Currently, cyber bullying is one of the fastest growing problems facing school administrators and local governments around the country. Cyber bullying is defined as using the computer or other electronic devices to intimidate, threaten or humiliate another individual. Cyber bullying most commonly takes place on the Internet among students from a given school or neighborhood.

What follows is a series of highly publicized cases of Cyber bullying – each one chosen to shed light on the nature of the problem and the fallout that ensues when one young individual uses technology to hurt another person psychologically.

The Megan Meier MySpace Incident

Megan Meier was a 13 year old from Missouri who struck up an online friendship on the popular social networking site MySpace with a person she believed was a new boy in her hometown. In actuality, the “friend” was a group of individuals, including adults, who were intent on humiliating the poor girl because of a friendship with another child that had gone awry. Megan was very upset when she found out the truth, then later committed suicide once the friendship had terminated. The horrifying case stunned the community and caused state government officials to pass some of the harshest cyber bullying laws in the country.

The “Kill Kylie” Campaign of Hate and Homophobia

Kylie Kenney, an eighth grade student from Vermont lost two years of her life as a result of cyber bullying from classmates. From junior high through her sophomore year of high school, Kylie was forced to deal with websites created by her classmates that featured names like “Kill Kylie Incorporated” that were filled with threatening, homophobic remarks about the young girl. These hurtful kids obtained screen names with handles close to Kylie’s name and used them to make suggestive remarks and sexual advances on Kylie’s teammates on the field hockey team. As a result police filed charges of harassments against the individuals responsible.

The “Dog Poop Girl”

In South Korea, a female college student was riding the train with her dog when it defecated on the floor of the subway car. After the girl refused to clean up the mess, another passenger on the train took her picture using her cell phone and posted it online. In the months to follow, it became an Internet sensation in South Korea and “Dog Poop” girl became the target of extreme harassment. Individuals found out her name and address and soon she was forced to withdraw from school and move to another part of the country.

A Fake Facebook Rival

This year in Clinton Missouri, charges were filed against a teenager who allegedly created a fake Facebook account to serve as a competition against a young girl who was interested romantically in a male student. The account was created by another girl who wanted the boy all to herself, the suit claims. As a result, the targeted individual underwent significant levels of stress which affected her studies and her ability to attend school regularly. The case is one of many that feature phony accounts on Facebook or MySpace that are used to harass young people or stir up trouble among friends.

Cyber Bullying has become a worldwide problem because of the difficulty to track its occurrences. It some cases it has been accepted as humor, but when is it taken to far? When a child has taken her own life because she was cyber bullied, we know it has been taken way too far.

Cyber bullying has been present in the 2008 presidential election with the slurrying of both presidential candidates John McCain and Barack Obama. Even the vice-presidential candidates Sarah Palin and Joe Biden have been victims of this abuse. These slanders wouldn’t technically be considered cyber bullying, but are loosely related. Senator Sarah Palin has received the worst of it with the creation of videos mocking her interviews on Saturday Night Live. NBC reports over 7 million views online, with millions more watching it on YouTube and Google video.

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The Internet has provided a new method of communication for young people from all over the world. For most, online social networking sites such as MySpace and Facebook are an opportunity to share feelings about music, movies, school and anything else that kids tend to talk about with one another when they congregate.

But as kids gain a greater mastery over the online tools at their disposal, more and more are using these technologically advanced sites, and major consumer software programs, for an insidious purpose – namely, cyberbullying.

What is Cyberbullying?

Cyberbullying occurs when one or more individuals use the Internet to inflict psychological harm on another individual. This can occur in many forms, including: using social media techniques to spread hurtful or untrue information about another individual, creating fake identities and using them to manipulate others, posting unwanted photos of an individual, or doctoring photos of an individual using PhotoShop or other photo editing software programs.

The sad case of Megan Meier

Recently, cyberbullying made headlines when a 13-year old girl from Missouri named Megan Meier committed suicide in her bedroom inside her parent’s home. An investigation found that Megan’s death was likely caused due to stress over being the target of a cruel cyberbullying incident.

Megan developed a relationship on MySpace with an individual who she thought was a new boy in the area, but turned out to be a cabal of other individuals from the neighborhood, including adults such as Lori Drews (who’s 13-year old daughter was once friends with Megan, but had gotten into a fight with her) and an 18-year-old temporary office worker who worked for Drews.

The group created an elaborate hoax to make Megan believe that she had a burgeoning relationship with the boy. When the plot was revealed for all to see, Megan was unable to deal with the humiliation and took her own life.

The state of Missouri had no cyberbullying laws at the time of Megan’s suicide and was therefore unable to prosecute Lori Drews or any of the other parties involved. Federal prosecutors working in Los Angeles however, saw the case as a clear cut violation of the Consumer Fraud and Abuse Act and stepped in to bring Drews up on charges for violating the terms and conditions of her MySpace account. That case is currently pending.

Bullying and young girls

This sad case is unique in that it involved an adult at the helm who should have known better, but the act of bullying has been around as long as there have been children. And while many individuals associate bully-behavior with boys, some of the most devastating instances of bullying occur with girls. What makes girl-girl bullying so harmful is that the age in which it is most likely to occur, say twelve to eighteen years old, is the time in which young women-to-be are dealing with a number of challenging issues regarding their bodies and self-image. Exposing them to high levels of emotional stress, such as those coming from being the target of a cyberbullying incident, can yield unpredictable and often tragic results.

The ACLU gets involved

And this incident is far from over. Recently, the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) has become involved in the case, concerned that in their haste to bring someone to justice for Megan Meier’s tragic death, Federal prosecutors will be setting a bad precedent, and that the door will open to prosecute (or investigate) anyone who innocently violates the terms and conditions of the websites they use. Like the federal case against Lori Drews, this case is pending as well.

Cyber bullying in the News | Video Update