Real enough?

For the people who think cyberbullying is trivial or unreal or harmless or totally incapable of being traumatic – have a little collection of case studies.

Megan Meier, a 13-year-old Missouri native, started messaging a boy she had never met via MySpace. The comments posted by someone using the account name of “Josh Evans” began friendly but eventually turned aggressive and derogatory. These comments were public and other classmates could read and comment on them. As a result of the cyberbullying on MySpace, Megan hanged herself in her closet. [Read more…]

“We meant you no harm”

The CBC reports a student union leader at the University of Ottawa, Anne-Marie Roy, was anonymously sent screenshots of a Facebook conversation about her among five male students who are also student leaders. It was an unpleasant conversation from her point of view.

The online conversation — a copy of which was obtained by The Canadian Press — included references to sexual activities some of the five individuals wrote they would like to engage in with Roy, including oral and anal sex, as well as suggestions that she suffered from sexually transmitted diseases.

“Someone punish her with their shaft,” wrote one of the individuals at one point. [Read more…]