Boston gets serious about Internet trolling; arrests trolls, creates Troll Victim Hotline. - Polidicks

[release]The mom of a frightened 14-year-old Newburyport High freshman said her “heart was just breaking” over the relentless cyberbullying her boy was subjected to by cruel pranksters who now could face criminal charges. “It has to stop,” said the distraught mom, who alerted police after recovering from the shock. Three Newburyport teens could face identity theft allegations for setting up a bogus Facebook account where the woman’s unsuspecting son became the target of their cyberhate. “My heart was just breaking,” said the mom of the Facebook farce. Her boy ended up eating lunch alone and confronting fellow students flamed by his online alter ego. He became ostracized and even contemplated leaving school, she said. The boy told the Herald yesterday his alleged tormentors should pay. “They kind of get what they deserve,” said the 14-year-old. “I would ask them why they did it. I’m just curious as to why they would do something like this and spend so much time.” A juvenile clerk magistrate will decide the teens’ fates at a closed-door hearing on Tuesday. “It amounted to cyberbullying,” said Newburyport police Lt. Mark Murray. “The problem is that the cyberbullying law is not put into effect yet.” House Speaker Robert A. DeLeo said he is pushing to fast-track a comprehensive bullying bill that could be released to the House floor by the end of the month. The boy’s mother said the trio started attacking others via a fabricated Facebook page in August, just before her son went to high school. She described the Facebook persona as a “sarcastic little poo,” who used obscenities and labeled other students as “gay.” “It kind of made me feel like people were thinking that I was someone who I wasn’t,” said the teen, who learned of the fraudulent Facebook page from a student who quizzed him about the odd posts. When Phoebe Prince of South Hadley was found hanged after being attacked online and in school, the mother wondered if her son’s fraudulent persona could have driven someone to the brink. The mother said she went to police and school officials in September demanding action. The Facebook page was deleted in October, she said. The criminal complaints were submitted to the Newburyport District Court on Tuesday after cops used the IP address to trace the page to a computer, Murray said. The alleged bullies are ages 13 and 14, police said. One of the boys implicated has apologized, she said. Another one of the alleged cyberbullies turned out to be a friend. “I was kind of sad to know that someone who I thought was my friend would do this,” the teen said. The police scrutiny, however, is helping the teen salvage his reputation. He said a classmate offered to beat the kids up, but he told him there’s no need to fight. “At least at this school I still have my friends,” he said. His classmates said the teen is not alone. Senior Jonathan Crocker, 17, called the cruel prank “ridiculous” and said the bullies involved should be suspended. Eighth-grader Jeremy Grabowski, 13, said students are picked on for just about everything. “I actually think it’s getting a little bit out of hand,” he said. “I just ignore it.” [/release] [url=http://news.bostonherald.com/news/regional/view/20100212heartbreak_over_bullies_teens_may_face_criminal_charges/srvc=home&position=1]Source: Boston Herald[/url] [release]Boston officials are mulling a new “bullying hotline,” while pressing Web sites such as Facebook to help combat the kind of vicious cyberslurs that tormented a 15-year-old South Hadley girl weeks before her suspected suicide. “I urge Facebook, Twitter and all social networking sites to enhance their policies,” Mayor Thomas M. Menino said yesterday at John McCormack Middle School in Dorchester. “(Bullying) may not be as visible today, but it’s just as harmful as a punch.” Microsoft already has shown interest in helping, Menino said. But authorities may encounter the same difficulty they did when they called on Craigslist last year to crack down on sex ads after an erotic masseuse who advertised on the site was shot to death at a downtown hotel. Officials also are weighing the creation of a hotline similar to the city’s successful crime tip line. “We’re not actively looking for cases to prosecute; the emphasis we’re looking at is prevention and education,” Suffolk District Attorney Daniel F. Conley said. “But we will hold people accountable if it involves threats.” Conley supports a proposed state law that would close a loophole by making online bullying a crime. McCormack Principal DeQuall Graham said he encourages teachers and parents to find out what is being said to and by children at school and online. “We ask teachers to read the faces of kids, to see if something has happened in their lives. That’s where I get most of my information,” he said. However, Jefferey Ramos, a 14-year-old eighth-grader, downplayed the problem at his school. “I think a lot of people take (bullying) as a minor joke,” Ramos said. The city’s anti-bullying campaign comes in the wake of last month’s suspected suicide of Phoebe Prince, a South Hadley High School freshman who had been bullied at school, on Facebook and on her cell phone. South Hadley school officials have said several students suspected of the bullying faced lengthy suspensions or expulsions.[/release] [url=http://news.bostonherald.com/news/regional/view/20100213hotline_to_report_torment_mayor_also_urges_sites_to_enhance_policies/]Source: Boston Herald[/url] It's not just Internet trolling either; ever since a high school girl killed herself after facing RL and cyberbullying, schools have finally realized how ineffective their bullying policies are.

