(wL) Forums

Quote:A Georgia teenager is suing two of her classmates for creating a cruel Facebook page in her name after school officials and authorities said the matter was out of their control.

Alex Boston, 14, of Acworth, Ga., was enjoying her school's Field Day celebration for the end of the school year in May 2011 when annoyed classmates began to approach her.

"A little bit into the morning, her friends started coming up to her and saying, 'Why are you saying nasty things on Facebook about me?'" Alex's father Chris Boston told ABCNews.com.

"She took off to the bathroom and hid," Boston said. "When she got home, she was crying."

Alex told her parents what had happened and they sat down at their home computers to find the page. When they did, they were horrified by what they saw.

Next to a distorted photo of Alex, it said that the languages she speaks were English and "Retardish." There were posts about false sexual exploits, links to racist videos on YouTube and implications of drug use. And the creators of the page were using the account to post insults on the pages of other friends.

The "About Alex" section said, "I don't have many friends because I'm annoying and I poke people on my way to lunch so I get beat up a lot."

Alex had never been the victim of bullying before, and her family immediately took action. Their first stop was Alex's school, Palmer Middle School. Chris Boston said school officials spoke to the two teens that made the page and they admitted to making it, but the school could take no further action since the cyber bullying was done off school property, from the students' home computers.

Meanwhile, they were repeatedly using Facebook's "report story or spam" function to try to get the page taken down, but it remained up.

The family then went to the Cobb County Police Department to file an incident report.

Police notes on the report said: "Boston was advised to notify "Facebook" and request that the web page be shut down. Report was requested and generated for documentation purposes only. No further action required."

Most states, including Georgia, have laws against cyberbullying, but most of these laws do not cover bullying that occurs off of the school's campus.