R.J. Carter (author) Tied to Sick Cyber-Harassment Ring

Author Alice's Journey Beyond The Moon

AP AUG 4, 2010

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What happens when you fight back against all the bullies on your YouTube page?

Your video might go viral. Cyberbullies may take revenge and post your personal information all over the Internet. You may receive death threats and harassing phone calls. And, you might just end up in police protection because of cyberspace nut-jobs threatening you. This is exactly what happened to an 11 year old, Jessi Slaughter, and her family earlier this month when possibly the largest social forum (4chan) and its anonymous users, over 500 million visitors, began harassing her online.

Unlike other cyberbullying cases, this all took place in just a matter of days.

Cyberbullying not only impacts children or tweens, but also directly impacts adults. Take, for example, the story of Mitchell Henderson, a 7th grader who committed suicide and was mourned by his school and family with a virtual memorial on MySpace. Cyber-bullies (according to the NY Times, they were also from 4chan) trolled the virtual memorial MySpace page the school had set up in remembrance of him, and began posting comments mocking Mitchell and his suicide. Not only that, but his personal information was also posted across the Internet, and people began prank-calling his parents pretending to be Mitchell's dead ghost. This harassment lasted for over a year.

Sadly, there are many more stories of teens who were driven to suicide because they did not know what to do with at-school and online bullying. It has always been said that children can be mean, and this we all know can be true, but cyberspace takes this into a new global territory. Where what would normally have been a few kids on a playground making fun of each other now becomes nameless, faceless millions harassing not only children, but adults as well. There is something about anonymity that causes normal people and tweens to act in crazy ways. Because, typically, you would never see or hear of people harassing the grieving parents of a dead 12 year old, nor would you see millions of people standing outside the house of an 11 year old threatening her and her parents with physical harm.