trolling in facebook sucks. your family and friends can see what you write so......

Kid's a pussy for not retaliating, mums overeacting

If you want someone 'cyberbullied' let me know. Free speech no matter what you want to say. There shall be no censorship on my internets!

:ohdear: I'd be in life sentance if I was in boston

The Internet Police.

Soccer moms. God. Keep your fucking kids off the internet and shit like this doesn't happen. It's fucking simple.

but trolling is wicked

Cyber-bullying is bullshit, the kid could've easily walked away from the computer or blocked the other guy. Unless he was being harassed in school where he couldn't just walk away from the problem, it really shouldn't be considered bullying. The kid is a pussy and the mother is a fucking soccer mom, simple as that.

Does this mean we can imprison Creationists now? :haw:

[QUOTE=Dr Magnusson;20191634]Does this mean we can imprison Creationists now? :haw:[/QUOTE] :haw:

Total prank call bait, the hotline is.

[QUOTE=Dr Magnusson;20191634]Does this mean we can imprison Creationists now? :haw:[/QUOTE] opinions = trolling shit shit I like ice cream over cake am I going to jail

:silent:

If you lose friends because someone says something mean on your Facebook page, you need to get new friends. [editline]12:35PM[/editline] Wait, what actually counts as "trolling" in the legal sense?

This is pretty much the go to phrase for these news stories: If you can't handle people being mean to you, don't go on the internet.

This kids an idiot for not simply clicking that little button labeled "ignore this user" on facebook.

We have ignore buttons and report page options for a reason.

4chan is screwed. Also, how is it that hard to ignore it? We have block/report buttons for a reason.

[QUOTE=ColinSSX;20191558]Cyber-bullying is bullshit, the kid could've easily walked away from the computer or blocked the other guy. Unless he was being harassed in school where he couldn't just walk away from the problem, it really shouldn't be considered bullying.[/QUOTE] Well in this case someone impersonated him and made him look stupid in front of his acquaintances, so no, that's not true at all.

"Hello, Troll Victim Hotline? Someone in a chatroom claimed to be a horny schoolgirl, then when I requested videochat, shoved a hairy man-ass into the webcam... MY HEART'S SO BROKEN!"

[QUOTE=markg06;20191966]This kids an idiot for not simply clicking that little button labeled "ignore this user" on facebook.[/QUOTE] Read the story next time.

Did they have to say "Cyberbullying"? Why not just harassment?

I thought they meant trolling as in making arguments to make other people mad, but they're talking about harassment.

Link to his facebook, I wanna troll him. Little crying pussy, hahahah... If I would have been in Boston I would have been executed, lel.

[QUOTE=SGTNAPALM;20191691]opinions = trolling shit shit I like ice cream over cake am I going to jail[/QUOTE] It's not an opinion, it's a belief. also oh fuck oh fuck ur gonna be poor

Hahah, now the cyber-bullying hotline will be "bullied" as well.

[QUOTE=Javascript;20191103]Soccer moms. God. Keep your fucking kids off the internet and shit like this doesn't happen. It's fucking simple.[/QUOTE] You didn't read the article. It clearly says that some kids from his school created a Facebook account with his name and were being assholes to other pupils with that account. That [i]is[/i] serious. They destroy his social image and make him look like an asshole to the other kids at school.

[QUOTE=Robber;20192873]You didn't read the article. It clearly says that some kids from his school created a Facebook account with his name and were being assholes to other pupils with that account. That [i]is[/i] serious. They destroy his social image and make him look like an asshole to the other kids at school.[/QUOTE] Wait so this is real bullying, only the bullies are using the internet.

[QUOTE]sarcastic little poo[/QUOTE] I lol'd