New Laws Demand More Parental Involvement to End Cyberbullying

Posted on June 11, 2012 by AmateurPianists No Comments

Las Vegas, NV (PRWEB) October 12, 2011

October has been named National Anti-Bullying Month by several Internet safety orga­ni­za­tions. Much of the focus is on the new form of aggression, cyber­bul­lying, and ways to prevent digital abuse. Pandora Corp. co-founder James Leasure says parents can help prevent bullying on the Internet by moni­toring the online activity of their children, not only as a way to protect them, but also to make sure they are not a part of the problem.

Now more than ever, parents absolutely must be aware of what their child is doing online and what is happening in their digital lives, he says. Just as much as parents should be concerned when their child is a victim, they should take steps to make certain their child is not an aggressor.

According to WiredSafety.com, at least 36 of the suicides committed by young people in the past four years have been offi­cially linked to cyber­bul­lying. Several of those cases have made major head­lines, including Rutgers student Tyler Clementi, who took his own life last September.

Several states, including New Jersey, have either updated existing laws or passed new legis­lation to help deal with the cyber­bul­lying problem in the year since Clementis tragedy. But the most recent bullycide case of 14-year-old Jamey Rode­meyer from New York has prompted state Senator Jeffrey Klein to propose legis­lation that would put cyber­bul­lying into the category of third-degree stalking, a class A misde­meanor, and make cases of bullycide (suicide resulting from cyber­bul­lying) a class C felony, considered second-degree manslaughter.

We completely under­stand and applaud the drive to create laws that will make it easier to pros­ecute cyber­bullies and levy heavier punish­ments, says Leasure. But we feel politi­cians and community leaders should put more pressure on parents to stop the cyber­bul­lying before it begins.

Pandora Corp. is the maker of PC Pandora computer moni­toring software. Like DVR for the TV, PC Pandora records every­thing and anything on a PC, allowing parents to see every­thing their child is doing both off and online. Parents can see screen­shots of all activity, plus text-based logs of all instant messenger conver­sa­tions, social network chats and posts, websites visited, Internet search queries, programs used, keystrokes and much more. Whatever a child does on the computer, good or bad, PC Pandora will show their parents everything.

According to Leasure, PC Pandora can help end the cyber­bul­lying epidemic by showing parents exactly what their kids are doing online, and how they are inter­acting with others. If a child is being bullied, the parents will have records and infor­mation they can use to help put an end to the situ­ation before it gets worse. But the program will also work on the flip-side, when a parent has a bully in their house.

Cyber­bul­lying starts with anonymity on the Internet, but it succeeds through the ability to operate secretly in the home, he explains. Cyber­bul­lying is not going to go away until the parents of the bullies know what their kids are doing online and step in to stop the aggressive behavior.

Leasure says that with legis­lators, law enforcement and schools pushing no tolerance policies, some­thing your child may think is just a joke can turn into an incident that could remain with them for years.

Parents need to be proactive about cyber­bul­lying and make sure their child is not a bully, he states. For every child that is bullied online, there is a tormentor, or group of tormentors, hiding behind closed doors. The best way for parents to help end cyber­bul­lying now is by moni­toring their childs internet activity and online inter­ac­tions as a means to protect them and keep them out of cyber­bul­lyings path of destruction.

For more infor­mation on how you can stop cyber­bul­lying, visit PC Pandora online at http://pcpandora.com and like the PC Pandora Facebook page.

About PC Pandora: Pandora Corpo­ration was formed with one goal to help our customers monitor, control and protect their families and them­selves online. First released in mid 2005, PC Pandora moni­toring software has been constantly upgraded to industry-leading spec­i­fi­ca­tions and has received acco­lades from users, reviewers and even school districts and law enforcement agencies, who use the program to help in the day-to-day super­vision of the children and citizens they are charged with protecting. The company website devotes space to helping parents by providing them with 18 Tips to Safe Surfing and Pandoras Blog, where current news in the world of online safety is discussed regu­larly. In addition, the Pandora Corp. has made the PD Pandora Internet Safety Symposium available to schools and law enforcement as a free resource for spreading internet safety awareness to parents. Over the past few years, PC Pandora has vaulted into a lead­ership position for parental control software by boasting a combi­nation of features that are unpar­al­leled in the moni­toring industry. In 2010, Version 6.0 was released, again widening the spectrum of coverage and protection offered by the program. Concur­rently released with 6.0, the web-based PC Pandora LIVE! service affords parents the ability to keep their kids safe from anywhere at anytime. PC Pandora computer moni­toring software is also now available through the Pandora Corp. store at Amazon.com and on Facebook.

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