Playground bullies move online

School bullying is heading from the playground to the computer room thanks to the rise of social networking sites such as Myspace, according to a security firm.

It says the summer break has resulted in numerous online threats related to social networking sites which could pose serious legal and network security problems for schools.

"Within schools, social networking sites like Myspace put schools at risk from the legal liabilities of kids posting threatening or defamatory information about their classmates or their teachers," said Paul Henry, vice-president of strategic accounts at Secure Computing.

"These networking sites have allowed kids to take threatening behaviour to the next level – basically allowing kids to become cyber-bullies from the comfort of their own home or from a computer in the school lab.”

Secure Computing advocates educating both kids and teachers on the dangers they could face once the school term resumes. It also outlines some ‘common sense’ measures, such as:

• Never post anything that would make it easy for a stranger to locate you: phone number, address, the town you live in, post code, school name, school sports team name, place of employment, where you go after school or work.

• Never add strangers to your friends list

• Never agree to meet with anyone that you do not already personally know

• If someone asks you to meet with them, alert an adult you can trust

• If someone you thought you knew on Myspace begins to make inappropriate comments, alert an adult that you can trust

• Never write anything on your Myspace page that you would not want your parents, co-workers or other adults to see.

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