental control software available.

So if you read “How To Keep Your Child Safe on the Internet” and then put PC Pandora on your computer to monitor Internet activity, you’ll know what to look for in your child’s activity. This will help you be a more effective 21st century parent. If your kids are up to no good, you can put a stop to it and rectify the situation. If your child is a victim of cyberbullying, you can initiate a discussion and help them. If you child is spending too much time online, you can talk to them about it. The possibilities and potential for help are endless.

So what can a parent do about Internet safety? I can’t stress this enough: get a copy of “How To Keep Your Child Safe on the Internet” by Wendy Davies and read it. It’s available as a quick and easy downloadable e-book. Then, check out parental control software like PC Pandora 5.0 monitoring software. The combination of these two is undeniably strong. One fills you in on what you need to know about the Internet, the other shows you everything you need to know about your kids.

A new study from the Journal of School Health has been published that looks at the correlations of real world bullying and cyberbullying. Below is an article that summarizes the results. The actual study can be found here: Extending the School Grounds?—Bullying Experiences in Cyberspace.

My 2-cents: you will read in the last paragraph below that the authors of the study “feel strongly that the fact that real-world bullying strongly predicts cyberbullying and the parallels in behavior both suggest that cyberbullying may not actually be a distinct phenomenon.” Well, no crap, dude. It’s pretty obvious that cyberbullying is transcendent from the playground. I mean, no one is going to – in fact how could you in all reality – bully a stranger? Especially a teenager, whose life pretty much stays within the town/school. They continue and say: “These findings further underscore the continuity between adolescents’ social worlds in school and online.” I think any parent, myself included, could have told you that.

They also say that anonymity doesn’t play such a big role, since most kids have an idea of who the bully is. To me, that is the biggest wow factor. But you also have to look at the fact that the victim may know who the bully is, but that doesn’t mean that the rest of the world does. That anonymous screen name or fake screen name could be anyone to anyone. But to the victim, yeah, they probably have an idea of who it is because they probably see them on a daily basis face to face in school…

So what can we do? For starters, parents can install monitoring software like our PC Pandora on their machines. Statistics show that most kids won’t tell their parents they are being cyberbullied. It’s embarrassing. But monitoring software may give you the edge you need to obtain the information necessary to a) open a discussion with your child and b) collect evidence and put a stop to it. Now, if you are the parent of a bully (and I am sure NO bullies tell their parents what they are doing), monitoring software will clue you in and help you put a stop to it before it gets out of hand and your child gets into serious hot water.

Check the article out below…

Cyberbullying: new phenomenon or the playground gone online?
By John Timmer

As kids have started pursuing more of their social lives online, their parents have become increasingly concerned that they are taking their bad habits with them. But the anonymity and lack of direct consequences facilitated by the online world has raised concerns that cyberbullying may be a completely distinct phenomenon from its real-world counterpart. A study that was published in the September edition of the Journal of School Health, however, suggests these fears may be misplaced.

The study was based on a survey of teens, recruited through the social site bolt.com. The authors recognize that this probably biased their study population towards heavy Internet users, and restricted them to using self-reported data. However, they feel that their data complemented earlier studies, which required parental permission for the participation of children. The parental involvement, the authors contend, could have inhibited the children; indeed, roughly a third of their participants voiced concerns about discussing Internet use with their parents, lest they find their online time curtailed.

The recruitment produced a population of 1,454 teenagers, with an average age of 15-1/2 years old. Nearly 75 percent of them were female, which the authors performed statistical corrections for. Data was collected on length and frequency of Internet use, and the typical activities, such as Internet messaging and blogging, were tracked. Roughly half of the group used IM or e-mail daily, with IM being slightly more popular.

Although the term “bullying” wasn’t used, the students were asked to consider “anything that someone does that upsets or offends someone else.” Frequency of these incidents was rated on a five-point scale from never to greater than a dozen times a year.

Over two-thirds of the group reported an incident that could be described as cyberbullying, and nearly 20 percent of them reported seven or more such incidents. The most frequent means of verbal assault came on message boards and via IM. Like the playground, the most frequent form of unpleasantry was simple name calling; in a distinct online twist, however, password theft came in second. One other factor that was unique to online behavior was the use of webcams, which correlated with an increased probability of being targeted for bullying.

But the online nature of bullying didn’t appear to play a major role in its incidence. Two of the strongest predictors of whether a teen would experience cyberbullying were the amount of time spent online and whether they were the target of bullying offline. Anonymity didn’t seem to play as much of a role as some have feared, as nearly three-quarters of the victims were confident that they knew who had harassed them.

