"He wouldn't have been outed via an online broadcast, and his privacy would have been respected and he might still have his life." Clementi was a violinist whose life revolved around music, said Ed Schmiedecke, the recently retired music director at Ridgewood High School, from which Clementi graduated this year. Hardworking "He was a terrific musician, and a very promising, hardworking young man," Schmiedecke said. Clementi's roommate, Dhraun Ravi, and fellow Rutgers freshman Molly Wei, both 18, have been charged with invading Clementi's privacy.

Middlesex County prosecutors say they used a webcam to surreptitiously transmit a live image of Clementi having sex on September 19 and Ravi tried to webcast a second encounter on September 21, the day before Clementi's suicide. The two could face five years in jail. A lawyer for Ravi did not immediately return a message seeking comment, and it was unclear whether Wei had retained a lawyer. A spokesman for the Middlesex County prosecutor's office didn't return messages inquiring whether there could be additional charges, and experts diverged on the potential for the pair to face more severe charges in light of Clementi's apparent suicide. Privacy violation Parry Aftab, who runs the website WiredSafety, said it's possible the classmates could be prosecuted for violating Clementi's civil rights.

"If these kids could get away with one privacy law violation, that would be a sin," she said. But former assistant Essex County prosecutor Luanne Peterpaul said such a prosecution was unlikely because the federal government doesn't recognise sexual orientation as a protected class. Peterpaul, vice-chairwoman of the gay rights group Garden State Equality, said prosecutors might be able to pursue the case as a hate crime if they could establish that the defendants were motivated to act because they perceived Clementi as gay. But that can be hard to prove, she said. ABC News and The Star-Ledger of Newark reported Clementi left on his Facebook page on September 22 a note that read: "Jumping off the gw bridge sorry." Later, his Facebook page was accessible only to friends. About 100 people gathered on Wednesday night for a vigil on campus. They lay on the ground and chanted slogans like, "We're here, we're queer, we're not going home."

Rutgers University president Richard McCormick wrote in a letter to the campus: "If the charges are true, these actions gravely violate the university's standards of decency and humanity." Project Civility Coincidentally, the university this week launched Project Civility, designed to get students thinking about how they treat others. Anti-bullying advocate Jowharah Sanders said Clementi was one of at least four teenagers who committed suicide across the United States in September after gay-related harassment. The others were a 15-year-old who hanged himself in Indiana, a 13-year-old who shot himself in Texas, and just this week another 13-year-old who died in hospital in California days after hanging himself.

"It's got to stop," said Sanders, president of National Voices for Equality, Education and Enlightenment. "It is turning more and more deadly. More children are dying and we're speaking up about it." Cyberbullying in general is a growing phenomenon in an era when even very young students carry mobile phone cameras and regularly use social networking systems. "Kids have been bullying each other for generations. The latest generation, however, has been able to utilise technology to expand their reach and the extent of their harm," a research paper on www.cyberbullying.us says. "Adolescents use technology, usually computers or cell phones, to harass, threaten, humiliate, or otherwise hassle... More recently, some have recorded unauthorised videos of other kids and uploaded them for the world to see, rate, tag, and discuss." Cyberbullying

According to cyberbullying.us, estimates of youths who have endured cyberbullying vary from 10 to 40 per cent and is likely to be about 20 per cent of 11- to 18-year-olds. The ubiquity of social networking works the other way too, with Facebook, YouTube and other popular platforms becoming tools for those opposing the bullies. A Facebook page set up as a memorial to Clementi quickly attracted thousands of followers, while hundreds visited another page urging Rutgers students to wear black on Friday in his memory. "We must fight this once and for all ... hate crimes, bullying, stalking, invasion of privacy and the pain of having your personal life shattered because of your sexual orientation," the Tyler Clementi Memorial Facebook page said. Popular tools

Columnist Louis Hochman, with the Ridgewood Patch newspaper, which covers Clementi's former hometown, said the tragedy "couldn't have unfolded without some of today's most popular tools". However, "the tools they used may have been particular to our time but the sentiment driving them wasn't. There's nothing new about meanness, nor irresponsibility." The two suspects have not spoken in public since the tragedy. A friend of Ravi told ABC television that the incident amounted to a prank gone wrong, rather than an anti-gay persecution. "He's very, very open-minded," the friend, Michael Zhuang, said on ABC. "If it had been a girl in the room it wouldn't have been any different."

But Steven Goldstein, a homosexual rights activist with Garden State Equality, said such bullying amounted to a hate crime. "The New Jersey hate crimes law encompasses invasion of privacy and exactly the kind of situation that Tyler Clementi faced. The law is clear. We at Garden State Equality will not relent in calling for a hate crimes prosecution." Loading * Support is available for anyone who may be distressed by calling Lifeline 131 114, Mensline 1300 789 978, Kids Helpline 1800 551 800 AP/AFP