Zowpeb Posted May 16, 2008 Share Posted May 16, 2008 What do you all think of this adult in Missouri "cyber-bullying" a 13 year old girl by pretending to be a young boy, flirting with her and then ending the apparent relationship...leading the the young girl hanging herself. http://ca.news.yahoo.com/s/reuters/080516/...pace_suicide_dc My question is: at what point does cyber bullying become an indictable offense? Clearly this girl was quite immature emotionally to take an on-line relationship as seriously as this, but it would be awfully hard to excuse an adult from picking on a kid...nonetheless we're talking about a form of mental/emotional abuse which is harder to define. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tony Posted May 17, 2008 Share Posted May 17, 2008 Cyber bullying? I thought there's a block button on these things. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Athlétique.Canadien Posted June 1, 2008 Share Posted June 1, 2008 Does behaviour like this bring money, food, shelter or self esteem? Does it feed the family? Does it do anything else but cause harm? Causing harm? This woman served herself with nothing but evil gratification. I'd love to be the fly on the wall during her processing. I think when people like this are processed that there should be an audience. How's that for evil? B*tch Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
KoZed Posted June 2, 2008 Share Posted June 2, 2008 "Cyber" bullying is the same as bullying over the phone or through snail mail... Abuse is abuse regardless of the means of communication. If an adult would make sexual propositions to your 8 years old girl over the internet, do you think it'd be a type of abuse "harder to define" than if it was done in person? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JLP Posted June 2, 2008 Share Posted June 2, 2008 People adopt all sorts of online persona and that certainly won't stop, as more and more people are more comfortable pretending than being, and the game's interaction creates relationship in which people can and will get hurt. The thing about this case is the 49 year-old woman targeted a specific person, a minor whom she knew and had a grudge against. That has colored the media and authorities' reaction. A cyber-mob has formed, and there have been real attacks against the woman's home and business. So public pressure is mounting on authorities to punish this woman, and with good reason. But she has been charged with "accessing a protected computer to obtain information" (used for hackers) and it's unlikely that will stick, so a possible consequence will be the United States adapting new measures to monitor and restrict people's online activities. That seems to be the pattern ~ provoke outrage, cultivate fear, then remove rights. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Zowpeb Posted June 2, 2008 Author Share Posted June 2, 2008 "Cyber" bullying is the same as bullying over the phone or through snail mail... Abuse is abuse regardless of the means of communication. If an adult would make sexual propositions to your 8 years old girl over the internet, do you think it'd be a type of abuse "harder to define" than if it was done in person? Well...I think that's taking a comparison to the extreme. Pedophile's luring girls is very different then what happened here. Don't get me wrong, I'm in no way trying to justify what this lady did, she should serve some jail time, but she didn't attempt a level of crime that is on par with what you describe. I think it's simply a curious situation whereby nothing would happen if this girl did not take her emotions to such an extreme as to commit suicide over it. Certainly you can lay some blame at the feet of someone who directed this situation to occur but I also don't believe anyone would have thought the end result would have happened. Do you punish intent or result in this situation? I'm not talking about IF it's punishable...just how much... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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