Oddly, although IM was the most frequent vector for bullying, a quarter of the targets didn’t bother to use the blocking capabilities built in to most IM clients. Even fewer (only 10 percent) notified anyone of the bullying. Again, the authors suggest that fear of having Internet access curtailed could be a major factor in this, as a third of the victims specifically mentioned this. But half also said that they felt they need to learn to handle it on their own.

The authors feel strongly that the fact that real-world bullying strongly predicts cyberbullying and the parallels in behavior both suggest that cyberbullying may not actually be a distinct phenomenon. “These findings further underscore the continuity between adolescents’ social worlds in school and online,” they conclude.

Here’s another weekly round-up of dirtbags that got caught soliciting sex for minors on the internet. In one story, which furthers the reason parents need to utilize monitoring software like PC Pandora to keep an eye on their kids’ Internet activity, a 13-year-old girl willingly ran away with a man she met on MySpace and gave him oral sex. This was all CONSENSUAL! Parents, you think you know what your kids are doing online? Guess again.

Summary of scumbags:

• A 53-year-old Virginia man was arrested for trying to lure what he thought was a 13-year-old girl in an online chat and then trying to meet her.
• A 46-year-old Connecticut man was arrested for soliciting sex from an undercover police officer posing as a 14-year-old girl in an Internet chat room; earlier this month a 49-year-old man was arrested on similar charges.
• A 25-year-old South Carolina man has been charged with misconduct after using MySpace to initiate sexual contact with a 13-year-old girl.

The final story is one of justice and a smart judge, as a convicted scumbag who was soliciting minor for sex on the Internet tried to cry “entrapment”! Thankfully, the judge tossed it and said, “Nope, you still tried to solicit what you thought were kids for sex. Rot in jail, sicko.”

(more…)

Seriously, folks, we need to do something here. I’ll let the article below speak for itself, but the statistical data is astonishing and shows a much worse off problem than I think any parents think there is. It’s time parents invest in monitoring software like our PC Pandora and watch what their kids are doing online.

Forget the predators, watching your kids means making sure they are playing nice in the sandbox, because clearly they are not. We need to show kids that there is no difference between offline and online. Many kids feel they are infallible on the internet and that it is some sort of removed reality and alternate world that has zero consequence in this real one. That couldn’t be further from the truth. If you want to stop cyberbullying from getting to your kids, buy PC Pandora monitoring software and watch what they are doing.

That goes for the parents of the bullies too. With state laws popping up, it won’t be long before your child will get a serious penalty for bullying his/her peers.

Check out the article… it’s long – but well worth your time. READ IT!

Bullying Of Teenagers Online Is Common, UCLA Psychologists Report

ScienceDaily (Oct. 3, 2008) — Nearly three in four teenagers say they were bullied online at least once during a recent 12-month period, and only one in 10 reported such cyber-bullying to parents or other adults, according to a new study by UCLA psychologists.

Of those who were bullied online, 85 percent also have been bullied at school, the psychologists found. The probability of getting bullied online was substantially higher for those who have been the victims of school bullying.

“Bullying affects millions of students and is not limited to school grounds,” said lead study author Jaana Juvonen, a professor of psychology and chair of UCLA’s developmental psychology program. “Bullying on the Internet looks similar to what kids do face-to-face in school. The Internet is not functioning as a separate environment but is connected with the social lives of kids in school. Our findings suggest that especially among heavy users of the Internet, cyber-bullying is a common experience, and the forms of online and in-school bullying are more alike than different.”

The research is based on an anonymous Web-based survey of 1,454 participants between the ages of 12 and 17, who were recruited through a nationally popular teen website from August through October 2005. The psychologists’ findings appear in the September issue of the Journal of School Health.

Forty-one percent of the teenagers surveyed reported between one and three online bullying incidents over the course of a year, 13 percent reported four to six incidents and 19 percent reported seven or more incidents, Juvonen said.

Many teenagers do not realize how many of their peers are being bullied online and think cyber-bullying happens much more to them than to others, she said.

“When kids start thinking, ‘It’s just happening to me,’ they likely blame themselves, and once they do that, it increases their risk of depression,” Juvonen said. “Kids don’t know how common cyber-bullying is, even among their best friends. Cyber-bulling is not a plight of a few problematic children but a shared experience.”

Why do so few teenagers tell their parents about being bullied online?

