She didn’t set out to make such a public statement, but American photographer Jennifer “Jen McKen” McKendrick’s decision not to photograph “ugly people” brought her thousands of supporters on Facebook and coverage in major media outlets.

What started this whole thing? As she explained in her blog post:

Last night I posted on facebook the following: “If I’m wrong, please speak up. I came across a page on facebook that was created (by someone under a ficticious name) thats purpose is to bully,  ridicule and say mean and hurtful things about their class mates. While visiting the page, I found several teenage girls that have scheduled sessions with me for their senior pictures. I am emailing them tomorrow to cancel their shoots. I do not want them to represent my business and I am beside myself at how MEAN and CRUEL they were on that page.”….

This morning I sent out 4 emails to those clients while CC’ing in their parents explaining WHY I was canceling their shoots. I also included screen shots of the comments they made. They couldn’t deny it, I had the picture of what they said. I informed them that I’d be sending their deposits back and that they’d have to find another photographer. So far, I have received two emails back from their parents that claimed (I’m paraphrasing) they were shocked that this had happened. They apologized that their child acted in such a way and that they would deal with the matter. So far I haven’t received any backlash but I’m ready for it. I’m a small business owner and I have the luxury of making that decision. If you are ugly on the inside, I’m sorry but I won’t take your photos to make you look pretty on the outside!”

Many thanks to Jennifer and the many others who every day are taking a stand against online hostility!

You’ve done a bad thing and are now going to prison. What’s going to happen to your Facebook profile? According to a recent news article, inmates may keep their Facebook profiles open while they’re in prison, as long as they’re not active on them while incarcerated.

Meanwhile, accounts set up while prisoners are incarcerated will be taken down. The concern is that prisoners use Facebook to stalk their victims or conduct criminal activity. According to California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation spokesperson Dana Toyama, “victims who fought hard to put their offenders behind bars are being re-victimized. It’s evolving as Facebook has become a huge social networking site and a place for gang members to talk and coordinate inside and outside prison.”

However, not everyone agrees with the inability of prisoners to use the social networking site. “Many prisoners might much rather use social media (instead of, say, letters or phone calls or even emails) to keep family and friends updated on how they are doing while they serve their sentence,” says law professor Douglas Berman and author of the blog Sentencing Law and Policy.

Berman suggests the creation of a new social networking site, perhaps to be called FelonSpace, that would be “well-developed in consultation with prison officials and experts in corrections policies and practices [and] perhaps could provide prisoners and their family and friends with social media benefits without the risk of harmful misuse.”

What do you think…has social networking become so important in our lives that even prisoners should have the ability to stay connected when serving their sentence?

More and more we’re able to show a strong connection between the experience children have with bullying and how it impacts them later in life. We’ve written about this issue before at Who Is Likely to Become a Bully, a Victim, or Both? and at Cyberbullying and Complex PTSD.

The peer-reviewed Archives of Pediatric & Adolescent Medicine published a study in June 2011 titled School Bullying Perpetration and Other Childhood Risk Factors as Predictors of Adult Intimate Partner Perpetration in which it found that:

“The present study indicates that bullying peers in school as a child, especially frequent bullying perpetration, is associated with increased risk for men’s perpetration of IPV [intimate-partner violence] as an adult. The effect remains strong after controlling for common prior risk factors for both bullying and IPV perpetration.”

Since we know that childhood bullying is not limited to in-person attacks, but has a very strong online component, it will be interesting to see a future study about the correlation between cyberbullying and intimate-partner violence.