Amanda Todd, the name of a Port Coquitlam girl who died in October after posting a video about her struggles was one of the most searched in the world in 2012, according a ranking of search trends by the search engine giant Google.
In a report, Zeitgeist 2012, the web search engine listed Amanda Todd after pop star Whitney Houston and Kate Middleton, the Duchess of Cambridge, in its list of trending people.
The trending category is for search queries with the highest amount of queries over a sustained period in 2012.
Search queries about Todd were also in the stratosphere on the world wide web, with the PoCo teen listed as listed eighth, after the 2012 Olympics, in Google's top 10 list. Other notable search queries were Gangnam Style and Hurricane Sandy.
The most searched category is for those with the largest volume in a year.
Todd's Oct. 10 suicide after a cyberstalker circulated embarrassing photos of her and she was teased, taunted and beaten not only captured the world's attention for many months, but launched an anti-bullying campaign in Port Coquitlam, the Be Someone/I am Someone campaign, which drew hundreds to a Snowflake Walk in PoCo to raise awareness about the issue last Sunday.
As well, Todd's experiences, revealed poignantly in the video she made weeks before her death, prompted a noted children's singer and advocate to start a web campaign to make youth safer online. Raffi Cavoukian co-founded the Red Hood Project and sent a letter - which includes a signature by Todd's mother Carol - to Facebook urging the social media company to tighten security to stop children from being victimized online.
The city of Port Coquitlam, meanwhile, has partnered with the Be Someone campaign and is researching the topic of bullying with the goal of instituting a bylaw that would make it illegal to bully.
Mayor Greg Moore had called for a $200 fine or education for people identified by police as bullies but the city now wants to review the success of similar bylaws in Regina and Edmonton, as well as potential legal issues and enforcement, before moving ahead.
If it's passed, the anti-bullying bylaw would be the first in B.C.
