A Facebook page listing the names and rumored sexual exploits of promiscuous female high school students on Long Island has been shut down—not because the list crashed Facebook's servers, but because officials were rightfully concerned about cyberbullying. One student tells Newsday (paywall) that the so-called "Nassau County's Nasty List" defamed students at a number of schools, including Uniondale High. Alanna McDonald, a senior at Uniondale, says she knows a young woman who was named on the Nasty List, which said "very disrespectful things" about the girl. McDonald also noted that she was not on the list.
In the wake of the suicide of Rutgers student Tyler Clementi, authorities seem to be taking swifter action to police the seedier side of social media. Nassau County police visited Uniondale High on Friday and referred the matter to their computer crimes unit, which may subpoena Facebook to find out who created the Nasty List. No one has been charged yet, and school administrators say they have limited power to punish students for off-campus activity, but Uniondale High does have a zero-tolerance policy regarding bullying and cyberbullying.
