Cyberbullying

This is something that was very hard for me to grasp until today. I always figured that is someone online was bothering you, just ignore them....

Today it went one step to far.

My son, a member of myspace like all teenagers, started receiving threatening messages from someone claiming to be a boyfriend of a girl he knows at school. This person also hacked into his account and sent graphic sex pictures to all of my son's "friends". They topped it all off with a threat to burn down our house and for my son to never take the bus home...to meet and such and such place to fight.....(oh the girl in question has no clue who this person is).

Now I was livid...so I filed a complaint with myspace (still haven't heard back), went to the school (still haven't heard back), went to the local police department who sent me to the FBI (this is a federal crime in the U.S.). They opened an "Urgent" investigation, since the letter said "I will beat you to death" and they would burn down the house.....

If they find who is doing it, it is punishable with a fine and/or up to 2 years in federal prison.

Kinda scary......

Anyone think I took this too far? Thoughts on cyberbullying?

NO. You did what needs to be done, As parents, we need to lead by example, bullying in any form WILL NOT BE TOLERATED. I think your case far exceeds 'bullying', and if it is some teenager just making bully type threats, then he needs to be the example, cyber bullying, threats ARE NOT TOLERATED. PERIOD.
As a parent to elementary children, I am so afraid to let my kids on the net, because of this. And if I was in your position I would of done the same thing, and can only hope other parents when faced with similar situations, they pursue it to the fullest.

absolutely not. these kind of threats are not acceptably neither in person nor via means of communication (like, phone or internet). That's why it is considered crime and should be prosecuted.

Anyone think I took this too far? Thoughts on cyberbullying?

Of course not , and if there is something more you can do , do it , we must protect our children .

Keep pushing on the FBI , i think there is some kind of internet police or something like that , they can find the sender IP .

Do not let any one under any circumstances tries to neutralise this and pretend that it is just teens game .

Your son will remember how much you stand by him , do not let him down.

Try to ask him as a friend , and i feel that he know who can do such thing , do not investigate him or judge him , just let him know that you are trying to help him to pass this trouble .

And i am sure that every thing will be all right very soon .

Thank you for sharing us your troubles , we are your second family here .

If there is any thing you feel that i can do for you , do not hesitate .

Abdel kader Sultan

I think I have done all I can. They were supposed to meet this afternoon for a fight, when I called the school, they had the campus police there (we actually have a branch of our police department that only works schools). One of his buddies went over there for "back up" LOL and told us.

The school never called me back (I will take that up with them in the morning), and I have yet to hear from myspace. I did start a new account for him, with no info on it to speak of. Told him to only add his friends not the "myspace" type of friends....though it definitely is someone from his school (they mentioned teachers by name).

The FBI told me that I probably wouldn't hear much from them unless they needed more information. That's ok, I copied the email they sent me and posted it to my son's old myspace page...so the perpetrator will know that I will not accept this. My son has got to see that there are other ways to deal with these people other than fighting. (He isn't a good fighter LOL and he will be 18 soon, too old for such shenanigans) and nowadays they bring guns and knives, not fists.

We will now just wait and see what happens.

Sultan, thanks. The main reason I posted this here is so that our younger members could see that if they are going to get angry with someone, the cyberworld isn't the place to do it. 2 rules in our world exist today...do not fight on an airplane, and don't threaten anyone online or with cell phones.

I think you did the right thing.

I wasn't aware of the expression "cyberbullying" until now, meaning that I know this particular problem but could't associate the expression to it.
I read your concerns (and experience) and I did some research (on my language) to better understand why these things happen.

I hope everything went well and the ones responsible get caught and learn their lesson.

Thanks Paulo. Yes, "cyberbully" is one of those new words that have popped up in our language....amazing how fast things change

Off to the school to find out why they didnt call grrrrrrrrrrrrrrr

The main reason I posted this here is so that our younger members could see that if they are going to get angry with someone, the cyberworld isn't the place to do it.

I would like to do something active and related to the cyberbullying case .
1- The next community contest could be :"Create a banner against cyberbullying"
2- Adding the winner's banner to our blogs and to artcrowd.org .
What do you think about this idea ?

Keep us posted! I like the idea Ak-Sultan