The most common reason for not telling an adult, cited by half the bullied participants, was that teens believe they “need to learn to deal with it.” In addition, 31 percent reported that they do not tell because they are concerned their parents might restrict their Internet access. This concern was especially common among girls between the ages of 12 and 14, with 46 percent fearing restrictions, compared with 27 percent of boys in the same age group. One-third of 12-to-14-year-olds reported that they didn’t tell an adult out of fear that they could get into trouble with their parents.

Many parents have little understanding of their children’s Internet use.

“Many parents do not understand how vital the Internet is to their social lives,” Juvonen said. “Parents can take detrimental action with good intentions, such as trying to protect their children by not letting them use the Internet at all. That is not likely to help parent-teen relationships or the social lives of their children.”

Most children are using the Internet mainly to connect with friends, not to meet new people, previous research has shown.

“Kids are mainly using the Internet to maintain relationships like we used to in the old days when we called a friend or walked to someone’s house,” Juvonen said. “It’s a way for kids to maintain connections with their friends.”

Seventy-three percent of the participants who reported being cyber-bullied said they knew, or were pretty sure they knew, who was doing the bullying.

“This finding is counter to the prevalent myth that cyber-bullying is anonymous,” Juvonen said.

The research does not support the assumption that the Internet is dramatically changing the nature of bullying.

Of those participants who experienced bullying, 51 percent said the bullying was done by schoolmates, 43 percent said they were bullied by someone they knew only online and 20 percent said they were bullied by someone they knew, but who was not from school.

The most prevalent forms of bullying online and in school involved name-calling or insults. Password theft was the next most common cyber-bullying tactic. Bullying also includes threats, sending embarrassing pictures, sharing private information without permission and spreading nasty rumors.

Both in-school and online bullying experiences were independently associated with increased social anxiety, said UCLA psychology research fellow Elisheva Gross, co-author of the study and co-president of Barnraising Inc., a new media and art education and youth-development company.

Electronic communication devices are not the cause of problem behavior among teenagers but are tools that can be used to interact with peers in both antisocial and healthy ways, Juvonen said.

Parents and other adults may overestimate the risk of bullying online and downplay the risk of bullying in school, said Juvonen, who recommends that schools try to reduce both. Schools are getting better at taking action to reduce bullying — including teaching students strategies for coping with and responding to bullying — and some of them address cyber-bullying as well, she said.

“There is no reason why cyber-bullying should be ‘beyond’ the school’s responsibility to address,” Juvonen said. “Rather, it seems that schools need to enforce intolerance of any intimidation among students, regardless of whether it takes place on or beyond the school grounds.”

Many children are using the Internet in the privacy of their bedrooms, which Juvonen does not consider a good idea, because it makes it harder for parents to monitor.

While name-calling and spreading rumors may look rather benign, children often find them hurtful, Juvonen and Gross said.

In research from 2005 by Juvonen and Adrienne Nishina, an assistant professor of human development at the University of California, Davis, nearly half the sixth graders at two Los Angeles-area public schools said they were bullied by classmates during a five-day period.

“Bullying is a problem that large numbers of kids confront on a daily basis at school; it’s not just an issue for the few unfortunate ones,” Juvonen said.

The earlier research by Juvonen and Nishina showed that children are emotionally affected on the days they get picked on. The students who were beat up and those who were called names were equally bothered.

“Students reported feeling humiliated, anxious or disliking school on days when they reported incidents, which shows there is no such thing as ‘harmless’ name-calling or an ‘innocent’ punch,” Juvonen said.

Bullying occurs across ethnic groups and income brackets, said Gross, who has received funding from the UCLA Children’s Digital Media Center.

In another 2005 study, Nishina and Juvonen reported that middle school students who are bullied in school are likely to feel depressed, lonely and miserable, which in turn makes them more vulnerable to further bullying incidents. Harassment at school interferes with the ability to learn and makes many students want to withdraw, Juvonen said.

Children who are embarrassed or humiliated about being bullied in school are unlikely to discuss it with their parents or teacher, Juvonen and Nishina found. Instead, they are more likely to suffer in silence and dislike school.

Juvonen advises parents to talk with their children about bullying before it ever happens, pay attention to changes in their children’s behavior and take their concerns seriously.

Students who get bullied often have headaches, colds and other physical illnesses, as well as psychological problems.

Of the 1,454 participants in the recent survey, 75 percent were female, 66 percent were Caucasian, 12 percent were African American, 9 percent were Latino/Hispanic and 5 percent were Asian American. All 50 states were represented.

