http://internetsafetyadvisor.info/journal/2008/2/22/another-myspace-cyberbullying-hoax.html
Title of article: Another MySpace cyber-bullying "Hoax"
Author: Internet Safety Advisor.
Date written: Friday, February 22, 2008 at 06:01AM


Recently, I stumbled upon this article, entitled "Another MySpace cyber-bullying "Hoax". It talked about how yet another teenager fell for a hoax where another person set up a false identity on social networking websites to lure people into their bullying.

In the article, an 18-year old teenage boy Jordan was lured by an online persona called "Cassie", who claimed to be the sister of his locker partner, Lisa. Lisa acted as a go-between between him and "Cassie", passing him messages and gifts from her.

For months, "Cassie" repeatedly set up visits or meetings, only to cancel them at the last minute. Jordan thus became more and more depressed.

Well, as it turned out, "Cassie" didn't even exist! It was just an elaborate ploy by Lisa, targeted at Jordan with no obvious intent. However, this reminded me of another case, where a girl was befriended by a "cute boy", also on MySpace, only to have the boy turn on her one day, calling her cruel to her classmate. The girl was so depressed that she commited sucide, and the "boy" turned out to be her classmate's mother, trying to monitor what the girl was saying to her child.

It's quite sad really, how we humans abuse our own inventions to cause harm to others. This seems to happen more with teens or children, where they are not yet mature enough to behave responsibly online, and also have feelings of insecurities that they vent by picking on others online.

This problem is becoming more and more prevalent in our society, where children are often given more material conforts (such as computers and games) to replace how both parents now work compared with the traditional single-income household. With no one to provide care and guidance to the children, they may turn to other means to vent their fustration, including cyber-bullying.

Of course, I'm not implying that the parents are completely at fault. Who can blame them for working to provide for their child? However, parents must realise that children do not have just material needs to take care of, they also have mental and psychological needs. A simple thing like sitting down and talking to the child could help to both de-stress and assess the child's situation.