Online Traceability- A Victim's Advantage

As I'm sure many of you were aware from the coverage its received in the news, this past January, 15 year old Phoebe Prince of Massachusetts committed suicide after dealing with relentless bullying. The causes for her action point to the bullying she received from numerous classmates, through text messages and through taunting on Facebook and other social media sites. To read more about the scandal, here's a link:

http://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/2010/03/29/2010-03-29_phoebe_prince_south_hadley_high_schools_new_girl_driven_to_suicide_by_teenage_cy.html

I bring this up, not only because it is a clear example of the consequences of virtual bullying, but because it touches on the traceability of online bullying that Levinson brings up. He argues that this factor is an advantage for victims, and this is true of this story. Prince's bullies are now being charged for their actions, and there is plenty of evidence against them. From the text messages, to their degrading messages to Prince's memorial Facebook group, they now have to pay the price for what they did to her. Though they will still plead not guilty, what they have left on the web will not go away. This is definitely a good thing for the victim in this case, and in all cases alike. In order to prevent more of these situations from happening, it's important that kids know that everything they do online cannot simply be deleted, which should prevent them from using the web as portals for their taunting.