Tuesday, February 22, 2005 · Last updated 6:23 p.m. PT

Lawmaker wants to prevent cyberbullying

By KELLY KEARSLEY
ASSOCIATED PRESS WRITER

OLYMPIA, Wash. -- Stephanie Gallardo doesn't spend much time on the computer since someone hijacked her instant-message screen name and sent out mean messages.

"The person was pretending it was me, and using it to call people names," the 14-year-old Seattle student said. "I never found out who it was."

Sen. Jeanne Kohl-Welles wants to stop such behavior. She's sponsoring a bill that would require school harassment policies to prohibit "cyberbullying."

A public hearing on the measure is scheduled Wednesday before the Senate Committee on Early Learning, K-12 and Higher Education.

"Schools would make (cyberbullying) subject to disciplinary action and certainly students may think twice about engaging in this," said Kohl-Wells, D-Seattle.

The Internet offers technology-savvy teens many ways to stay in constant contact with friends, from instant messaging to private chat rooms.

It also provides new forums for malicious gossips and school bullies. Cyberbullying ranges from ridiculing classmates on Web sites and spreading rumors through blogs to bombarding someone with harassing instant messages or publicizing their personal information.

"It's limited only by the imagination and the technology that kids have access to," said Parry Aftab, a New Jersey attorney and executive director of Wired Kids, a nonprofit organization that seeks to prevent cyber abuse.

Aftab said a majority of middle-school students at a recent seminar she held in New York said they'd either been a cyberbully or been the victim of one.

Trevor Durant, 15, of Olympia, said all of his friends have instant message accounts. That means stories can easily get distorted and farflung.

"You tell people information on instant message and it gets all twisted up," Durant said.

Cyberbullying can appeal to more than the regular playground bully because of the anonymity of the Internet. Sometimes kids bully by mistake, forwarding an e-mail or sending an instant message that's unintentionally offensive.

And it can cause more psychological damage than traditional bullying, said Nancy Willard, director of the Center for Safe and Responsible Internet Use in Eugene, Ore.

"You can't get away from it," Willard said. "Harmful information can be disseminated worldwide, it's hard to retrieve, it can be anonymous and you don't know who to trust."

Under current state law, school districts are required to have policies prohibiting bullying - written, verbal or physical acts that negatively affect a student or the school environment.

Kohl-Welles' bill would add electronic acts of bullying to that definition. Cyberbullying would not have to occur on school property, during school hours or with school equipment to be covered by the measure, as long as it has an adverse effect on a student or school.

It would also require schools to bar cyberbullying in Internet-use policies. Discipline for violations would be up to the school.

Aftab said such laws can be problematic because they collide with schools' authority to regulate off-campus activities and speech.

Gallardo solved her problem by cutting back her computer time.

"I don't like it anymore," she said. "Everything people say all goes on the Internet, and it's like, 'Why can't we just talk about this face-to-face?'"

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The bill is Senate Bill 5849.

On the Net:

Legislature: http://www.leg.wa.gov

Original URL - http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/local/aplocal_story.asp?category=6420&slug=WA%20XGR%20Cyberbullying&dpfrom=th

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