I found another pretty cool article on cyberbullying. Though it states a bit of the obvious (bullying is easier online due to anonymity), it’s still a good read.

However, there is one glaring omission: in both the “seeking solutions” and “calling all parents” areas, there is no mention of PC Pandora, or monitoring software for that matter. I find that odd since monitoring software is one of the best solutions you can put into practice. It’s not the end all be all, but it’s certainly a lot more definitive and helpful than filters (which are mentioned) that kids can often run around.

So, parents, there is a huge easy solution staring you in the face. Monitoring software can help you make sure your kids aren’t being bullies or acting as a bully. If every parent were more concerned with what their kids were doing online, how they were representing themselves and how they were treating others, cyberbullying could dramatically decrease. Until parents take responsibility and take matters into their own hands and actively show kids how to behave online (as you would in the real would), cyberbullying is here to stay and here to get worse!

Check out the article below:

Cyberbullying Taunting, Harassing, Even Threatening Classmates is Actually Easier Online, Presenting a Challenge for Schools and Parents
By Amy Boerema

Somehow, it got around that the DuPage County seventh-grader had given a lap dance to another girl’s boyfriend.

The false rumor got back to the girlfriend, who confronted her fellow student a few months ago, asking her to go online that night to talk about it - and declining to talk about it in person then and there.

Later, behind the safety of her computer screen, the classmate called the girl a “skanky boyfriend stealer.” She said her boyfriend - and everyone else - actually hated the girl, and she warned that her friends would soon come after the girl.

Those were among the nicer things she said.

For students locally and around the nation, exchanges like these have become all too common. Cyberbullying - when kids harass, threaten or gossip about each other via Internet or cell phone - is the fastest-growing form of bullying, experts say.

“This is the new bullying,” said Gilda Ross, a guidance counselor at Glenbard West High School in Glen Ellyn. “It’s much uglier and much more hurtful.”

And adults don’t exactly know how to tackle it. In fact, its implications are something legislators, school leaders and parents - not to mention children themselves - are only just beginning to comprehend, experts say.

The issue has drawn national attention after two 13-year-olds, one in Vermont and one in Missouri, killed themselves after excessive online bullying. The mother of a classmate was involved in the bullying of the Missouri student.

That case spurred Illinois lawmakers to consider a plan that would make cyberbullying a crime. First-time violators could receive up to a year in prison; repeat offenders could receive more.

Experts say there remains plenty of gray areas in terms of how best to address the problem.

“Cyberbullying is a big, big deal,” said Northbrook psychologist Ed Dunkelblau, “one that we’re really just getting started on understanding.”

Even good kids do it

Olivia Littlehale, an eighth-grader at Hadley Junior High in Glen Ellyn, said she was online once when someone - later discovered to be a younger student she barely knew - repeatedly instant-messaged her, calling her names.

“I didn’t even know who this person was,” she said. “I wrote back ‘I don’t care.’ They wrote, ‘Well, you should care, because everyone thinks so.’ “

It’s schoolyard bullying gone high-tech, often with no adults around to monitor. Online, anonymity is the greatest form of power, allowing even the shyest kid to turn into a bully. Online, it’s also harder to get caught. The victim may not even know what’s going on, let alone who’s involved.

Trying to stop it, then, can be an impossible task, said Teri Schroeder, CEO of i-Safe Inc., a government-funded nonprofit and national leader in Internet safety education.

And the problem is only getting bigger.

According to i-Safe, 52 percent of high school students report being bullied online. That same number said they themselves have bullied online. This could mean saying mean things or arguing, posting negative or funny videos, or spreading gossip.

Thirty-two percent of high school students and 17 percent of fifth- through eighth-graders admit to saying mean or hurtful things online.

Social networking sites are magnets for cyberbullying, where kids can make phony profiles about others or join groups created to tease others.

Cyberbullying is particularly common among junior-high girls, who tend to be more passive-aggressive than boys in dealing with anger, teachers say. High school incidents are more isolated, though more severe when they do occur, said Kitty Murphy, assistant superintendent for student services and special education in Naperville Unit District 203.

A few months ago, some students from Glenbard North and Fremd high schools trashed each other online after a heated football game. Students swarmed fan blogs and posted YouTube videos in a cyberwar that eventually made local headlines.

Cyberbullying happens at the elementary level, too, said Judy Freedman, a social worker at Prairie Elementary in Buffalo Grove. “Kids’ technological skills are a lot more advanced and mature than their social and emotional skills,” she said.

