Singapore - More complaints of cyberbullying are emerging from youngsters in Singapore than any other country except the United States, an international safety group said in a report on Monday.
Wired Safety, which has volunteers in 76 countries, told The Straits Times it has received about 230 complaints from the city-state since 2002, with more than 80 logged so far this year.
As a proportion of population, executive director Parry Aftab said Singapore has far more cases than anyone would have expected.
These range from insults and pornography sent through email, Internet chatrooms and discussion forums to hi-tech offences such as hacking into victims' accounts.
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The complaints are less serious than those in the US, where death threats are included, she said.
Singapore launched an anti-bullying week on Monday to wipe out the ominous trend.
Wired Safety also receives complaints from Canada, Britain, Australia, New Zealand and Hong Kong.
A separate survey of 1 100 teenagers here by an Internet safety group found one in three, usually girls, received frightening email.
About one in four had been "harassed, upset, bothered, threatened or embarrassed while chatting online in the past six months", the survey said.
"Cyberbullying is usually malicious and should not be confused with one-off pranks," said Angeline Khoo, with the National Institute of Education. - Sapa-dpa
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