Last spring, Edward Richardson, a 41-year-old British man, grew so angry when he saw his estranged wife change her relationship status on Facebook.com to single that he broke into her parents' house, where she was living at the time, and murdered her with a knife.
In 2007, Katherine Evans was suspended from high school for "cyberbullying" after creating a Facebook group devoted to her hatred for her English teacher. On the group's page, which was only left up for a few days, Evans wrote: "To those select students who have had the displeasure of having Ms. Sarah Phelps, or simply knowing her and her insane antics: Here is the place to express your feelings of hatred." Evans, now a freshman at the University of Florida, has filed a lawsuit against her high school principal over the suspension.
As these cases demonstrate, the Internet has created a whole new realm for gossip, bullying, stalking and harassment to take place, and the potential problems that can arise out of it do not seem to be subsiding with time.
Here at Tufts, sophomore Chartise Clark was the prey of stalkers twice last year. They used online mediums to reach and harass her.
One of Clark's stalkers was an MIT student who used Facebook and the Tufts online directory to obtain her campus phone number. Clark explained that the student constantly called her and her roommate, asking what they were doing and always starting off by greeting them with, "Guess who?"
"It was really scary," Clark said.
The other stalker, whom Clark still does not know the identity of, posted messages in her Honesty Box — a place where people can write comments anonymously to their friends on Facebook. Clark remembers the messages as "really personal and disturbing," which led her to believe the person knew her well already.
"It mostly just scared me," she said. "[And] it angered me. I was freaked out that someone formed an obsession and used Facebook to facilitate it."
In addition to Facebook, other Web sites, such as the recently shut down Juicycampus.com, offer students a venue to post vicious gossip and insults. Like the Honesty Box application on Facebook, part of the appeal of these Web sites is that every comment can be posted anonymously.
Sophomore Chas Morrison was a topic of discussion on the Juicycampus Web site before it was shut down. Morrison explained that his name was originally posted under a topic about hot guys on campus; however, someone later posted a reply calling him "almost gay, kind of nerdy and fatherly at a young age," as Morrison recalls.
But Morrison was not particularly bothered by the comments.
"I did not consider it all that offensive," he said. "I was not very upset about it at all. In general I was kind of amused, and a lot of people have had much worse experiences than I did."
But even when online posts and Internet pranks are made in jest and seem harmless, their effects can be far from amusing. In the fall of 2007, 13-year-old Megan Meier committed suicide after a teenage boy she had been corresponding with on Myspace.com told her that he heard she was cruel and that he no longer wanted to be friends with her.
What Meier, who had previously been diagnosed with depression, did not know was that the boy with whom she was corresponding did not exist. In reality, a mother and daughter who lived down the street from Meier had invented the character on Myspace to play a joke on the unknowing girl.
Meier's mother has attempted to pursue legal action against the neighboring family, but there are no specific laws prohibiting what they did. Furthermore, many laws surrounding cyber harassment are difficult to enforce.
At Tufts, some restrictions apply. According to the Pachyderm: "Unwelcomed communications such as phone calls, misuse of message boards, e-mail messages and other behaviors calculated to annoy, embarrass or distress are harassing behavior and are prohibited."
Morrison, however, does not believe it is the university's place to get involved in students' Internet activities as long as there are no direct threats of violence and harassment.
Morrison found Evans' suspension to be undoubtedly unjust. "That's a clear violation of her First Amendment rights," he said. "Unless there was a threat, that's completely wrong for her to be suspended when she's exercising her free speech right."
Sophomore Brianna Beehler agreed. "For her to be suspended is a little strange," she said.
But Beehler noted that she is disappointed with her generation's abuse of the Internet. "It's pathetic and juvenile," she said. "You'd think college students would be more mature. The Internet should be used to share information, not negative and useless sorts of things."
Now that Juicycampus has been shut down, Clark thinks that students will be more at ease. "It will take a lot of stress off people," she said. "It's a good thing it closed down. It mostly just inhibits students' growth and campus life."
Though Juicycampus ceases to exist, curious students who try to visit the site are now immediately linked to College Anonymous Confession Board, or Collegeacb.com. The site's mission statement reads, "The College ACB or College Anonymous Confession Board seeks to give students a place to vent, rant, and talk to college peers in an environment free from social constraints and about subjects that might otherwise be taboo."
Despite seeming to be virtually identical to Juicycampus, College ACB distinguishes itself by employing a user-moderation button, which allows for regulation of some material. Any post that might be threatening, libelous or otherwise illegal is immediately brought to the attention of the Web site managers, according to the site's press release.
Morrison sees College ACB as a step in the right direction. "These sights should police themselves through mechanisms to report offensive posts," he said.
