When someone uses the Internet to threaten someone or treat them in a negative way this is known as cyber bullying. Such activity is commonly found with teenagers who allow these situations to be reinforced within social groups at school. Cyber bullying can be represented in many forms: such as a student building a webpage making fun of another classmate and spreading the web site link at school for other students to visit or sending threatening IM's or e-mails to that student. Sometimes a teenager will IM a fellow classmate and act like their friend in order to gather private information to spread around school for embarrassment. Cyber bullying is only limited by the creativity and technical ability of the bully.

Unfortunately sometimes the bully is hard to catch. For example, a student that builds a webpage remains anonymous and it is likely being hosted on a server in another state or even out of the country. The company hosting the webpage is not inclined to provide the name or remove it since Internet companies typically feel it is not their role to police the Internet.

If you or someone you know is being bullied make sure to keep as much documentation as possible. If it is in the form of e-mail or IM it should be saved and printed. Consult with the school administration to determine what can be done. Also, keep in mind that bullying can take the form of cell phone text messages.

Please visit these websites for more information about Cyber Bullying.
http://www.cyberbully.org
http://www.stopcyberbullying.org
http://www.wiredsafety.org
http://www.isafe.org/

SEXTING
Becoming increasingly popular with the use of imbedded camera cell phones "sexting" is the common name for taking nude or provocative pictures of oneself and sending them through cell phone text service to another person. Most commonly done by teenage girls for their boyfriends, they never think about the legal issues of this practice. Often times, after a breakup the receiving party may retaliate by sending the images to other friends in an attempt to embarrass the sender. Several cases have risen over the past year where teenagers have been charged for producing and sending child porn since they are underage. The image recipients are also liable for having the images on their phone and/or sending child porn. This is an increasing problem facing schools in dealing with this issue. Such images spread quickly throughout the student body creating an administrative hassle as schools must confiscate phones and work through the authorities. This can also take the form of bullying as students might take a picture of an unsuspecting classmate in the locker room and circulate it throughout the school.