Online Pugsleys everywhere be forewarned: a major government program designed to help schools upgrade their Internet connectivity will soon require them to teach kids how to stop "cyberbullying" and "act responsibly on social networking sites like Facebook."

The Federal Communications Commission plans to circulate rules by the end of this year that will tell schools that get federal cash for computer and networking gear to comply with various child-protection measures included in the Broadband Data Improvement Act. The law orders these schools to "educate minors about appropriate online behavior, including online interaction with other individuals in social networking websites and in chat rooms and cyberbullying awareness and response."

The fund in question is called the Schools and Libraries Program, otherwise known as "E-Rate." Grantees are already required to run some kind of online safety education class and to deploy filters "to protect students from accessing inappropriate content," as the FCC delicately puts it.

Now an ongoing educational campaign against cyberbullying will be added to the mix.

Minor vs. minor

We've always thought that talking to kids about this problem is far preferable to criminalizing speech over the Internet. But the challenge of defining cyberbullying remains, and it's a distinctly know-it-when-I see-it concept. Potentially, the most famous case may not even qualify as a cyberbullying incident. We refer to the woman who falsely assumed the identity of a teenage boy to verbally assault real teen Megan Meier online; the girl subsequently committed suicide.

Representative Linda Sanchez's (D-CA) Megan Meier Cyberbullying Prevention Act would slap such offenders with jail time if they "coerce, intimidate, harass, or cause substantial emotional distress to a person." But the WiredKids sponsored Stop Cyberbullying web site argues that when adults engage in this sort of behavior, it is by definition not cyberbullying.

"'Cyberbullying' is when a child, preteen or teen is tormented, threatened, harassed, humiliated, embarrassed or otherwise targeted by another child, preteen or teen using the Internet, interactive and digital technologies or mobile phones," the site explains.

"It has to have a minor on both sides, or at least have been instigated by a minor against another minor. Once adults become involved, it is plain and simple cyber-harassment or cyberstalking. Adult cyber-harassment or cyberstalking is NEVER called cyberbullying."

The Cyberbullying Research Center appears to agree with this assessment, defining the practice as "incidents where adolescents use technology, usually computers or cell phones, to harass, threaten, humiliate, or otherwise hassle their peers." And the National Crime Prevention Council says the behavior is triggered when "teens use the Internet, cell phones, or other devices to send or post text or images intended to hurt or embarrass another person."

What cyberbullies do

Most anti-cyberbullying educational sites provide lists of behaviors that they see as typical of the problem. The iSafe organization breaks cyberbullying activity down as follows:

A threatening e-mail

Nasty instant messaging session

Repeated notes sent to the cell phone

A website set up to mock others

'Borrowing' someone’s screen name and pretending to be them while posting a message.

Forwarding supposedly private messages, pictures, or video to others.

And the Cyberbullying Research Center provides this taxonomy of aggressive activities:

youth can send hurtful text messages to others or spread rumors using cell phones or computers

teens have also created web pages, videos, profiles on social networking sites making fun of others

with cell phones, adolescents have taken pictures in a bedroom, a bathroom, or another location where privacy is expected, and posted or distributed them online

more recently, some have recorded unauthorized videos of other kids and uploaded them for the world to see, rate, tag, and discuss

The now infamous arrest of two Rutgers University students accused of secretly taping eighteen year old Tyler Clementi during an intimate encounter in his dorm is the latest example of that last mentioned practice. Clementi committed suicide a day after the online release of the video. But was that cyberbullying, or do the actual ages of the alleged perpetrators push it over the line to "cyberstalking"? New Jersey police have charged the students with invasion of privacy.

Who's hot?

Some groups add other activities to the list. The Stop Cyberbullying site includes "intentionally excluding someone from an online group" as bullying behavior. The program's list of "direct" cyberbullying examples also mentions "internet polling" as a problem.

"Who's Hot? Who's Not? Who is the biggest slut in the sixth grade? These types of questions run rampant on the Internet polls, all created by yours truly—kids and teens. Such questions are often very offensive to others and are yet another way that kids can "bully" other kids online."

And here's an instance of "proxy" bullying that Stop Cyberbullying sees as a troubling.

'Warning' or 'Notify Wars' are an example of cyberbullying by proxy. Kids click on the warning or notify buttons on their IM screen or e-mail or chat screens, and alert the ISP or service provider that the victim has done something that violates their rules.If the victim receives enough warnings or notifications, they can lose their account. The service providers are aware of this abuse, and often check and see if the warning were justified. But all the cyberbully has to do is make the victim angry enough to say something rude or hateful back. Then, BINGO! they warn them, making it look like the victim had started it. In this case, the ISP or service provider is the innocent accomplice of the cyberbully.

All this is grist for the burgeoning field of anti-cyberbullying education, soon to be required in your neighborhood school.