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Teen Girl-on-Girl Fighting Goes Online

If you thought only men engage in fist fights, you'd be wrong.

CBS News correspondent Whit Johnson reported there aren't any statistics yet, but experts say there's a growing problem with teenage girls letting disputes with one another turn violent.

Increasingly, Johnson reported, girl fights are being recorded and posted on the Internet, which can make the problem even worse.

A video popped up on YouTube more than a week ago that showed two teenage girls in a violent fist fight -- with two adults allegedly watching -- and another minor videotaping the entire thing. The fight took place in Baton Rouge, La.

Days later, in Lowell, Mass., local authorities discovered similar videos online.

Gerry Leone, the district attorney of Middlesex, Mass., told CBS News, "We found three different videos posted to YouTube, and it was female-on-female violence, where young females were fighting in a very violent way, and being exhorted to do so by friends who were both boys and girls."

Leone says local educators report about 80 percent of school fights are now girl against girl, a trend he says is fueled, in part, by the Internet.

Leone said, "They see friends getting a lot of attention from the posting of these violent attacks, and being young and impressionable kids, they figure that's one way of getting attention themselves." 

A recent search for "girl fight" on YouTube turned up 267,000 videos.

Experts say the fights can also lead to cyberbullying, as tech-savvy teens look for more ways to torment one another.

Source: CBS News
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2010/02/02/earlyshow/main6165570.shtml