By Sujith Kumar

JAMES Tan was 15 by the time he stood up to his school bullies. After being harassed for years at his Bedok secondary school, he took them on in a fist fight.

After the challenge, they backed off - or so he thought.

Months later, they launched a different campaign, this time online.

On Friendster, a social networking site, his profile was hijacked. Cyberbullies rewrote his personal information, changing his address to Geylang and calling his relatives pimps and prostitutes.

The bullies posted pictures of naked men and women on his webpage before sending lewd messages to his female classmates.

The coup de grace: They changed the password to his account and e-mail so that he could not log on to remove the information.

'I wanted to get those pictures off, but I couldn't log on, couldn't get in, couldn't get the account deleted,' said James, who left his secondary school last year to study culinary arts.

'There was nothing I could do.'

His case is not unique. A Straits Times survey of 100 teens aged 13 to 17 showed that all had some encounter with online bullying one way or another.

A third of all respondents said they had been victims of persistent online attacks. Of this one-third, 50 per cent said bullies spread stories, rumours and lies about them.

As technology marches forward, experts worry that the wired generation could become increasingly victimised online.

The executive director of website WiredSafety, Ms Parry Aftab, said: 'Cyberbullying growth in the region is enormous. I expect that in Singapore, where everyone is connected via broadband and mobile devices, you will see similar growth.'

Victims are usually insulted on blogs, in Internet chatrooms and during online gaming.

Teens tell The Straits Times it does not take much to get them to be mean - just boredom.

One 13-year-old victim, who wanted to be identified only as Davi, recalled how, as a newcomer to her school two years ago, classmates sent her nasty messages about her sexuality at a video-sharing website.

Soon, strangers joined in the slandering. 'They didn't even know me because they were from all over the world,' she said.

Indeed, about 30 per cent of young people in The Straits Times' survey said they themselves had bullied others.

Ms Esther Ng, founder of the Coalition Against Bullying for Children and Youths (Cabcy), has witnessed bullies in the making. Even fine students, she said, are prone to 'revenge or the urge to hurt someone else'.

James, for one, said he no longer feared his old school bullies catching up with him. When asked what he would do if they did, he said: 'I don't know, but I have knives now.'

No place is safe

THE explosion of social networking sites, gaming communities and Internet forums has created ample opportunities for cyber-bullies.

Because these hot spots are accessible from home, victims may feel that there is no safe place for them, said Ms Geraldine Tan, a psychologist at Centre for Effective Living, a private clinic.

'Cyber-bullying can also be more dangerous than physical bullying as the victim may not know his abuser and the bully is unable to see the extent of the damage.'

At sites like MySpace and Facebook, teens say incidents begin with comparisons about who has the most number of friends.

Gamers pick on weaker players, while in chatrooms, insults are hurled. Blog tagboards attract sarcastic remarks, while online forums breed personal attacks that include defaced pictures of victims.

Reports and studies conducted by experts all over the world say bullying also differs between the sexes.

Girls go for relational bullying, which includes backstabbing, gossip and social exclusion.

Boys prefer direct aggression, such as killing their target's game character and hurling vulgarities.

One player, John, said: 'I was playing an online game and a friend swore at me over the Internet voice chat. I took revenge by killing the guy multiple times in the game.'

A 16-year-old - who wanted to be known only as Magdelene - faced a female cyber-bully who wrote on her blog: 'You're so fake and your English sucks.'

'I was upset, of course, but what could I do?' said the Secondary 4 student who attends a school in Ang Mo Kio.

When online aggression becomes offline reality, Ms Tan said, some victims feel lost and 'haunted'.

Being victimised in a place where parents cannot help 'can force a teen to develop extreme coping strategies such as withdrawal, self-mockery and rage', said Dr Ilya Farber, an assistant professor of social science and philosophy at the Singapore Management University.

Other experts say victims should save the evidence and report online attacks to parents, teachers or counsellors.

In the worst cases, the law too can protect victims.

Mr Adrian Tan, a litigator with Drew and Napier who specialises in IT disputes, said cyber-bullying might be an offence under the Miscellaneous Offences Act, which carries a fine of up to $5,000.

Anonymous abusers, if caught, face tougher consequences.

'They will be given an additional punishment of two years' jail, according to Section 507 of the Penal Code, which discusses criminal intimidation by anonymous communication,' he said.

This article was first published in The Straits Times on August 15, 2008.

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