The Internet continues to explode in popularity among young people. More and more teens every day keep in touch through instant messaging, social networking sites (such as myspace.com) and cell phone text messaging. Unfortunately, this electronic forum has not only given sexual predators unprecedented access to our children, it has become a new, incredibly potent and potentially toxic, method of spreading schoolyard gossip, hateful statements, lies, threats and harassment.

Cyberbullying is highly varied and hard to define. At its core, it is sending or posting derogatory or hateful material on the Internet with the intent to harm another. Cyberbullying can be defamatory to a group, a team, a race or target a single victim. Bullies employ any or all cyber communications, including posts to social networking sites, chat rooms, email, instant messaging and blogs, to harass, threaten, spread lies or distribute embarrassing pictures. The Internet gives bullies a worldwide audience for taunting their victims while maintaining some anonymity.

Cyberbullying is no joke, although it often starts that way. Because of the vast reach of the Internet, it has far greater impact and can cause much more emotional damage than the same statements scrawled in alleys or on bathroom walls. Damaging words and pictures once posted are nearly impossible to remove. Cyberbullying messages often contain threats of violence, which can constitute a crime. Violent threats and inflammatory statements in cyberspace can turn into real world attacks. Last October, a racist flier posted on myspace.com sparked a fight between a white student and several Native American students at Westwood High School in Mesa.

My Internet Safety presentation now includes a short video about cyberbullying called “You Can’t Take It Back.” After visiting many Arizona middle schools, I am convinced that cyberbullying is a rapidly growing problem, infecting almost every school in our State. Parents and teachers can find this and other videos at www.netsmartz.org.

To promote safe use of the Internet, I offer the following tips for parents and teachers:

More information about how to use the Internet safely and wisely can be found on the Internet Safety page of the Attorney General's Web site.

Terry Goddard