Online fights among school kids behind violence and death threats

Melbourne, Dec 31 (ANI): Online quarrels between school children are spiralling out of control, leading to hate messages, violence and even death threats, experts have said.

According to experts, 10 percent of all children now claim to have been cyber-bullied.

The enraged father of one teenage schoolgirl became so incensed by comments he believed a boy had made about his daughter on a social networking site that he accosted him in the street and threatened to "slit his throat".

The man approached the Year 8 boy as he walked to a bus stop on the state's mid-north coast and pushed and threatened him before boarding the bus, where he issued further death threats to the boy and other students.

In another disturbing case, a mother went to a school in western New South Wales (NSW) and urged her Year 10 daughter to assault another girl after an exchange on a social networking site.

Both the girls were suspended, police were called and the mother was banned from entering the school under the Inclosed Lands Act.

Schools are increasingly asking police to investigate serious student online bullying and have shored up cyber safety programs in a bid to head off more trouble.

The NSW Department of Education and Communities has enlisted international expert Donna Cross to help advise students and families about online behaviour.

Children who cyber-bullied also were 18 times more likely to bully others in the real world, Professor Cross said.

"They're also more likely to be engaging in problem behaviour - unsafe sexual behaviours, smoking, using drugs, graffiti, stealing and truanting," the Daily telegraph quoted Cross as saying. (ANI)

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