The operators of a controversial website, which enabled Irish students to engage in so-called "cyber-bullying", have promised to censor comments and ban some registered members in an effort to stop abusive messaging.
Following a plea by the British-based organisation Bullying Online, operators of Hateboard.com have deleted messages, censored comments and removed students' names as part of their new monitoring system.
Earlier this week, The Irish Times confirmed that 14 second-year students in the fee-paying Dublin school, Alexandra College, were suspended for 2½ days after it was discovered they had used the site to leave offensive, anonymous comments about pupils in their own and other schools.
Another 20 students were also given detention for their comments on the website.
The operators of the Hateboard.com website said yesterday they were shocked at how the site had been violated by Irish students. The website was never meant to be a platform to call names, "but just to show individual opinions about general things".
Liz Carnell, of Bullying Online, said that following complaints from parents, they had managed to track down the hosts of the website to Germany and make them aware of the media controversy in Ireland.
"In the past, young people have told us they wanted to kill themselves after receiving threats and abuse. Others have told us they have lost all their friends after bogus messages were posted in their name," said Ms Carnell.
In their appeal to the website operators, Bullying Online warned that "anonymous" messages can be easily tracked to their authors and posting abuse about named individuals on the internet is harassment and a crime in Britain.
Before the breakthrough by Bullying Online, there was no mechanism where concerned parents and students could register complaints about particular messages.
Now however, all comments are being censored by the website monitors and published comments which people find offensive can be reported to the monitors by simply clicking on an alert button.
Seán Sweeney, spokesman for the Data Protection Commissioner's office, said the international dimension of abusive websites often makes it impossible to police them.
He said that similar to the way in which graffiti on walls was treated, students and teachers alike should ignore and not give credence to abusive website postings.
He added that, in the unlikely event that a website is shut down, students will often simply create a new domain.
Future awareness and vigilance on behalf of parents is critically important, according to Barbara Johnston of the Catholic Secondary Schools Parents Association.
"Parents are seeing their children go down roads that are more destructive and more cruel, where morals and values are not prioritised.
"We have to ask ourselves, what direction are we heading in and how are we educating our children?
"We need to get back to the understanding that common decency is a good thing," Ms Johnston said.