That’s exactly the problem. Aside from the damaging effects they cause their victims, children often don’t understand that online bullying can create a permanent record, one that can come back to haunt them when they’re seeking a job.

“It’s almost like they’re incapable of grasping it,” Gilda Ross said. “They think it’s perfectly OK to say anything they want about a classmate or teacher. We have amazing kids doing amazingly stupid things on the Internet.”

Seeking solutions

And there are no easy answers.

Parents often lack the technical know-how to keep up with their kids. Schools are unsure of their role because cyberbullying mostly occurs off school grounds. Can they punish students for something they do at home?

“This ends up coming to school the next day and it affects the learning process,” said Phil Morris, technology director with the Kane County Regional Office of Education. “So whether schools want to deal with it or not, they need to.”

Many educators and lawmakers believe creating clear penalties will help.

A proposed state law, which has been passed by the Senate and is pending in the House, defines cyberbullying as harassing another person through electronic communication on at least two separate occasions or creating and maintaining a Web site or page that includes a “threat of immediate or future bodily harm, sexual assault, confinement or restraint.”

The proposal has not been without its critics. The American Civil Liberties Union of Illinois has opposed an earlier version, saying it lacked an element of objective content. Others have said it’s impossible to censor free speech and that being mean to people - in person or online - is simply a part of growing up.

Schools step up

All of the state’s 873 school districts are required to develop specific policies on bullying. Many towns across the Northwest and West suburbs - such as Naperville - have taken it to the next level.

The city police department offers parent awareness classes. Internet safety is a mandatory part of District 203 curriculum. School officials also recently changed the co-curricular code for high-schoolers, with teens caught engaging in inappropriate behavior online being suspended from sports or other school clubs or activities. Incidents will be individually examined.

Libertyville-Vernon Hills Area High School District 128 approved a similar policy in 2006.

Naperville also has preventive measures at the elementary level, Murphy said. For example, two teachers at Elmwood began a club for fourth- and fifth-grade girls that emphasized kindness - in person and online.

“The teachers saw a need and started the group,” Murphy said.

Many districts, like Elgin Area School District U-46, provide staff Internet safety training. When teachers at Buffalo Grove High School logged onto MySpace, it was the first time many had seen the site.

“It was quite an eye-opening experience to see the kinds of things kids post about themselves - or their classmates,” said Joseph Taylor, the school’s academic technology coordinator.

Northwest Suburban High School District 214, like many others, blocks access to social networking sites in school buildings, he said.

Many schools use i-Safe curriculum in the classrooms. Interactive activities include discussing the content of an online chat. I-Safe leaders hope to reach 350,000 Illinois students this year, Schroeder said.

Junior high and high schools can hold schoolwide awareness campaigns, Freedman suggested. Bring in speakers, hold student empathy training, put greater emphasis on Internet usage agreements, she said.

The younger kids are, the easier it is to plant the seed. She created a questionnaire for parents and kids to test each other’s awareness of children’s Internet activity. Then she sent the results to parents.

“It was done to establish a dialogue,” she said. “Let’s compare some answers.”

Calling all parents

No matter what schools do, though, parents must play a critical role, experts say.

Many schools, like Glenbard West, hold parent workshops to raise awareness. Recently one featured Dunkelblau, who is director of the Institute for Emotionally Intelligent Learning, a Northbrook nonprofit that works with schools to create emotional-development programs.

Many parents have no clue what their children do online, he said. One mom said her daughter had been cyberbullied earlier in the year. “It was a learning experience,” she said.

As was the case for the DuPage County seventh-grader who was bullied and threatened online.

“I was shocked,” the girl’s mother said of later seeing the exchange. The situation eventually was resolved without the mom’s intervention, ending with the girl indirectly apologizing to her daughter.

Yet the girl’s mom says her daughter is no angel herself. She says she made her daughter delete her MySpace page in the past because of content. “I tell her if these are not words you’d use verbally, you can’t use them online,” the mom said.

Many parents use programs that filter Web content or instant message chats. The amount of Internet safety resources available to parents is endless, experts say.

“In everything we do, we keep going back to the parents,” said Aaron Kenny, founder of Atlanta-based Internetsafety.com. “Yes, your kids are smart (with technology). But we’re still smarter. We try to empower parents with information.”

Parents need to set clear limits on online activity, experts say. Talk with your child about the risks and consequences and then continue to monitor. Be aware of kid code -”POS” means parent over shoulder, for example.

When cyberbullying occurs, raise the issue with someone: a parent, a teacher, a school counselor.

