Menino launches anti-cyber bullying hotline for students

As bullying in middle and high school has evolved from passed votes in class to nasty posts on Facebook and Twitter, Boston Public Schools have recently taken a number of steps to confront the growing trend of online harassment.

On Feb. 12, Boston Mayor Thomas Menino began a cyber bullying awareness campaign touting the creation of a new hotline to report bullying, a public service announcement and a new website designed to help students use the Internet safely.

“Bullying has changed so dramatically &- it no longer only takes place in the school yard, so we must change how we deal with the issue,” Menino said in a statement on the Boston Public Schools website.

The Boston hotline addresses physical and verbal bullying, in addition to online safety, in two languages from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday through Friday.

“The mayor established this anti-bullying hotline for all young people in the city,” said BPS spokesman Matthew Wilder.

Already, several students have called the hotline looking for guidance on how to handle online bullying, Wilder said.

“For the most part, people who are receiving harassment &- cyber or
physical &- we’ve been hearing their stories,” said Steve Belec, the director of the anti-bullying hotline.

“A lot of what we’ve been dealing with on the hotline is Facebook harassment, either through false profiles being set up or just wall slams,” Belec said. “There is definitely freedom of speech going on here, but there is a very thin line and things can cross lines into criminal events very easily.

BPS has been very proactive in resolving each case encountered on the hotline, Belec said.

BPS also developed a website called “Cyber Safety Campaign,” where students, teachers and parents can get information on how to prevent and respond to bullying. These resources include PowerPoint presentations and handouts for parents and teachers. It also includes tips and tricks for students to stay safe online.

“If someone approaches you online and makes you feel uncomfortable, let your parent or guardian know about it,” one tip says on the website.

“As with any powerful tool, there comes a certain amount of responsibility,” the CSC website said. “There are dangers online that you need to watch out for.”

Even while aware of this responsibility, some students think it is important to not be too sensitive about the Internet.

Ryan Piccirillo, a College of Communication freshman, said that online threats should be read with a grain of salt, or two.

“The Internet should be a place where discussion, no matter how contemptible or malicious, is free to take place,” Piccirillo said. “On the Internet, free speech is king. People need to expect the Internet to get heated or mean or cruel at times; it comes with its anonymous nature.”

As for Phoebe Prince, the 15-year-old South Hadley student who committed suicide after officials say she was bullied online, Piccirillo said he believed that a hotline for cyber bullying would have changed the outcome.

“I know that the school has received a lot of heat for not intervening sooner, but I don’t think that a hotline would help with that problem,” he said.

Ivan Gudino, a freshman in the School of Education, said he believes cyber bullying is a problem in high school because of the smaller setting, but like Piccirillo, Gudino said students must observe Facebook and Twitter in context

“You read it and you start assuming other things,” said Gudino, who added that students tend to exaggerate the importance of online statements.

Piccirillo said he thought bullying was not a problem on the college level.

“I would hope that by college, people would have gotten past that stuff,” Piccirillo said. “Either way, I don’t really see a cyber-bullying hotline as a utility that would often be used by students because I imagine many of them would want to deal with their problems privately, especially at our age.”