Bullying has been in the news lately, but the revelations about Gordon Brown’s alleged shoving and swearing have diverted attention from other aggressive behavior that is growing and seems to be uncontrolled.

Internet bullying has seen very few trials, but because the daily misery of the victims and may end in suicide.

Social networking sites are popular with young Britons - about half are members, with 5.2 million 13 to 19 years subscribed to Facebook.

It is a great way to exchange news and keep in touch, but the downside can be huge, with one in three say they have been bullied online.

Social networking sites are impossible to police because of the large amount of material, with the result that a large amount of content is highly controversial.

A quick trawl shows how gangs use these sites to post threatening material intended to impress their rivals and scare off opponents.

Stuart Cunningham, Warwickshire, published a photo of himself in a hideous mask, brandishing a large knife in one site.

He is a gang member crew Overslade, in Rugby, where up to six rival gangs vie for territory and a series of fires resulted in the death of an elderly couple.

The Internet is where these bands post their threats and brandishing their weapons, and yet the police seem powerless to do anything about it until someone has been injured.

The Internet allows young people to glorify violence, presenting themselves as “soldiers” in their version of urban warfare and intimidate those who they please.

Rhys Jones was murdered in Liverpool in 2007 by a member of the Croxteth Crew, and five other gang members were convicted.

I’ve always been a pretty conservative. Well, that is, once I entered the business about 20 years ago. Recently I started to wonder how some of today’s youth seem to make decisions that limit their future opportunities in a huge way.

Just think about the last time you were eating in a restaurant and your server is presented with large type “disc” hoops that look so painful. Have you ever seen what your ears look like when they bring their ears rings? YIKES! And when you see a very attractive woman and once you get a closer look he sees a strange tattoo on his neck, just below your ear. It hides under the neckline. Right of the view clear in an area that could never hide that, without a band aid.

I am sure that when you see people who have made these decisions do not look and wonder if they ever going to serve a public office or be the next CEO of Fortune 50 companies. In fact, you probably can eliminate 80% of the races that could be potentially eligible if they had not made those decisions. Please do not take what I’m saying the wrong way. I think everyone has the opportunity to do all that we want and I am not some elitist snob who believes that everyone should aspire to achieve a higher corporate position. I think if you’re doing something you enjoy doing, you have the ability to make a positive impact in this world. I simply think that sometimes people are very myopic in their decision process and not think about the impact on the lives of their decisions can make.

Facebook, MySpace, Twitter, and frankly, anything you put online can have the same impact! I was recently reading a status update of one of my “Facebook friends” made, and I was absolutely amazed at the insensitivity of the remark. I was totally surprised that it could have been so myopic and put something like that out there … even if it was simply an attempt at humor.Now sick sense of humor I have a pretty radical and, indeed, can participate in a sense of humor sometimes very off color. I can assure you that time are in private and certainly would never be published online!

Each time you publish something on your website or the favorite of social media, the keystrokes will live forever! If you happen to have children I’m sure we’ve had this conversation with them and if you have not … stop reading now and run to where they are and have to talk immediately! Any smart employer will use Facebook, MySpace, and anywhere else in the media, to control a potential new employee. They simply type their name into Google and be presented with a quick view of the fingerprint that you’ve created over the years. The headlines are full of examples of people whose lives are completely uprooted simply because they have acted before thinking about the possible consequences they would face.

I am a big fan of Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, and a number of other social media sites. I love the way they can stay connected to a large number of people without the need to lift the phone, send a letter or email. I reach that of their peers in day to day without reaching out. I simply think of each and every one of us has to be very aware that every action we take online is very public, and something that will haunt you if you are not careful. Be sure to take every precaution he can to protect their reputation. Especially if you are going to publish something everyone can see.

The family of a student from suburban Chicago high school is considering legal action against the school after her son was suspended for something he wrote on his Facebook page.

Justin Bird, 16, sophomore at Oak Forest High School, used his Facebook page, for criticizing a teacher.

Oak Forest High School superintendent says the Facebook announcement interrupted the school day, so the student was suspended.

The suspension of bird has raised questions about whether school officials exceeded their authority.

A few keystrokes, mouse click and a new Facebook page, was born. And almost as, was suspended Justin Bird.

“I did this on this laptop in my room, sitting in my chair. I do not know how they can come to my house and suspend me for what I did in my spare time,” Bird said.

Bird admits that fans created a Facebook page in which he called a teacher in a derogatory name. About 50 people have become followers. And then Justin took it down. But the next day at school, was suspended for five days. His parents are now considering taking legal action against the school.