“They key is for parents to have the ability to talk,” Dunkelblau said. “There’s no excuse for ‘I don’t understand’ anymore.”

(c) 2008 Daily Herald; Arlington Heights, Ill.. Provided by ProQuest LLC. All rights Reserved.

Not going to get into the political discussion here, but I am very very happy to stand behind this bill, no matter who authored it.

There are a few people and websites out there that insist this is a bad thing and will bring about a flurry of lawsuits… so… what? RSOs are going to sue so they can go on websites that are predominantly populated by minors? Cry me a river you perverts.

While I understand that every once in a blue moon someone is wrongly accused or labeled an RSO on a technicality, the majority of these folks are sick perverts with a problem and we don’t need them targeting minors on social networks.

But of course, this bill as it stands is flawed in its basic principle that relies on RSOs being honest and truthful. While many are after incarceration, the ones bent on going after kids will no doubt lie their way onto social networks to achieve their goal.

So let’s not be stupid. Let’s clean up this law a bit and make sure that if it is implemented, it works.

Now aside from that, and knowing that the really bad ones WILL find a way back onto the social networks, parents need to be using monitoring software like PC Pandora to make sure their kids are not talking to suspicious characters online. Parents need to do their jobs at home to make sure their kids are safe from dangers online.

Anyway, here’s the scoop…

Schumer-McCain bill targets online predators

WASHINGTON - Congress has passed legislation offered by Democratic Sen. Charles Schumer - with Republican presidential candidate John McCain - seeking to keep sex offenders off Internet social networking sites.

The Senate approved the Schumer-McCain measure Tuesday, and the House approved it the previous weekend.

Once signed into law by the president, the law will require registered sex offenders to submit e-mail addresses, instant message addresses and other identifying Internet information to law enforcement for recording in the National Sex Offender Registry.

Social networking sites like MySpace and Facebook will then be able to cross-check the registry against their list of users, and remove any offenders.

More international news (kind of slow here in the US): Props to the UK government for creating this council. Now let’s hope they sharpen their fangs and deal with the issues they have highlighted.

Also, as a reminder, PC Pandora will work overseas. It works on any PC running windows. Parents in the UK can utilize it to watch and make sure their kids are staying safe online. When it comes to parental control and monitoring software, you don’t want to take chances. Knowledge is your best weapon, and our PC PC Pandora monitoring software will arm you.

Online safety council launched
by David Allen

The government has come up with plans to protect kids while they are online.

The UK Council for Child Internet Safety has been created, to educate and set up key points which can be used to ensure the safety of children while they are using the Internet.

The concerns range from cyber bullying to the use of violent video games, but how this council is going to police the internet leaves a lot to be desired.

They are talking of a voluntary code of conduct from websites and the power to take down sites, which appear to be a threat.

Yet many of the sites that are popular with children are based abroad, and youngsters get into online gaming because they like it, not because they are forced.

Clearly, when it comes to cyber bullying and other forms of abuse then sure this is going to help.

However, shouldn’t the police be looking into that anyhow if an offence is reported?

Unless the council has teeth, then little is going to be done to prevent the problems that the council has highlighted as being problem areas.

The other day I posted some domestic news; well, here’s some international news for y’all.

The commissioner for the Information Society and Media in Europe gave a speech recently on Social Network. A little late to tackle the issue, but better late than never. The huge recent growth of social networks along with an increase in economic opportunity and criticism makes talking about it now a prime opportunity.

Parents remember to do your job at home with parental control and monitoring software tools like our PC Pandora.

Social Networking Sites: Commissioner Reding stresses their economic and societal importance for Europe

Viviane Reding, Commissioner for Information Society and Media, will today give a speech on Social Networking. It will be the first public statement of the Commissioner on this subject. The speech will be given at today’s Safer Internet Forum that takes place in Luxembourg and focuses on Safer Internet and children this year. Commissioner Reding will underline the importance of self-regulation and will also meet representatives of the social networking companies Myspace and Dailymotion.
What is the importance of social networking sites in Europe?

In the past year, the use of social networks has grown 35% in Europe. 56% of the European online population visited social networking sites last year and the number of regular users is forecast to rise from today’s 41.7 million to 107.4 million in the next four years. In 2007 9.6 million British belonged to the country’s social networking community, with 8.9 million and France and 8.6 million in Germany.

In Europe users spend 3 hours per month on average on social networking sites according to comscore.com. The UK registered the highest usage in 2007 with an average of 5.8 user hours spent on such sites. This was a significantly heavier usage level than in France, which averaged 2 hours per month, or Germany, with 3.1 hours and Spain and Italy with 1.8 hours.

