Teenager in rail suicide was sent abusive message on social networking site

Det Sgt Erwin said Natasha, who was part of a close-knit group of 10 friends
at Worcester’s Royal Grammar School, then sent back a message on Formspring
asking: “Who are you?”

It also emerged during the hearing that Natasha, whose parents had separated,
came home from school in tears around two weeks before her death, saying she
did not have any friends.

Det Sgt Erwin told the hearing that officers had spoken to some of Natasha’s
friends in the days following her death and had found that she also had a
“disagreement” on Facebook on Feb 13.

After the jury ruled that the schoolgirl had taken her own life, her parents,
Andrew and Jane MacBryde, said they believed anonymous messages on
Formspring had played a significant role in the events leading up to her
death.

The statement, issued by British Transport Police, said: “As a family, we
continue to deal daily with the impact that the terrible loss of Tasha has
had on all of our lives. She was a bright and beautiful girl whose smile and
sparkle lit up not only our world, but also that of her friends and all who
knew her.”

The family added that the inquest had been “an agonising process”, but had
allowed them to feel closer to their daughter.

“We believe that the evocative lyrics of one of her favourite songs, Grenade
by Bruno Mars, coupled with access to certain websites suggesting such
actions, caused her to make such a sudden drastic and uncharacteristic
decision,” they said. “The family believes that the anonymous postings on
the Formspring social networking website were a significant contributor to
the events on Feb 13, and we seek to understand the motivation of those who
choose to send spiteful and vindictive messages to their peers. We can only
hope that lessons have been learned.” Formspring is a question and answer
based social website that allows users to ask questions about other users.
It has been accused of encouraging cyber-bullying due to the anonymity of
entries.

Last March, Alexis Pilkington, 17, committed suicide in New York after
insulting comments about her were posted on the site in the days leading up
to her death.

Share and Enjoy

Sharp rise in neo-Nazis using social networks

German neo-Nazis are looking increasingly to social networking sites such as Facebook and YouTube to propagate racial hatred and recruit new members, an official study released Thursday indicated.

The Federal Agency for Political Studies said around 6,000 far-right posts had been found on social networks in Germany last year, about three times as many as in 2009.

Agency chief Thomas Krueger told reporters as he presented the findings that the use of such websites by right-wing extremists had “escalated dramatically”.

“We must not give ground to the far right and their hate propaganda,” he said.

Krueger said the sites themselves must clean house and do a more thorough job of enforcing their own rules of conduct with the help of other users who alert them when offensive videos and slogans appear.

“We need users who defend our fundamental values and fight off neo-Nazis,” he said.

Stefan Glaser, the head of the division studying the far right at jugendschutz.net, a group seeking to crack down on the problem on the Internet, said neo-Nazis often tried to mask their racist content with coded messages.

He cited a recent video showing men in white masks carrying flaming torches through the deserted streets of a town at night, which he said was a warning of a purported “death of the German people” due to immigration.

The Office for the Protection of the Constitution, the main domestic intelligence service, said in a report this month that the number of right-wing extremists in Germany had fallen by 1,600 last year to some 25,000 nationwide.

But those judged potentially violent rose by 600 to 5,600.

Share and Enjoy