SOUTH KOREA

JUST earlier this month, South Korean actress Choi Jin Sil, 39, became the latest victim of cyber-bullying.

The body of the mother of two was found in her Seoul apartment by her mother.

According to various media reports, the popular actress had been dogged by Internet rumours over the suicide of an actor.

Her colleagues said she had been upset over rumours circulated online that she had lent a large sum of money to actor Ahn Jae Hwan, 36, who had killed himself early last month.

Choi had denied talk that she had pressured him to repay a sum of 2.5 billion won (S$2.83 million) that he had borrowed from her, leading him to kill himself, Yonhap news agency reported.

UNITED STATES

IN A 2006 case which prompted a new local law outlawing cyber-bullying to be passed, 13-year-old Megan Meier hanged herself after her online friendship - through social-networking site MySpace - with a "cute teenage boy" ended abruptly.

Megan, who suffered from depression and attention-deficit disorder, corresponded with the "boy", called Josh, for more than a month before the friendship ended.

He told her he had heard she was cruel and called her a "liar and slut", media reports said.

But what the young girl did not know was that "Josh" did not exist - he was created by a mother of a classmate who lived just down the street from her home in a St Louis, Missouri suburb.

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