Internet and the Media by Randy Santibanez

With trending social networking sites such as Facebook, Myspace, and Twitter, cyber-bullying has become much easier for the general public. As soon as a person adds you to their friends list, they have to ability to find out what that certain friend enjoys, while also keeping up with their daily life and emotions.

Facebook, one of the more well-known social networking sites, has been known to have many fake profiles made in order to mock or bully other Facebook users but the users being bullied believe it is actually the person in the picture doing it, not someone else. Facebook has an entire help center dedicated to the safety of its users, letting them know what is and what is not considered abuse on their networking site which includes a section about reporting abuse and fake pages in case of harassment.

Although Myspace has gone downhill since Facebook’s quick rise, it also had its fair share of cyber-bullying and fake profiles, but even worse was the suicide of Megan Meier. Megan Meier was a teenage girl who believed she was talking to a boy named Josh Evans on Myspace but it was actually one of her friends from her old school, the girl’s mother, her sister, and one of her mother’s employees. The girl felt like she could share everything with the boy but their conversations took a turn for the worse. “He” began to tell Megan disturbing things and spreading false rumors about her to everyone and one day she could no longer take the abuse. Megan Meier committed suicide because of cyber-bullying. Because of the cyber-bullying that led to Megan Meier’s death, many states have now passed laws that will not allow any type of abuse online without having to deal with it.

As stated in the picture above, although social networking sites have a high amount of cyber-bullying tied to their name, IM, or instant messaging services like AIM or MSN Messenger are known for having the highest amount of cyber-bullying happening on them. This may be because there is an immediate response instead of having to wait on a message from the person on the other side of the screen and it is happening one-on-one so that others cannot defend the person being bullied.

ABC Family released a film titled Cyberbully this past summer dealing with a girl played by actress Emily Osment, who begins to talk online to a boy with a fake profile which was actually made by one of her so-called best friends. The movie follows a lot of the Megan Meier story except Emily Osment’s character does not commit suicide although she does try to. In the movie, one of Osment’s close friends creates a fake social networking profile and disguises herself as a boy who acts to enjoy everything Osment enjoys and acts like he is there for the girl at first, but quickly begins to bash her and spread rumors around the school about her. This goes on until she tries to kill herself by overdosing on pills and is rushed to the hospital. After the attempted suicide, her mother tries to talk to a state representative in order to pass laws that will make it cyber-bullying and harassment illegal in their state and others. This movie shows that the media is attempting to make the topic of cyber-bullying known to everyone so that no one has to go through the bullying without knowing what to do or who to go to.

For both the Megan Meier suicide and the girl in the Cyberbully movie, egoistic suicide was one of the biggest roles in Meier committing suicide and Osment's character trying to kill herself. Both girls were bullied to the point where they were tired of everything around them and felt that they could not stop people from talking bad about them or judging them out loud which made them both feel insignificant to everyone around them.

Without state laws being passed, the media shining the light on the situation, and networking sites informing people of what to do in case of cyber-bullying then people, especially teenagers would continue to be harassed. Technology has come a long way and can be seen as both good and bad, but as long as it isn’t not abused, it can only become better and helpful.


Works Cited:
Where Electronic Aggression Happens: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/b6/Youth_and_Electronic_aggression.gif