Two young teenagers are facing felony stalking charges in Florida following the suicide of a classmate who was reportedly bullied by the two girls via social media for more than a year.
Having recently wrote about a number of stalking cases in our Fort Lauderdale criminal defense lawyer blog, we have noted a trend in which juvenile defendants are increasingly being charged with this crime in connection with their activities online.
Bullying has always been around, but there are a number of reasons why it is seemingly more prevalent today. For one thing, ever-advancing technology allows everyone to remain in constant contact through a variety of outlets. For a teen with a smartphone, messages can be fired off instantaneously to Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, as well as through e-mails and text messages. That means two things: One, the targets of these actions feel like they can never get away from their aggressors. Two, the evidence against the alleged bullies is now incredibly easy to obtain, all right there in a single device.
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