There have been 41 suicides in the US, Canada, Australia and the UK since 2003 linked to cyber-bullying, according to Canadian researcher John LeBlanc of Dalhousie University, who has studied the cases.

In 2006 a 13-year-old girl from Missouri committed suicide after being duped into disclosing personal information to a classmate and her mother, posing online as a 16-year-old boy. Megan Meier's personal disclosures then were used to humiliate her on line. Meier was found hanging in her closet soon after the disclosures were made.

Her death helped spur legislation in her state while several other US states have also passed laws against digital harassment. An attempt to get a nation-wide law has stalled over concerns its reach would be too wide.

North Carolina has made moves to protect adults from cyber-bulling, adopted laws to protect teachers after tenth-grade teacher Chip Douglas discovered a fake Twitter account created by a student and which used his name to promote himself as a violent drug-abusing hypersexual predator.

The UK has amended libel and slander laws to make internet service providers liable for content on hosted sites.

LeBlanc noted, "Adults use social media, particularly young adults. So, the problem is not exposure to social media, but about being a young adolescent trying to form his or her identify, and who cares very much about what people think."

LeBlanc's work found renewed interest after 15-year-old British Columbia resident Amanda Todd took her life last year after years of online torment. Her death sparked interest in criminalizing cyber-bullying in Canada.

(China Daily 04/05/2013 page2)