i'd like to point out that (in my opinion and those of others) cyber-bullying is actually worse than real-life bullying.
we feel less vulnerable on the internet than in real life mainly due to the anonymity and the various methods mentioned earlier with which we can protect ourselves. because of all these safety mechanics the situation seems more hopeless when they prove inadequate in keeping bullies away. and it's harder to run on the internet than it is in real life because it takes a lot less effort to find someone on the internet than it does in real life. also (as proven by previous posts) the notion of easily being able to protect yourself from bullies causes others to downplay the effects bullying can have, the bully is often not even aware of the damage his/her actions can have. real life bullying is often more private and usually goes unnoticed for some time. on the internet, it's there for all to see, so the victim suffers both the personal insult and the public humiliation.
on the matter of suicide, it's seldom a sudden thing. noone goes from 'normal' to suicide in an instant. that is why suicide can be extremely painfull and traumatising for those left behind. a suicide leaves a lot of questions behind that might never be answerd. i'd even go so far as saying that, to those involved, a suicide is more tragic than a natural or accidental death.
as for the asperger thing, as far as i know, people with austism have serious problems projecting emotions (kinda hard to properly explain, sufficed to say they have problems understanding situation from someone elses point of view) therefor they dont experience joy or sadness the same way when influencing (or influenced by) other peoples emotions. so (according to some books on the subject) people with autism are inherintly incapable of 'evil for the sake of evil' (as in, they dont take pleasure in causing pain/harm/...) same goes for 'good for the sake of good'. so if the person in question really is autistic then he either had other motives or he was convinced his actions were justified or accepted by society. ofcourse, autism is a wide pectrum and no 2 are alike. i'm hardly an expert, eventhough i have asperger myself.
as to the question, why is he punished while other trolls roam free on the internet. the severity of his action and the fact his victims actually called in the police would be reason enough. also, his 'trolling' went far beyond what i would classify as trolling.
so in a sense, the headline 'kid sent to prison for internet trolling' is just the media misleading it's audience. i'm pretty sure if there was a serious debate going on about gun-control they'd come up with a headline similar to 'murderer sent prison for gun posession". so i think the generic internet troll is far from being in legal danger, as long as they keep it within reason ofcourse.
to view it from an autistic point of view: trolling is trolling, harrasment is harrasment, the harrasser went to prison for harrasment, trolls free to roam the internet as they please, just beware of trolltraps.
also, it seems people confuse 'freedom of speech' with 'freedom to say whatever you want'. freedom of speech is the freedom to voice your opinion without fear of oppression and/or prosecution by those who disagree. and those who voice their opinion under the protection of freedom of speech must be willing to hear the opinion of others. but that's ust my opinion, what's yours? feel free to correct me.
edit: typo's, spelling errors, etc