SAN FRANCISCO (KCBS) -- In just a few days California's public schools will have a new tool to target the online harassment of students, as a new law will crackdown on what some say is a growing trend of cyber-bullying.
KCBS’ Chris Filippi Reports
A Pew Research Center study has found that about a third of teenagers say they have been annoyed or harassed online.
"As everybody knows, bullying has probably been around since the beginning of human kind, and now with the internet we have an new dimension of it, and probably all the more reason to try to stop it," said KCBS Technology Analyst Larry Magid.
He says the harassment of kids by their classmates is happening on every electronic platform.
"Certainly the social networking sites are big, e-mail is big, even chat rooms," said Magid. "Any time kids communicate with other kids there's an opportunity for cyber bullying, and I might also add, there's the opportunity to interrupt cyber bullying."
The new law will allow the state's public schools, as of January first, to suspend or expel students who are cyber bullies.
Vallejo City Unified is among the school districts in California that have already approved policies that ban online harassment.
(MGO)
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