“I do not think this is the site of the school to enter our house and say … my child is suspended for something he did at home,” said Donna Bird, Justin’s mother.

High School District 228 Superintendent Bill Kendall says what Bird wrote was “disrespectful, inappropriate and lewd. Although it has been done in house, broke the school”.

However, the American Civil Liberties Union says that this case is part of a growing trend across the country.

In another instance, Katherine Evans was suspended from her school in Florida to write on a Facebook page that her teacher was “the worst teacher you’ve had.” Last week, a federal judge ruled that Evans could sue the principal.

Legal experts say that while students are not threatening a teacher, which are protected by the First Amendment, particularly at home.

“We need a kind of non-governmental agent in your way to school in households and correcting the behavior of school simply because they think somehow involved,” said Ed Yohnka, spokesman for the ACLU.

Legal experts say there is much uncharted territory in the world of social networks. It may be a while before the U.S. Supreme Court have a case, because much of the time, parents and students are so embarrassed that they accept the punishment and move on.

Let’s start this journey by taking a walk through time. Some of you are too young to remember the Internet of the ’90s. At that time one of the most popular ways to get “in line” was to use AOL. This was the popular online service that came through the disks that you received in the mail. Prodigy and Compuserve were in his output and this new service, AOL was the darling of the era. I went to college in a small town in upstate New York who had no local number for AOL. I had to call Albany to access AOL. The boy had access AOL. One of my first few months, I received a phone bill of over $ 500 in long distance calls (where Vonage then?!?) And that even includes the AOL access charges. I still use the same username for AOL today that originally registered at the time.

AOL was exciting - you can read news, send and receive email, gaming, IM chat with friends, go to chat rooms on issues, seek information, listen to music, send photos, customize the home page for suit your preferences and a variety of other tasks online. In later versions of AOL on the desktop, Web browser is included and other “partners” have been added to allow for additional content, which I call applications.

Sure does seem that the more you try to move the Internet forward, more things seem to copy the old. So that said, let me introduce the next version of AOL … AOL 2.0 … also known as Facebook.

Read the previous paragraph, which begins with “AOL was exciting” and replace with Facebook AOL. Look similar? Appear to be identical?

Facebook has news, friends, chat / instant messaging, games, video, photos, and when its developer network includes you dang near what AOL offers. I will not run for every unique feature in both services, but if you want to create a matrix, the check marks overlap closely. One difference is the added “think” that Facebook offers allowing you to see what your friends (or contacts marketing) are doing.

Sure Facebook allows us to connect at speeds higher than a 28.8 baud modem overclocked, but if you look closely, I can see the little man running in yellow in the logo of Facebook. I would say that if AOL connection speeds and coverage benefits from now on Facebook, AOL would have been much higher.

I’ve wondered if Facebook eventually launch a similar branded phone’s Google to launch smartphone a link. And there are a lot of talk about Facebook’s potential to create a web browser. AOL had a web browser as well.

Facebook likes to say that are open, but I guess that’s your definition of AOL was so open in the mid 90s. One difference between companies is in the way that income. AOL charges a service fee and Facebook is through Facebook ads and also told me tonight that Heinz Ketchup Ketchup wants to share my stories (I never use tomato sauce) and two of my Facebook friends are fans of Heinz Ketchup.

Facebook has two important advantages over AOL Facebook to help you remain important for a long period of time. First, it gives them the “tube” for free. That is, people are connected to Facebook using their own connections, while AOL had to supply their own line in the lines. Second, Facebook has the advantage that more people connect to the web of what computers in the 1990s. This connectivity helps keep Facebook to add new users every week.

Facebook Addiction Disorder (FAD) is a term introduced by US phychologists for those who are addicted to facebook and their life is really effected by their uncontrolled activities on Facebook. According to US psychologists the number of patients suffering from FAD are increasing.

Not only US but also millions of South Africans may also be at risk as they search for long-lost friends and relatives, share photo albums and stay abreast of gossip.

Lynlee Howard-Payne, a psychology lecturer at the University of the Witwatersrand, said: “While there are no official statistics available regarding South Africans who have been diagnosed as having or being treated for FAD, based on the large number of universities, schools and companies blocking access to Facebook … there could very well be an uncontrolled dependence.”

Howard-Payne added: “Universities, schools and companies are forced to limit accessibility to Facebook because some people seem to be unable to perform other tasks if they have access to this online social network. While Facebook is often a great way of maintaining both social and professional relationships, it seems to take on a destructive force with certain personalities.”

After US psychologists began their probe into FAD, millions of Facebook users - there are an estimated 350 million around the world - have admitted to being addicted.

