Shared password leads to cyberbullying of a sexual nature on MySpace

Article posted by Sameer in June 6, 2008 at 2:05 pm.
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This case involving an eighth-grader from Riviera Beach, Florida vividly illustrates a theme that Justin and I continually see when speaking with elementary and middle school students across the nation. When we ask students “How many of you know someone else’s password?” we invariably find that at least half of the hands go up. And then we discuss how friendships tend to be fickle when a child is growing up, and your “best friend” could become your “worst enemy” overnight – due to some small misunderstanding or random reason. And so we ask, “What do you think your ex-best friend is going to do with your password?” Silence usually comes over the room as the lesson seemingly sinks in. We have got to continue to let kids know that they must protect their passwords at all costs, and not think that they are immune to victimization. This will not only reduce their vulnerability to cyberbullying, but also to identity theft and a host of other forms of online harm.


Related posts:

  1. The Changing Nature of Adolescent Use of MySpace
  2. The Changing Nature of Adolescent MySpace Use: 2006 to 2009
  3. Password Safety Among Teens
  4. Teachers and students “friending” on MySpace
  5. Risky behaviors referenced on MySpace by adults
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One comment
  • Chenise

    Password protection is also something that helps prevent cyberbullying. In another blog comment I talked about my friend getting bullied via facebook and it was because she stayed logged into facebook through her phone and the bully stole her phone. Her password was never protected. I feel like this has to come up in the conversation about password protection, along with not telling others what your password is. You would think that teenagers would know not to give out that information, but adolescents don’t see the risk in giving out such important information. So when windows asks us to save our passwords we should click no and when we are done with facebook or anything else on our smart phones we should think twice about logging off.