Hiding Behind the Keyboard

Posted by Ken

Megan, 13, found that she was losing friends at an alarming rate. Her friends would continue to block her from their buddies list. What did she do to earn this treatment? She chose to participate in a family gathering rather than spend time at her friend’s birthday party.

And what did her now ex-friend do in retaliation? Well, she used Megan’s screen name and sent nasty messages to their circle of friends, of course. Nice, huh?

Where’s the self-restraint these days? All because Megan decided to spend time with her family, this friend decided to ruin Megan’s reputation, take away her friends, and cause her pain. That’s a pretty weak-minded individual, if you ask me.

The article I found didn’t say what happened after it was discovered someone assumed Megan’s online identity. My hope would be that those that alienated her would have shunned the culprit and apologized profusely to Megan for treating her so badly. That would seem to be the logical series of events, IMHO.

The article also speaks of Amanda who was being sexually harrassed by people using screen names she didn’t recognize. Fortunately for her, authorities were able to trace the instant messages back to the senders, and the messages stopped. But Amanda still had to go through the embarrassment of people thinking of her as a promiscuous teen.

Take-away points for safer surfing: