Bullying isn't solved on the playground. At least online the perpetrators document their aggression. Not that I believe that will solve anything, thought it might be fun to name-and-shame them.

Also, on the playground a bully will enjoy power by oppressing others in full view of their classmates. Authority and fear go hand in hand. Anonymity and the internet might make it easier to bully others but it also removes the pay-off. Somebody that bullies others online is wasting their time. If you do it, it's not a stretch for somebody else to point out that you're a bit of a 'loser'.

It's sad if children kill themselves because of this though. I've heard awful stories of people pretending to be a girlfriend/boyfriend, gaining trust and then humiliating the other person. You would have to be a little naive to fall for that but I don't think that's a lesson anybody should ever have to learn. However, I think that's an exception, kids will learn to not trust so easily in the virtual environment and to carefully control their virtual image.

You're talking as if children are killing themselves over internet bullying left and right. The truth is this almost never happens and when it does is almost certainly bullying from the real world spilling over into the virtual.

The internet has opened a lot of doors and changed some of the rules, but I don't believe it has turned the playing field upside down as sensationalist news articles would like us to believe.

If anything, as the web has matured as a technology and as a part of life things are probably getting better, since the rules for how kids need to behave on the web are becoming part of the culture and not something their "pushy parents" are trying to convince them of.

Notice how the interviewed girls talk about giving false personal information and about how they promptly cut off inappropriate contact as if it's the most obvious thing in the world. I'm not sure this was the situation 10 or 15 years ago...