World-Shaker

Battling Cyber Bullies →

A group of 200 people from educators to non-profits gathered at Yahoo on Friday for the fourth annual Digital Citizenship Summit to discuss how to battle cyber bullies and other dangers children may face on the Internet.

Yahoo gave the conference a sneak peek at a “Generation Safe” program being prepared for distribution by iKeepSafe.org.

The program is “a road map for school communities to identify and address children at risk,” Yahoo director of child safety Catherine Teitelbaum said. “There is a role to be played by everyone in a child’s life.”

Cases of students taking their own lives after being tormented or humiliated by cyber bullies catapulted the topic to the top of the summit agenda.

As technology takes hold of the lifestyles of the young, students are apt to send out cries for help in Twitter tweets, social network updates, instant messages, emails, etc. of what they are feeling or thinking.