In California, a hateful Internet campaign followed sixth-grader Olivia Gardner through three schools. In Vermont, a humiliated Ryan Halligan, 13, took his own life after being encouraged to do so by one of his middle-school peers. And in perhaps the most notorious case, Lori Drew, 49, was recently convicted on misdemeanor charges for posing as a teenage boy on MySpace to woo and then reject 13-year-old Megan Meier of Missouri, who later hanged herself in her closet.Such are a few of the anguished stories of cyber-bullying that are increasingly cropping up around the country, as more and more children and teenagers wage war with one another on computers and cellphones. The phenomenon has led to a push among states to pass laws aimed at clamping down on the student-spun harassment, intimidation and threats coursing through the Web.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/12/31/AR2008123103067.html
In Several US States, A Push to Stem Cyberbullying
In California, a hateful Internet campaign followed sixth-grader Olivia Gardner through three schools. In Vermont, a humiliated Ryan Halligan, 13, took his own life after being encouraged to do so by one of his middle-school peers. And in perhaps the most notorious case, Lori Drew, 49, was recently convicted on misdemeanor charges for posing as a teenage boy on MySpace to woo and then reject 13-year-old Megan Meier of Missouri, who later hanged herself in her closet.