Teen Girl Files Lawsuit Over Cyberbullying (After Neither Her School Nor Facebook Helped)

I hope she gets relief in the courts.  If she successfully sues the kids and their parents for libel, there could be a flood of other cases.  That could halt cyberbullying in its tracks.  Good luck to her and congratulations on having the courage to end this.

Times sure have changed!  Back in my day (1999) cyberbullying wasn’t even a word and the police said there was nothing they could do about online threats except issue a real-life restraining order that wouldn’t apply to the internet.  (I had showed up to the cop-shop with a stack of print-outs of the threats and the porn a bully had uploaded onto my personal website with my real name and contact info.)  A sympathetic cop called the bully and scared him out of doing it again.

Hopefully, this will mean a decrease in cyberbullying in the future.

Ultimately, though, what we need is greater protection for victims. None of the people who should have been protecting this girl did so because their hands were tied and that’s the real problem. Let’s see some form of laws to prevent this happening in the future.

Good for her, sticking up to those selfish disgusting bullies! it’s something we ALL should do. Let this be an example to all those who cyberbully or even just bully.

I hope that the courts help her.  This isn’t just about hurting her feelings.  This really is a libel case.  Universities and jobs look at Facebook while they’re making their selections.  What if they were to see this and not know that it was the work of cyberbullies?   She would be blamed and lose her chance at jobs and college. 

But you know: kids will be kids. Filthy, disgusting, nasty kids. As the late Whitney Houston put it, “It’s not right, but it’s okay.”
No, it’s NOT okay. Kids are dying today because people have this same sentiment and won’t go farther out of their way to help or change the situation/mentality that pervades parents and kids in school. 

I remember the same song and dance/ excuses told to me when I was being stalked on World of Warcraft by my abusive ex. I would send a ticket to the GMs, they said it was “taken care of”, and he would just keep messaging me like nothing happened. I would call the police local police, they said I had to talk to the police back home (where he was). They passed off the responsibility to each other every time. He finally just decided he couldn’t control me anymore and left me alone of his own accord.

If this is what needs to happen to make people think about the consequences of their actions, then so be it. I wish her luck.

I thought the “kids will be kids” part was sarcastic…if it wasn’t, I’m disappointed in you, Mary Sue. I’m hoping it was sarcasm and you’re wishing just as I am that those kids and school’s authorities slip on slimy ichor and break their noses while a squirrel viciously attacks their scalps.

Of course it was sarcastic.

I thought so :)

I had something similar happen to me a couple years ago someone hacked my FB account and put racist comments and a KKK logo as my photo my uncle called me and told me what he saw and I was able to fix it luckily my friends in real life knew I wasn’t that way but I hope these kids get punished and then when they apply for college are told no after the dean or whoever is in charge of this stuff sees they have a wrap

Good for her. I hope she wins her case. We need SOMEONE to stand up to cyber bullies!

BlogHer is featuring this post but with an incorrect headline. Really incorrect. Just FYI

If the lawyer in this case or any other ambitious attorney would like to hear about my experiences with cyberbullying on the Yahoo finance boards over 15 years – including numerous death threats, the sending of Stuxnet-caliber malware, and the posting of my obituary all over the Internet causing extraordinary distress to my family – I’d be happy to talk about becoming a test case.

Such a case would be beneficial to our country, our markets, and our economy, since these cyberbullies are believed to be employees of various hedge funds specializing in short sales. These are young male psychopaths whose employers may or may not know the incredible damage these young men have been doing to both human beings they don’t like and to the integrity of our financial markets.

I would be an extraordinarily good plaintiff in such a suit. I am a very reputable Baby Boomer woman, with three Ivy League degrees, who graduated at the top of my Ph.D. class. I am a former corporate director of investor relations and regional vice president of the National Investor Relations Institute. I was the long-time business editor of a major US women’s magazine and am the author of well over 3,000 print magazine articles in the past 35 years. I now publish four blogsites. And I was also a college professor.  

The above is not meant to sound arrogant nor elitist but merely to demonstrate that ANYONE, no matter how accomplished, educated, talented, and reputable can become the victim of a band of cyberbullies.

Again, this case could turn into a valuable scandal and lesson for those who use cyberbullying for purposes of pure blatant greed, attempting to discredit and sadistically hurt those who defend stocks and other financial instruments in which they have short selling interests.

The examples are there in various cybercaches going back well over a decade.

With the News Corp scandal, the JPM scandal, and the Liborgate scandal finally bringing to light what horrors some in our financial world are capable of, I believe it is high time someone did something to try to stop cyberbullying on financial websites once and for all.

Dr. Ellen Brandt
Attorneys may get in touch with me at lifestories@optonline.net