Presented by: Jharold Brylle Baruela

Tyler Clementi, an 18-year-old freshman at Rutgers University committed suicide after his roommate Dharun Ravi used a web cam to spy on a same-sex encounter. Ravi tweeted about Clementi’s behavior and watched the webcam footage with a hall mate.

Megan Meier, a 13-year-old Missouri native, started messaging a boy she had never met via MySpace. The comments posted by someone using the account name of “Josh Evans” began friendly but eventually turned aggressive and derogatory. These comments were public and other classmates could read and comment on them. As a result of the cyber bullying on MySpace, Megan hanged herself in her closet. The user “Josh Evans” was later found to have been created by a parent of Meier’s classmates.

Ninth grader Allyissa Borum was involved in a pushing incident at a high school in Tuskegee, Ala. The incident carried over into cyberspace after school. Borum received death threats later that day on her Facebook account from the other girls involved. The Macon County Schools Superintendent as well local authorities are investigating the situation.

Ryan Halligan was a 13-year-old middle schooler from Vermont who took his life because of cyberbullying. The summer before 8th grade, he used AOL Instant Messenger to cultivate an online relationship with a popular girl from school. When he returned to school, he approached the girl, but she called him a loser in front of all her friends and told him that everything she had said online was a lie. The girl had sent all of their messages to another friend for a laugh at Ryan’s expense.

Phoebe Prince, a 15-year-old new girl from Ireland, was bullied upon her arrival at the Massachusetts high school. She was tormented by a group of students the newspapers later dubbed the “Mean Girls.” Bullying at school followed her home via social networks including Facebook, Formspring and Twitter. She was also sent threatening text messages and called names such as “Irish slut” and “whore.” After an especially intense day of bullying, Prince hanged herself in a stairwell at her home.

Jessica Logan was an 18-year-old high school senior who sent nude photos of herself to her boyfriend. After the couple broke up, the boyfriend sent the photos to hundreds of other teenagers. The photo sharing led to name calling and taunts at school, where she was called “slut,” “porn queen” and “whore.” The taunting continued via Facebook, MySpace and through text messages. After attending a funeral for a boy who had committed suicide, Jessica came home and hanged herself in her room.