Salt Lake City, UT - Sat, Nov 10th 2007, 00:00

Cyberbullies in cross hairs

They ruin lives, never see hurt they're causing

By James Thalman
Deseret Morning News

Published: November 11, 2007

TAYLORSVILLE — Cyberspace has become a playground for bullies and predators who in our totally wired world can wreak havoc at the speed of light, then disappear without a trace.

"They do it all in a room, alone in front of computer, unlike the real-world school bullies who at least are known, seen and see for themselves the hurt they're causing," Linda Criddle, a former Microsoft technology safety specialist, said Saturday at the state's first cyberbully conference, held at Taylorsville High School.

Criddle, a self-described "card-carrying geek — I already have stuff that is cooler than anything you'll ever have" — has made it her life's work to flush the harm-mongers from the Web and train kids, parents, teachers and businesses how to survive being tagged by a cyberbully.

Schoolyard and playground bullies will be around forever, but the virtual versions are worse to the 10th power than the kid who picks fights or preys on weaker classmates for lunch money or homework assignments.

For one thing, more often than not, cyberbullies are girls hurting another girl. It's almost becoming common for such information as descriptions, addresses and daily activities to be sent to known sexual predators in the hope that the girl the bully has decided needs to be taught a lesson will literally be raped. Adults are targeted as well, but the truly criminally devious Internet bullies are between 15 and 24 years old, she said.

Assistant Utah Attorney General Kirk Torgensen has been both prosecutor and victim and has said publicly and often that he wishes all police officers could become a victim once.

"Because until you go through this kind of extreme harassment, you really don't understand how quick and how extensive the damage can be," Torgensen said after speaking at the conference.

Torgensen said he has been cyberstalked by a student who was in one of the classes he teaches at the University of Utah. He has been accused of rape, of making a sex tape and "things so vile I hate to even bring them up."

He has a top office in "the system, and I am disappointed in the system that would say my only option is to just take it despite a protective order that has been violated 24 times. I'm a public figure, so I understand that I have to tolerate a down side of what comes with the territory."

The problem, he said, is things get put out there (on the Web) and they stay forever. "They just never go away, they just multiply."

It is human behavior at its weakest, compounded by others who don't even know the one being harassed or the circumstances but who almost gleefully pile on, he said.

It's not funny, and it's not something that just toughening up will stop, Mary Kaye Huntsman told the group. Utah's first lady has made targeting bullies and raising public awareness a priority in her own household and throughout the state, noting that cyberbullying wasn't even on anyone's issues list three years ago.

"The stories I have been told and harm that has been done — including suicides by victims who feel they have nowhere to turn for help — are nothing short of tragic," Huntsman said.

To help get that point across and perhaps raise the profile of the effort, she asked her husband, Gov. Jon Huntsman Jr., to make opening remarks.

He said thanks to his wife, he has been both educated and convinced that cyberbullying is neither trivial nor infrequent.

"Who are we when we're on the Internet and anonymous?" he said. "We're seeing how negative and dark people turn. We don't have the responsibility to even attach a name to the things we say, and yet we have the power to reach out and literally destroy the lives of others."

According to state national school surveys, 17 percent of students have bullied another student, 35 percent have been bullied, 13 percent of students say they have been threatened physically and 4 percent report being so scared they did not attend school for a day or more.

On a national scale, 4 percent amounts to 160,000 students who stay home from school each day, Criddle said. The most often targeted — those singled out because of sexual orientation — withstand a demeaning or taunting comment about every 15 minutes while in school.

"How many of us wouldn't just stay away permanently rather than face that every day, all day?" Criddle said.

Because of the sheer number of Internet users and the total access everyone has to it, doing something about bullying is akin to trying to find an invisible needle in an invisible haystack.

Cyberbullying is the worst type because "you don't have to be big and tough, you can be a pipsqueak or any size or gender, and you can keep transforming into other forms so the victims never know what's happening and the bullies never have to see the effects."

Criddle offered options. The first — that states should adopt anti-bullying laws and practices — was implemented when the Utah Legislature approved a measure asking school districts to adopt anti-bullying policies.

Then, advise bullies that 60 percent of them will be convicted of a crime by age 24. "Basically, that being a bully is the surest way to becoming a loser," she said, noting that bullies commit suicide at a higher rate than their victims.

People hardly ever tell anyone if they are targeted, she said. About 40 percent won't say anything, 38 percent will tell an online friend, 11 percent will tell a parent, and 3 percent will tell a teacher. In cases in which victims told a teacher or adult, nothing was ever resolved.

Blogging and interacting online is an odd combination of sharing what often seems very private information in what is in reality the biggest public forum known to human existence, she said. It's happening one person at a time, and millions are looking in — and some of them are anything but a friend.

If you are targeted, don't respond, but print out any documentation, she advises. Schools and businesses should develop hard and fast rules in response to an incident. And online users need to be very mindful of what information they're sharing and whom exactly they're sharing it with.

"Going online is not the benign activity parents think it is," she said. "Know what your children are doing and set a household standard for using it."

More information is available at www.look-both-ways.com.