Texas Cyber Bullying Case
Mashable did an extensive writeup of the case here. In summary, two 12 year old girls claim to be bullied by another girl through social media. This bullying then escalates to attacks via their very own phones, computers, and network as well as physical stalking.
It’s a chilling read. It becomes more than simple playground bullying when you are told what you are wearing and where you are located in your home by someone who is taunting you via social media.
A big issue is many law enforcement agencies, especially those in the more rural parts of the country, still have no idea how to handle these cases. There needs to be some sort of organization these people can turn to in order to educate themselves and understand how this type of bullying effects those involved. Additionally, they need to be able to have quick and reliable access to people with technical expertise than can attest to the level of effort the attackers have gone through to carry out their maliciousness.
Does any such program exist? If it does, who funds it and where is it located? If it doesn’t, why not?
July 18, 2014 @ 9:21 am
The people perpetuating these travesties are probably more tech savvy than many of the people charged with protecting and representing the public, and maybe the general public. I believe that we technology folks should treat this problem as a literacy issue. We don’t need to teach everyone computer science. We need to teach people how to understand tech fluently, instead of treating it like it’s magic.
I saw an ad for some movie that almost sums it up. One person was asking about getting a file out of the cloud. The other person responded, “No one understands the cloud!”