Teen becomes first jailed in U.K. for cyberbullying
In a week in which Google was ordered to reveal the identity of the "Skanks in NYC" blogger who may have defamed model Liskula Cohen, a landmark judgment was also reportedly reached in the United Kingdom.
In Worcester Magistrates Court of England, an 18-year-old woman was allegedly sent to three months in a young-offenders institute after being found guilty of posting death threats on Facebook, according to the Daily Mail. It's thought to be the country's first jail sentence for cyberbullying.
The young defendant allegedly wrote on her Facebook page that she would kill another young woman, the Daily Mail said. The two had been at school together, where the defendant's bullying of the victim allegedly began.
The defendant already had two previous convictions stemming from her bullying of the victim, one for assault and one for criminal damage.
According to the Mail's report, the defendant originally claimed the Facebook threat was written while drunk. However, police discovered that the threats remained on her Facebook page for 24 hours.
It is tempting to think of this case as an isolated and extreme incident. But, as has become increasingly clear, people tend to use social-networking sites to reveal just as much of their persona as they do in person.
Or, in some cases, even more.
Chris Matyszczyk is an award-winning creative director who advises major corporations on content creation and marketing. He brings an irreverent, sarcastic, and sometimes ironic voice to the tech world. He is a member of the CNET Blog Network and is not an employee of CNET. 
Those people need to die ASAP.
Eh? And this matters how?
Maybe she hadn't been back on Facebook the whole day.
Also, this is why Facebook should have some sort of "beer goggles" thing enabled by default at night times.
Or just have captchas on any new posts, conversations are easily tracked on Facebook via the Reply link, they should start using it more.
Now if I ever ran into him on the street and kicked him in the butt, that action would be a different story. I'm glad 'Havoc70' made this all so clear to me.
Uhh what? So if you own a cafe and I run a well-known food review blog and I lie and say that your cafe was gross and in violation of multiple health codes and in over the next few weeks your cafe becomes less and less popular to the point where you can show that you have lost profits due to my lying that is nothing?
Or if I tell all my neighbors that I will prevent minorities from moving into my neighborhood anyway I see fit including violence and my minority neighbors feel threatened and move away is that nothing?
Or if I call a business and tell them I plan on blowing it up and they have to evacuate and they lose money because they spent a majority of the day waiting outside is that nothing?
Words cause actions that can negatively affect people. You don't need to punch someone to hurt them.
Or...if you heard a rumor at work and it gets out of hand. How did that happen? Word of mouth. Words are dangerous.
OTOH, death threats deemed to be at least semi-credible are just as actionable here in the US as they are in the UK (for example: threaten to kill Obama sometime on your facebook page and leave it up for a day or two - let's see how long it takes before the Secret Service shows up at your door with a warrant, a list of really uncomfortable questions, and a pair of rubber gloves)...
...so tell me - what was your point again? ;)
As a Brit whose been to the US on a number of occasions I've got to say, as much as I love the States, you guys have gone much further down that road than we have. I've never met a UK citizen, for example, who was genuinely afraid of a police officer.
And if you genuinely think that the UK is worse than China, you've clearly never been to either country.
I have personally never met a fellow American who was "genuinely afraid of a police officer." If you visit the U.S. and hang out with people who are afraid of the police, then I'd say you are mingling with a lower element of our society. And I'd bet donuts to dollars that you Brits have a few of those kind yourselves, as all countries do.
My former uncle is a cop and him having that power makes me nervous. Couple that with some Philly cops with a bad reputation and I'll admit cops can make me uneasy. I know most of them joined the force to protect innocent people such as myself but every profession has a few bad apples.
"you are mingling with a lower element of our society"
And just to be clear I am not in the "lower element of society". I'm getting my degree, working 9-5 during breaks, obey the law, and reside in suburbia FWIW.
"I have personally never met a fellow American who was "genuinely afraid of a police officer." If you visit the U.S. and hang out with people who are afraid of the police, then I'd say you are mingling with a lower element of our society. And I'd bet donuts to dollars that you Brits have a few of those kind yourselves, as all countries do."
Tell that to the victims of police brutality and racial profiling. Cops are still human and are just as failable and capable of atrocities as the rest of us, yet they are granted much more power by the state. There's not much a civilian can do about a bad cop.
Maybe next time think before you post or say it somewhere public, big brother is listening, or aleast his sisters in this case.
its about time some laws get passed that allow for the punishment of these kind of people
Most of Europe the legal age is 18 & in some countries one can legally drink (only) in restaurants at 14 as I did back in the 1970s!!!
ER
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- by Faceourselves September 13, 2009 5:22 PM PDT
- Educators and youth group leaders searching for strategies on how to effectively deal with cyberbullying should check out www.faceourselves.com for an empowering curriculum for students.
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