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Well since filtering and heuristic analysis is probably impossible, I suggest TattleText(TM). The poor child can simply forward the offending text to a central authority. The central authority can then call the bully's mom.

Problem Solved.

The main reason we have a lot of bullying is that we have policies that don't allow students to ever confront bullies and use force to defend themselves when attacked. If a student punches a bully in the face for trying to do some sort of nasty physical bullying, like locking them in a locker, they can get suspended/expelled and arrested.

Let the victims of bullies stand up for themselves. It used to work in this country. When my dad was bullied at an early age back in the 1950s, he and the bully got into a fight and the bully got beaten up. The principle not only didn't care about the harm done to the bully, but hauled him into his office and called his parents to let him know that he had gotten beaten up by a kid who he had severely bullied. Back then the courts would have laughed any lawsuit over that out of court and would have probably awarded legal fees to my grandmother if she had to hire a lawyer to defend my dad.

The solution to bullying isn't "education," it's letting them get subjected to the consequences of their actions. I would consider it poetic justice if in a modern incident like what happened to my dad, the kid not only beat up the bully, but posted the video to Youtube for the whole world to mock the shit out of the bully.

Don't give me that "oh they're hurting on the inside" argument for treating them like a wounded animal, instead of a predator. Most people choose to not become like those who hurt them. Those that do choose that path shouldn't be shown any particular mercy by society or the legal system when their victims put them harshly in their place.

If the same behavior - one kid bullying another or saying unkind things - was occurring in a non-electronic medium, we usually would consider it the sort of thing where it's a matter for the kids to settle among themselves, or at most, by the kid's parent talking to the bully or the parent, which then usually stopped it. But now, we're going to add the ISP, school authorities, police and courts into the mix and create a tempest in a teapot.

The most someone can do electronically is say things; they can't strike you, or hurt you, or do anything to you unless you accept their comments about you as valid. Kids have had nasty cliques against other kids for dozens of centuries. We need to allow kids to learn to toughen up a bit, if we coddle them too much, they won't get through the real world, and when something comes along that mummy and daddy can't protect them against, they're going to be in a lot worse trouble.

You want to do something against physical threats, fine. You want to do something against extortion ("give me your lunch money or else"), that's something that should be taken care of. But if you're going to treat mere communication of meanness or cruelty as more serious than mere taunts in the absence of an actual threat of violence, then what you're effectively doing is treating words the same as actions. A dangerous path that ends up usually producing stupid overreactions, as a number of incidents here on Slashdot have been reported, where some kid is given an assignment to write a story or some report, but does so in an edgy or unconventional way, is considered a criminal or terrorist and is treated that way for doing nothing more than doing his classwork as he was asked to do it.

I remember one I did. We were asked to give a report in class on how to do something. Well, having read once how too many people cut their wrists the wrong way, I decided to be edgy and unconventional, and write a report on the correct way of how to commit suicide by slitting your wrists. When I stood up to read it, the kids in the class thought it was great, and the teacher even pointed out I drew in examples of how to correctly position the wrist so you cut the vein properly. (Most people bend the wrist inward; that's wrong, you should bend the wrist so it is pushed outward.) And that's all that happened (other than I think I got an A for being thorough). The teacher understood it was simply a student doing a report he knew would be different in order to have fun in class, not some "cry for help" of a depressed kid who was planning to kill himself.

Today, if some kid had done the same thing, I suspect that instead of taking it as the joke it was, he probably would have been called to the principal's office and maybe gotten detention for it, or possibly have to go see a shrink before being allowed to go back to school.

The article mentioned how someone bullying someone else by causing their phone to ring "all hours of the day and night."

We have laws in the U.S., at least, that make it illegal to harass someone without a legitimate purpose of communication, by either excessively calling them or otherwise disturbing them for the purpose of making them upset. If they have this, then the victim of someone being called at all hours already has legal protections to stop this sort of thing if it's occurring, and no new laws are needed. If they don't, then perhaps this is what should have been done.

In fact, I like the way they're written here. If you call me, and use foul language to insult me, I can have you arrested for harassing me. On the other hand, if you call me, and irritate me so badly that I curse you out and insult you with the most degrading and harshest profanity I can think of, you can't do anything to me. Which makes sense: I didn't call you, you called me; if you disturb me, then you have to put up with my response to you. If you hadn't called me and bugged me, you would never have gotten the insult in the first place.

These are just attempts to grease the skids for more draconian restrictions on the Internet, using the boiling frog analogy. You can't drop a frog in boiling water, he'll jump out, but gradually increase the temperature and he'll sit there and allow himself to be boiled to death, or so the analogy goes. Make a huge grab for people's rights and they will squawk; nibble away in little pieces and they'll never notice until they're all gone, and by then it's too late, unless the "canary in the coal mine" starts screaming Chicken Little style at the beginning and refuses to allow even the first bite. (Talk about mixed metaphors!)

Bullying is bullying, whether it happens by means of computers or not, and it is never a pretty sight. The thing about computers and the internet is that they enable people to have a far longer reach and a greater impact; and it doesn't just enable "the good guys", unfortunately. So when they talk about cyberbullying, it isn't just some lame excuse for imposing new censorship, there is actually a very real problem. In the days before the internet, bullying in the school at least stopped when you got home; but now it is on your telephone and on the internet, and with the use of simple scripts you can make it go on non-stop without any effort at all.

And the other thing about doing things on the internet is that it is more anonymous - it is so much easier to be cruel to a person you don't have to watch, unless, of course, you get a kick out of seeing others in pain, and it is a lot easier to avoid getting caught. At least right up to the point where some kid chooses to end their life, which is a problem on the increase.

I don't think the schools or service providers can do anything about the problem on their own. It is something that requires the whole of the community to work together against it; and that is yet another thing the internet has has an influence on: there isn't a lot of community feeling left. On the up-side, however, the internet could potentially be used to mobilize the community against this kind of thing.

People keep droning on about the nanny state and how everything would be better if the government just stayed out of everything; but how would that be better, when nobody in the community are willing to get off their soft arses and solve the problems? We get a nanny state because we, with our inaction and unwillingness to take part in a community, ask for it. I think it is verging on the contemptible to whine and complain about state interference when people don't even try to do it better themselves.