Florida’s Governor Charlie Crist has just signed into law the “Jeffrey Johnston Stand Up for All Students Act.” This is due mostly to the efforts of our friend Debbie Johnston from Cape Coral, Florida, a first-grade schoolteacher whose son Jeffrey took his life after being bullied and cyberbullied. This law: – requires districts to adopt…
This story, which involves a digitally-recorded video of three teens throwing a 32-ounce soda on a girl working the window at a Taco Bell drive-thru, is a newer iteration of cyberbullying which we’re seeing more often. The boys posted the video on YouTube, which led to repeated embarrassment and humiliation for the girl. She was…
For those of you who haven’t heard yet, a federal law has been proposed that defines “cyberbullying” and specifies penalties (in the form of fines and up to two years imprisonment) for violators. The bill is formally called the Megan Meier Cyberbullying Prevention Act (HR 6123), and was introduced jointly by Representatives from Missouri and…
It was a great honor to speak at the National Press Club yesterday. A lot of interesting questions were asked…for example, what is the role of the school nurse in cyberbullying incidents, because they are a trusted figure in whom youth are confiding…how often does cyberbullying occur as a part of dating violence…is cyberbullying simply…
June is Internet Safety Month. Parents should take this opportunity to have a brief talk with their kids about what they are doing online. Ask them about any unpleasant experiences they may have had. Tell them that you have heard about “cyberbullying” and wondered if they have had any such experiences. The earlier you have…
A while ago, I read an article stating that the Manatee County School Board was considering allowing educators and administrators to search student phones in order to find incriminating text, photo, and video content. First, I am not a lawyer and so please keep that in mind. Second, even if this occurs on school grounds,…
I have been invited by the U.S. Department of Justice and the National Crime Prevention Council to provide remarks on a briefing of Internet Safety at the National Press Club in Washington DC on the morning of June 4th, 2008. I’ll be covering some of our latest cyberbullying research findings in order to heighten national…
Illinois is seemingly about to pass a law to criminalize any instances of cyberbullying that involve a direct threat to another person. Penalties include up to one year in jail for the first instance of harassing someone online, with repeat offenses leading to up to three years imprisonment. Oddly, the bill only mentions web sites…
I will be at the Jostens Renaissance National Conference presenting on cyberbullying on July 12th, 2008. More details about the conference can be found here. I’ll post more information in the near future!
As regular readers know, we have been working on our cyberbullying book for well over a year. It is currently in the copy-editing phase and is still on track for publication in August. It goes without saying that we are extremely excited about this. It is a culmination of over five years of research. We…
Indictments were filed yesterday in the Megan Meier case. For those of you unfamiliar with the case, you can read the story here. In short, Megan Meier was the 13-year-old from Missouri who committed suicide after being cyberbullied on MySpace. To make matters worse, the offender was a fictitious 16-year-old boy who was created by…
So…I’m sure by now you all have heard the news story and seen the attendant video of the cheerleader in Lakeland, Florida who was lured into a “friend’s” home and then severely beaten by that friend and other cheerleaders. All of this for basically talking smack over MySpace (cyberbullying?) about those friends. So what we…