Route 666 on the Internet Highway

Cyber bullying isn't new.  The first incident I encountered happened during my first year as computer tech 17 years ago.  Police came to talk to me about a student having access to the internet.  Due to delays in connecting the computers to the network, he hadn't used our computers.  The offense was called stalking at the time with Federal charges of harassment across state lines.  They finally tracked down the computer to his mother's computer at work.  She would be facing criminal charges for endangering a minor across state lines.  Her son, an eighth grader, was telling a 6th grader in Florida that he was going to get her and horrible things he would do to her.  When they questioned the boy, he asked what was wrong, "It's just a computer."  He did not connect that the person at the other end was a real person feeling terrorized by his hostile spewing on the internet.  I wanted to know more about this thing called the Internet that they were bringing to the middle/junior high school.  (Student ages ranging between 11-14 years old.)  If I don't know something, I find someone who does.  I attended a computer conference designed for teachers.  The class I took was called "Route 666 on the Internet Highway."  The teacher spun the wheel of misfortune.  In one hour, we discussed cyber stalking, anarchy, and bomb making on the internet.  We never made it to pornography and cyber bullying didn't have a name yet.  I was sick to my stomach listening to a man totally dismiss the fact that he placed the bomb recipe on line that two teenage boys blew their hands off while attempting to make the bomb.  He scoffed that he hadn't told them to make the bomb by posting the recipe.  I was aghast that our school district planned to bring the internet to a junior high school without any protection or filters as to what the students could access.  At the next meeting about using the internet at the school, I expressed my deep concern in less than tactful ways.  I was furious that they so glibly thought that the little darlings in our school wouldn't use it to do anything wrong.  I was criticized for being the only person in the district having a fit over students using the internet.  To placate me when I threatened to unplug the internet at our school computer labs, they allowed me to test two softwares that filtered access to websites on the internet.  I was a one woman campaign trying to wake up an entire school district that their was danger out there on the Internet.  In February, the software blocked a student from going to a well known porn site.  A teacher came to ask me if I was shocked that the student tried to log in to a 'naughty page.'  I snorted, "Yea, I am shocked that it took them until February to figure it out."  When I left the school 4 years later I was still considered totally unreasonable about my concern.  Now, the district has some of the strongest filters available and complain about not being able to do enough to protect kids.  The Internet is wild and still untamed after all these years.  Bottom line, nobody owns it and anonymous can hide any one allowing totally inappropriate behavior with little or no consequences.  Teenagers discovered the power of the internet long before the adults grasped what was happening.  These kids that didn't know what a type writer was, knew that pecking at the keyboard on the internet could send words zinging around the world and in many cases totally unsupervised.  When the district teachers innocently brought down the network by having an email snowball fight, I saw how rapidly a rumor or threat could spread and gain momentum like a huge snowball of words.  Kids and adults found a stealth weapon to launch a verbal attack on any person connected with the belief they can't get caught.  Cyber bullying has reached epidemic worldwide proportions.  You can google 'cyber bullying' and read the horrific stories on line of teenagers committing suicide after cyber attacks.  Adults are not exempt from stalking and abuse online.  One person I talked to down played how cruel cyber bullying was with a sing song answer, "Sticks and stones can break my bones but words can never hurt me."  I came up with a retort for that "Sticks and stones can break my bones but words can totally destroy me."  I kept looking for help and found a source that was started in 1995 Cyber Angels http://www.cyberangels.org/index.php

My sister used the internet for socializing long before I did.  I was terrified to use anything but email.  I helped students use the internet but I rarely used it myself.  I used the internet to find answers for work problems but little else.  I was assigned in one of my photo classes to use Flickr!.  As a computer tech I knew the horrors of the internet I was resistant, only in the past 5 years did I discover that a large percentage of people on line are really very nice.  Took my kids setting up Facebook for me about a year ago to get me to use it at all.  The internet is still untamed but like walking through a mall it is my responsibility to stay alert and aware of danger from strangers.  Cyber bullying is real.  Teaching kids to respect each other and supervising computer usage is critical to putting a curb on hurting each other online.  I felt shaken when cruel words were being posted on friends' web pages.  I calmed myself and reminded myself about the 3Ds Delete, Delete, Delete.  I am no closer to knowing how to stop it but I do know it is my responsibility to not allow it to destroy my life.