WHAT would you do if your child came to you and said that someone she knew was spreading lies about her? It’s a dilemma many parents have faced. One American parent’s response, which led to a legal battle that lasted nearly two years, offers a cautionary tale.
About 13 years ago, Lori Drew and her employee Ashley Grills created a fake MySpace account, in which they pretended to be a cute teenage boy. They intended to find out what a teenage girl, Megan Meier, had been saying about Drew’s daughter, another teenager. Some of this non-existent boy’s messages were flirtatious.
“But the idea morphed into other methods of humiliating the girl (Megan), devised by Ms. Drew,” Jennifer Steinhauer reported in the Nov. 20, 2008 issue of The New York Times.
Grills, who later testified for the prosecution as part of an immunity deal, admitted that she emailed Megan this message: “The world would be a better place without you.” Megan Meier ended her life shortly after that, less than three weeks before her 14th birthday. A jury found Drew guilty of misdemeanor, but a federal court dropped the convictions in 2009.
Last Friday in Talisay City’s Pooc National High School, a student asked me if taking revenge on someone who had cyberbullied her friend would be advisable. The advice from practically every organization that campaigns against cyberbullying is clear: Resist the urge to bully back. But that would be easier to do, I think, if adults in the community played their part in dealing with bullies. Discussions like the one organized by Candice Cabras Maque’s senior high school class, are a good start.
Parents, find out if the school your child attends has organized a Child Protection Committee, which the Department of Education began to require in 2012. Go over its policies to prevent bullying and its procedures for handling complaints, whether against students or staff. See to it that the school, as required by law, keeps a record of bullying incidents—but also that the names of students involved are kept confidential.
Today’s teenagers may know better than their parents about how to use devices and how to find their way around social networking sites. But that’s no guarantee they will know how to protect themselves harassment, flaming, impersonation, trickery, stalking and other forms of bullying. To learn how to help victims of bullying and how to avoid encouraging bullies, they will take their cues from us. This is why I worry whenever I see adults bullying others—calling them names, inciting violence against them—just because they happen to disagree.
Two years ago, Rep. Johnny Pimentel (Surigao del Sur) filed House Bill 4795, in which he proposed fines of P100,000 to P500,000, or a jail term of five to 10 years, or both penalties, for cyberbullies. Among the acts he wants the law to punish are threatening someone using text messages or social media posts; sharing any post that is “indecent, lewd, obscene or abusive;” posting remarks that urge others to threaten or harass someone; and using fictitious accounts to commit any of these acts. A committee is still reviewing Pimentel’s bill.
There’s a dearth of statistics on cyberbullying in the Philippines, but a June 2012 study by Shella Witkus of the University of Hawaii should give us an idea of the problem’s extent. In a survey of 579 respondents 11 to 17 years old, Witkus found out that 29 percent of the group had been cyberbullied in the 30 days before their interview. At least 44 percent said they knew someone who had been bullied online; 16 percent said that they, too, had hurt, embarrassed or threatened someone online.
How do we protect our children from cyberbullying? Perhaps by beginning to recognize if a tendency to bully also exists within us, and figuring out—with help, when needed—how these impulses can be tamed.