Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

9 MA Cyberbullies Indicted For Causing Suicide

Posted by Soulskill on from the this-is-why-you-don't-listen-to-the-internet dept.

Raul654 writes "Massachusetts teenager Phoebe Prince committed suicide on January 14. After her death, it was revealed that she had been the target of cyberbullying for months (and that her teachers were aware of it and did nothing). Today, nine of her classmates were indicted on charges including harassment, stalking, civil rights violations, and statutory rape. Prince's suicide echoes the earlier case of Megan Meier, who committed suicide after being cyberbullied by a classmate's mother."

3 of 709 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Your rights OFFLINE! by tarun713 · · Score: 5, Informative

    FTA: "According to students, Phoebe was called 'Irish slut' and 'whore' on Twitter, Craigslist, Facebook and Formspring."

  2. Re:Your rights OFFLINE! by religious+freak · · Score: 5, Informative

    I'm kind of surprised too, though I wish I wasn't. Sometimes the only way to deal with a shithead is to be the crap out of them

    --
    If you can read this... 01110101 01110010 00100000 01100001 00100000 01100111 01100101 01100101 01101011
  3. Re:Your rights OFFLINE! by Opportunist · · Score: 5, Informative

    And that changes ... what exactly?

    Oh, the difference is that the whole world could see it instead of just everyone that knows her? Newsflash: THE WORLD DOESN'T GIVE A SHIT. Does anyone here (provided he doesn't know her) care whether she's called an Irish slut? Call her an Italian dyke for all I care.

    That is in NO way different from "offline" bullying. Whether "the whole world" knows or just the people that know her does not change a thing. Except that in this case there's hard evidence of it happening, compared to the bullying and mobbing that went on when we went to school. If a teenager killed himself before the onset of the internet craze, it was easily blamed on something else and shifted on ... rock music or whatever was the applicable scapegoat. The school could easily claim they didn't have a clue and the bullies certainly didn't come forward.

    The difference is not that it's now "world wide known". The difference is that there's evidence now. And I fear the reaction will be to attempt to eliminate that evidence rather than stop the bullying.

    It's easier to do.

    --
    We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.