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Schools

Educating Kids About Cyberbullying

Jill Brown, founder of the bullying prevention group Generation Text, speaks to students at Notre Dame School.

Many remember the tragic story of cyber-bullying victim Tyler Clementi, whose roommate secretly videotaped him during a “sexual encounter” in his Rutgers University dorm room and posted it on the internet for everyone to see. Clementi, just 18-years-old, posted on his Facebook page that he was going to jump off the George Washington bridge and he did.

To try to prevent situations like these,  Jill Brown, founder of the bullying prevention group Generation Text and CEO of itsmylocker.com, talks to schools.

“I feel really bad for you guys because things have changed a lot and things can get a lot more serious a lot quicker and people can be humiliated because of the technology,” Brown said to an auditorium filled with high school youth ministry teenagers at Tuesday evening.

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Brown visits schools in her native state of New Jersey and New York to try to reach students between fourth and twelfth grade, school administrators, educators and parents.

“It made me really upset to see what kids were going through on the Internet and it was like no adult had any clue as to what was going on and so I knew I had to do something,” Brown said.

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Other than cyberbullying, the event covered texting, Facebook, sexting and the legal ramifications of forwarding inappropriate photographs and/or messages to other people.

“If you send [a picture] to somebody that says ‘I’m going to kill you,’ that’s a terroristic threat,” Brown said. “That’s serious business and you can go to jail. If it is in writing and it is from your cell phone, on your cell phone, you can be in some serious trouble.”

The kids were required to fill out a form at the end of the presentation anonymously on what they thought and learned of the presentation and found Brown’s information very eye-opening.

One eighth-grader wrote, “I didn’t think that forwarding [text messages or pictures] could be that serious. I didn’t know that after I delete something it will still be there.”

Another eighth-grader wrote, “I think the assembly was very good. I learned a lot and it really showed me a lot about my generation. I didn’t know that when posting a picture on Facebook, it is automatically saved to Google.”

After showing a video clip on the consequences of sexting Brown said, “There are two different charges in New York. If you send a picture of your naked body part or forward it to people, you will be charged with harassment, which is jail time and a big fine. If there is a video of a sexual act, that’s child pornography and if you send that video to somebody…you could be charged with possession or distribution [if forwarded to somebody], which is jail time and being a registered sex offender; something that happens for life.”  

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