Suicide because of Facebook?

While I try to fill this column with my weekend adventures, I decided to shift gears this week after reading about yet another teen suicide.

A 14-year-old boy from Orange County, New York, took his own life because of alleged Facebook taunts about his apparent sexual orientation.

To add to the devastation, a local Fox News affiliate reported that this was the second student suicide at the high school within two weeks. There’s no report if the first suicide was related to cyberbullying.

Facebook made a formal statement about the suicides:

“We are deeply saddened by the tragic deaths of these students, and our hearts go out to their family and friends. These cases serve as a painful reminder of how people can help others who are bullied or show signs of distress on Facebook.”

The statement went on to say that Facebook works with third party support groups to help people in distress, and the company has a Safety Center to help people who are in danger of harming themselves.

In the past four months, the TV and Internet have been flooded with anti-bullying public service announcements. The most notable was the It Gets Better Project to inspire LGBT youth who are facing harassment among their peers.

While these are important messages, it’s not getting through to the people who need to hear it most.

There’s no doubt that life gets better after high school, but I remember feeling like four years of high school was an eternity.

When I was in school, I was taunted and teased by a group of boys because of the gap in between my two front teeth. This led me down a path of insecurity, and it took me years to accept my smile — which is now one of my favorite features. 

While having someone make fun of your smile isn’t in the same league as having someone make fun of your sexuality, bullying and taunting on any level hurts.

The fact is, social networking isn’t going away. Sure, Facebook might fall out of fashion, but there will be another website ready to takes its place.

Parents and teachers should educate their children and students about how use privacy settings and block people from looking at their personal information. Young users also need to realize every morsel of information that they upload onto Facebook is dumped into a wide open social network, which can be accessed by millions at any time.

Facebook is a wonderful tool to connect with others, but it also creates a place for homophobic and bullying members.

While I’m not naive enough to think bullying will be 100 percent eradicated, knowing how to cut off these people from sending hateful speech is a start.