In parallel with well known companies based in the US like Facebook, Youtube and Myspace, European companies are doing very well in this sector. Finland-based Habbo Hotel claims 80 million registrations. Badoo and Faceparty from the UK have a combined membership of about 15 million users; Belgian-based Netlog has 17 million while the French based Skyrock 18 million and Dailymotion 11 million.

Other European sites include Hyves in the Netherlands, StudiVZ and SchuelerVZ.de in Germany, Aha.bg in Bulgaria, Arto.dk in Denmark, E puls and Grono in Poland, Szene1.at in Austria, Studenti media group in Italy, and Tuenti in Spain.

Why is the Commission now addressing social networking sites?

Because of the open nature of social networking sites and the fact that they offer cultural diversity and enhanced interactivity, they can serve several different audiences with minimum financial effort and bring about new economic opportunities for the European industry. Customer service, advertising, mobile phone industry, human resources, entertainment are only a few sectors that have been changed by the raise of the social networking sites.

Social networking sites also turn people into active users of new technologies and empower them to make active choices about their environment by offering the opportunity to create new creative content.

The most obvious change brought about by the social networking sites is probably the influence on the way people manage their social contacts. Whether it is maintaining and enhancing existing relations or making new friends online, social networking sites play an increasingly important role in the way people keep in touch and organise their social life.

Social networking sides also have started to raise new issues with regard to data privacy and protection of minors.

Why are social networking sites on the agenda of today’s Safer Internet Forum in Luxembourg?

To stimulate the debate on Social networking and children, the Commission organised the Safer Internet Forum in Luxembourg on 25-26 September. The Safer Internet Forum gathers around 300 participants from NGOs, industry, and public authorities, coming from Europe, the US, Brazil or Australia.

In parallel, the Commission launched a public consultation on social networking and child safety. The results of the public consultation have been published online.

The European Commission is encouraging self-regulation with regard to social networking. For this purpose the Commission has convened a Social Networking Task Force, which held two meetings in 2008 with 17 operators of social networking sites used by under-18s (e.g. MySpace, Facebook, YouTube, Bebo, Hyves, StudiVZ, and Skyrock), a number of researchers and child welfare organisations. The objective is to agree on voluntary guidelines for use of social networking sites by children, to be adopted voluntarily by the European industry. The Commission acts as a facilitator for bringing together industry players and other stakeholders interested in child safety online. In doing so its builds on its experience from the successful initiative with the mobile phone industry, which resulted in the European Framework for Safer Mobile Use by Younger Teenagers and Children (IP/07/139).

Last February, the European Commission proposed a new Safer Internet programme to enhance the safety of children in the online environment (IP/08/310). The 2009-2013 programme takes into account new developments such as mobile content and social networking sites.

What are the business possibilities of social networking?

Social networking sites can be beneficial to public and professional institutions and to society as a whole. Given the popularity of social networking services among professionals, the young and the retired for sharing holiday photos, stories and news, keeping in touch, and organising their social and working life, it is clear that social networking sites offer potential for European industry, by increasing productivity through better customer relations and internal communications or as a business in itself.

Technology firms are taking the lead by using social networking to improve customer services and client involvement in company’s product innovation and development services. Other companies are opening specific networking sites for their own employees, giving them the possibility to operate as a community no matter where they are. This gives employees the chance to feel involved in company decisions which could help engage them and increase productivity.

Social networking websites are also a means for smaller companies to take advantage of the internet at lower cost. 40% of small and medium enterprises do not have websites because running a website can be costly. These are cheaper, less demanding but efficient way for them to attract customers and promote their business across borders.

While social networking offers great contributions to productivity and growth, it is also directly creating jobs in Europe. For example, since its foundation in 2000, Finnish social networking company and a European Champion in this field, Sulake Corporation has expanded from its headquarters in Helsinki to 14 other offices around the world. It employs over 300 people globally and the company is in the top 25 of the most valuable digital start ups in the world. Furthermore, international social networking companies like Facebook and MySpace are now opening offices in Europe, employing local staff to reflect the culture of a particular country.

What risks are involved in the increased use of Social Networking Sites? Are they safe for young people?

The social networking phenomenon was most rapidly and immediately adopted by young people, and this trend is continuing. The age of internet users in Europe has actually decreased in the past few years. 9-10 year old children now connect several times a week; 12-14 year olds generally use the Internet daily, often for one to three hours. One of their main activities is communication through chats, instant messaging and social networking sites.