More than 500 groups for addicts have been created on Facebook, where members joke about their dependence on the site.

Howard-Payne said if addicts chose to join a support group, it should not be on Facebook.

She said: “Addictive use of the Internet is a new phenomenon which many practitioners are unaware of and, subsequently, unprepared to treat. Use of Facebook is often a legitimate way of social networking, so abstinence may not be seen as a practical intervention thus it is recommended that there be moderation and controlled use.”

A privacy complaint against Facebook in recent calls for “special interest” to the Federal Trade Commission, the agency wrote in a letter on Thursday made public on Tuesday.

A privacy complaint filed in December by the Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC) and nearly a dozen other privacy and consumer groups “raises a number of concerns about information sharing practices of Facebook,” wrote David Vladeck, director of the FTC Bureau of Consumer Protection.

The complaint also “raises issues of particular interest to us right now,” said Vladeck.

Month EPIC asked the FTC to open an investigation into the privacy changes imposed by social networking site. The changes, which began rolling out on December 9, are intended to give users more control over who can access the content of their profiles. But given the extent of Facebook to a more open format because it integrates status updates with search engines like Bing, the site encourages users to get more from their public data, resulting confusion about what really public.

Despite the interest “of the FTC” in the subject, the letter does not translate into a formal investigation. “Any Commission’s investigation is not public until the Commission decides to issue a formal complaint or close the investigation,” wrote Vladeck. “As a result, we can neither confirm nor deny that we are conducting an investigation into issues raised by the complaint.”

Last week, EPIC filed an additional complaint that the group says it “provides further evidence of unfair trade practices and misleading public statements about Facebook CEO of Facebook, the latest version of the iPhone Facebook application, Facebook Connect, and “web-suicide ‘applications.”

“More than 300 million Facebook users have successfully revised their privacy settings and routinely using our editor privacy controls to decide who sees the content since the moment they share it,” said a spokesman Facebook said in a statement. “New EPIC letter offers little or no new information to support the claims they make.”

The FTC said it would host a roundtable on the privacy of Jan. 28 in Berkeley, California, “where [the FTC] will discuss business models and emerging technologies and their impact on consumer privacy, including network services social. ”

Vladeck also instructed Maneesh Mittal, associate director in the FTC’s Division of Privacy and Identity Protection, to “monitor and set up a meeting” with EPIC.

Someone who is investigating the social networks, however, Jennifer Stoddart, Privacy Commission of Canada. Stoddart, announced on Monday that his office is examining online tracking, profiling and targeting of consumers by companies - including sites like Facebook, MySpace and LinkedIn.

In August, an investigation of Stoddart’s office calls to reinforce their Facebook privacy notices and embark on a year’s review of its development platform.

While casting Soha, Mahesh Bhatt, was not very comfortable with this decision by Kunal Deshmukh. However, after seeing his performance inthe film Mahesh said: “Its now that I realize you can not pre-judge people. Even stalwarts like me, who claim they have a good eye for the potential can be completely wrong ”

“Even the worst cynics who are disparaging about her (Soha’s) have recognized the dramatic potential with grace and guilt pre-judge it,” said Bhatt.

“She really is everything you download and make you feel why the hell do you underestimate this very talented actor,” he said .

An anonymous employee Rumpus Facebook spoke during a visit to Facebook’s headquarters in the summer of 2009. Although the two were personal friends, the employee assumes that chose to remain anonymous for obvious reasons: she is still employed by the social networking site, and can not disclose “trade secrets”. The conversation was quite long however, and revealed a few frightening TidBITS.

According to the unnamed friend / employee, Facebook tracks your every move on the web. This means that each click, it records all instant messages, and all games played on Facebook. Immediately this sounds like a privacy issue, but the worker emphasized that monitoring is related only to make a better product, not accounting for every letter wrong or a stranger Quick Peep hot photos.

The employee also stated that employees had easy access to Facebook user accounts. This means that any of them could access your Facebook account and get “hiding” your personal information. Apparently that has changed now, as the master password has been discontinued. Now, employees must provide a written explanation of why they need to access a user account. If you are caught without a permit logging, rushed the field.

And as for all eliminated, secret love letters from the former high school girlfriends and boyfriends, Facebook has hidden in its database, retrieves. This means that any employee of Facebook can view the database and pull up all posts on Facebook you’ve sent and received. Of course, Facebook denies everything, like a government cover band classic. “This book contains the kind of inaccuracies and misrepresentations that you would expect from something of origin ’stock’ and we’ll leave it at that,” the company said in an email.