David Mark for PM and staff
Updated
May 08, 2009 13:40:00
Two adolescent girls have been forced to leave one of Sydney's elite private schools because of cyber-bullying.
The
girls were taken out of Ascham School after they published material on
the social networking website, My Space, containing personal and
possibly defamatory information about their classmates.
The posting included information on the girls' alleged sexual proclivities, drinking, drug use and relationships.
A parent of one the girls says the girl was horrified when strange boys began approaching her in public.
Bullying worst
The MySpace posting shows adolescent girls at their bullying worst:
"Everyone
thought she was sweet nice girl who was never mean. She actually is a
bitch and really mean about some people. She also sucks up to people."
"Everyone says they hate her and say she is really annoying."
"The biggest try-hard in Year 9, everyone apparently hates her."
"She
became cool in term 4 Year 8 and became really popular, that is all
changing now. People are starting to not like her very much and getting
annoyed at her."
In more than 2,500 words, the post goes over the behaviour and relationships of 31 Ascham Girls, including the two who wrote it.
It was on the MySpace website for at least four days and possibly several weeks until it was taken down last Thursday.
Some of the details go far beyond school-ground teasing.
One of the authors boasts about making a fellow student's life hell by getting everyone to hate her.
Some of the girls had rumours about their sexual behaviour as well as their drug taking and alcohol habits made public.
It accuses one girl of bestowing sexual favours to multiple boys on the same day.
Parent 'horror'
A parent of one of the girls who was victimised describes her reaction to the web posting:
"Horror.
She was one of the ones named in it, and all her friends were. The 30
or 40 mentioned were in sort of a group," he said.
He says his daughter has been approached by strangers who have read the post.
"She
imagines quite a large number because she was approached when she was
in Bondi Junction last week. She was approached by all sorts... from
boys school to everywhere else, and at a party she went to last Saturday
night. Everybody's aware of it, I would say the eastern suburbs schools
are all aware of it," she said.
"She's actually quite a stoic child and so she's handled it particularly well, but she's not very amused to say the least."
School response
The school said in a statement:
"When
the school became aware of the incident last Friday, the two girls were
placed on immediate in-school suspension, pending a detailed
investigation into the incident. Once the full nature of the incident
became clear the school concluded the girls' continued attendance at
Ascham was not possible. The parents withdrew them from the school.
Ascham is deeply concerned about this incident and the potential
reputational harm and emotional distress it may cause to those girls
named."
The school says it is not aware of any girls who are taking legal action about the posting.
But one parent has vented his anger:
"It
is absolutely defamatory and I have some knowledge of defamatory law
and without any doubt it is because most of it was untrue and they knew
it was untrue when they wrote it," he said.
Another parent says his daughter has been offered counselling and he is happy with how the school has dealt with the issue.
"They've
done it very well, they didn't rush or panic. They did a measured
approach as far as I can see, and a lot of the parents as I understand
it did write in and complain. My knowledge is that most of them are
happy with the way the school's handled it," he said.
Even so, the parents says the incident serves as a warning about the dangers of cyber-bullying.
The cyber-bullying happened despite the fact Ascham has measures in place to try to stop it.
The
school bans its students from using social networking websites on
school computers, has held presentations on the subject, and several
girls are taking part in the Federal Government's cyber use advisory
group.
A statement by the school says there is a limit to what
schools and parents can do to control students using social networking
sites.
Government response
The two girls who left the school will be able to enrol in a public school.
NSW
Education Minister, Verity Firth, says the year nine students would be
allowed to enrol in a public school, despite the incident.
"Yes, that could very well happen, but public schools deal with it in a very similar way to how private schools do," she said.
"All
school sectors deal with cyber-bullying as a serious offence, and as
something that needs to be fixed. We have both disciplinary powers but
we also use, as we do with all bullying, counselling powers as well."
User reporting needed
Executives from My Space says it is largely up to users to report cyber-bullying.
The
director of safety at My Space, David Batch, says there is no firm
evidence that cyber-bullying is on the rise, but the site's users are
the best line of defence.
"It's basically something that we ask
our users to police, so we actually try to educate our users to block
users that are bullying them, to delete users that are bullying them and
report the incident of the abuse," he said.
"So we've advised our users to actually address the problem."
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Approximately half of U.S. students are impacted by traditional bullying each school day. It happens on buses, in the cafeteria, gym, hallways, playground, and in classrooms. The most frequent form bullying takes is words (teasing, taunting, ridiculing, name-calling, and gossip - not blows). This type of bullying happens in the “physical” world and that world has time and space limits. Cyber-bullying is making school days even more painful for many children and some school staff. Bullying in cyberspace is not bound by school hours, school days, or facing the intended bully victim. Unfortunately, the perceived anonymous nature of the internet often insulates the bully from the consequences of their damaging behavior. 
