Vicious websites dedicated to spreading sexually explicit rumours about young people in the Illawarra are the tip of a cyber bullying iceberg, according to police.Almost half a dozen specially created Facebook "goss pages" have become forums for anonymous users to trade allegations about other people's sexual activity, sexual preference and sexual health.The worst offenders - two sites known as Illawarra Goss and Goss Wollongong, which between them have about 400 online fans - have quickly descended into pages of filth and innuendo in the few short weeks since they were created.
EDITORIAL: Anonymous web attacks must stopThe sites are filled with claims about who has supposedly had sex with whom, where they did it and how good or bad the experience was.Other claims relate to people's sexuality and whether others have spread or contracted sexually transmitted diseases.The pages are created by anonymous users, who urge others to send an email with gossip on the promise their identity will be protected.The contents of the email are then posted on the Facebook page for everyone, including the target, to see.The subject of one post, which is too explicit to be published by the Illawarra Mercury, hit back at her treatment earlier this month."You know my name, not my story so get the f... off your high horse and stop hiding behind some gossip site you gutless troll," she wrote.Wollongong, Lake Illawarra and Shoalhaven police each said they were not investigating the pages at this stage.Sergeant John Klepczarek confirmed cyber bullying was rampant in the Illawarra, with the region's police liaison officer in schools busy dealing with the problem."This is a huge issue, a growing issue. These sites are just the tip of the iceberg and it can get really nasty," he said."It just shatters the kids. It shatters the parents."An Illawarra teacher who asked not to be named said schools were battling to keep up with the problem."As soon as we try to close [a site] down or get access, they create another one."We're battling some pretty sophisticated kids. It's like building a better mousetrap."Susan McLean, an online safety consultant and former cyber safety officer with Victoria Police, said Facebook gossip sites had increased dramatically in the past three months and were becoming more school and location-based.Illawarra Goss appears to draw the bulk of its membership from the Shoalhaven area; Goss Wollongong from young people in the Wollongong and Shellharbour local government areas.The problem is also being reported by the Sydney media, with sites such as "Root-rater" and Northern Beaches Root Rates outed.Last year, the reputations of scores of Wollongong teenagers were trashed on a malicious Facebook page modelled on hit US television series Gossip Girl.Ms McLean warned that criminal charges could be laid which included using a carriage service to menace, harass or cause offence, which carried a maximum penalty of three years' jail."My message to these people would be 'Think about what you are doing' ... It's not fun to wreak havoc on someone else's life."
