[/floatl]Asahi: Girls lead rise in complaints of libel on Net
More people, particularly female students at junior and senior high schools, are consulting police about malicious messages posted on the Internet, many of them sexually explicit in nature. The number of cases climbed to 8,037 in 2006, up from 2,566 four years earlier, according to the National Police Agency. In the first six months of 2007, the number stood at 4,202, up 573 from the same period the previous year. Many of those who went to the police were female junior or senior high school students, mostly over cases of alleged libel made by schoolmates. Many of the postings concerned sex. Police said there were also cases in which a number of girls got together to bully classmates by posting comments on the Net. "People tend to become extreme in Internet postings and are not really aware that they are committing crimes," an NPA official said...more...