The risks they face in passing an increasing proportion of social time online include grooming (where adults can pass for young people with the intent of abusing children), accidentally finding inappropriate content, abuse of personal or private information or cyber-bullying. According to a Danish study, 31.5% of the 12 to 18 year old users participating in the study said that they have had bad experiences on the Internet. 70.1% of these were caused by messages from strangers.

What can be done to minimise the risks?

There are many existing measures to protect young internet surfers like screening and parental control. Some social networking sites also provide user safety tools and information. Many of them have in place systems for reporting unwanted content and inappropriate or illegal behaviour, like cyberbullying and grooming. A report is usually followed by written warnings to the offending users, suspension or cancellation of accounts. When lawfully required by the police, sites have a policy for the disclosure of communications data and content in line with the national law. In addition, most social networking sites use a combination of technical and human moderation with personnel who receive appropriate training to manage different types of situations.

However, it is also important to empower digital natives – who have grown up with and are more confident in using network technologies – though age verification systems and industry self-regulation.

Following the successful initiative of 2007 with the support of the Commission, when mobile operators signed the European Framework for Safer Mobile use by Young Teenagers and Children, the Commission is discussing a set of guidelines for ensuring the online safety of young people and children with social networking sites. They will be unveiled at the next Safer Internet Day, February 10, 2009, along with a pan-European INSAFE network campaign to raise awareness of the potential risks children and young people can meet online.

More information on the Safer Internet Programme:

http://ec.europa.eu/information_society/activities/sip/index_en.htm

Not much in the way of Internet predator sting ops this past week. So instead of the weekly round-up of scumbags, I am going to play the other side of the coin and talk about one of the groups that has made a name for itself by going after online predators trying to lure minors for sex.

While I appreciate their work and don’t dispute that fact that these predator sickos need to be wiped off the net, the folks at Perverted Justice are going about it all wrong.

For starters you can read this piece: Chatmag Special Report: Perverted-Justice.com

But the most recent story concerning PJ is that of an inflated ego and thinking they are above the law. Again, it’s not that I don’t like the work they do; it’s more of the fact they need to shed the god complex. They receive insane amounts of funds and still have the balls to file for consideration as a non-profit. Their tactics are questionable, at best, and instead of holding dirtbags accountable in a civil manner (not that they deserve it), they take matters into their own hands, making a spectacle of their work, border on entrapment, and – now – straight up disobey direct court orders.

Check it out:

Dateline NBC Sponsored Vigilante Group Flaunts Judge’s Order

In yet another bizarre twist to the already controversial trials stemming from the Dateline NBC series, “To Catch A Predator”, the vigilante group hired by NBC has refused a Judge’s order to allow a computer to be examined by a computer forensic expert.

Todd Spikes and Daniel Kelly, represented by Attorney Ted Zentner, are on trial in Bunnell, Florida, charged after they were apprehended in a Dateline NBC sting conducted in Flagler County, Florida. Zentner requested that a computer forensic expert be allowed to examine the computer of the Perverted-Justice.com decoy living in Kentucky.

The Judge in the case, Kim C. Hammond, had made an agreement with the defense Attorneys to allow the examination of Internet chat logs on the decoy’s computer. When the forensic expert appeared to facilitate an examination, they were turned away with no reason given. The decoy ignored a court order to have their computer examined.

Perverted-Justice.com was hired by Dateline NBC to act as online decoys during a series of stings, in which alleged Internet predators were lured to a house rented by Dateline NBC. Prior to being arrested, the alleged predators were interviewed by Chris Hansen of Dateline NBC. Hansen has since published a book stemming from the Dateline NBC series and has embarked on a lecture series, representing himself as an expert in Internet safety issues. Hansen has no credentials as an expert in Internet safety, and no experience in the field, outside of the controversial series.

Perverted-Justice.com and their employees have consistently held themselves as a pseudo-law enforcement group, and have made statements in the past that they will only obey laws and orders which favor their particular brand of vigilantism.

The question of the integrity of chat logs was first brought to light in a Special Report published by Chatmag.com in 2004, and has set off a flurry of investigations into the workings of Perverted-Justice.com. Legal scholars and law enforcement agencies have taken Perverted-Justice to task for their less than ethical and possibly illegal methods, and the refusal of a Perverted-Justice.com decoy to comply with a court order comes as no surprise to those who’ve tracked and spoken up against Perverted-Justice.com and their methods.