Archive for Musicals.Net Musicals.Net |
| Pounce |
CyberbulliesInteresting story about efforts to curb cyberbullying.http://www.cnn.com/2007/TECH/internet/02/21/cyberbullying.ap/index.html Sort of reminds me of a time not so long ago.  I even got a PM a few weeks ago from a former member. As if I really cared what he thought. 
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| xoFoRgEtReGrEtox |
oh yea i heard of that. so sad to be that depressed to think the only way out is death. | ||||||||
| Jordan |
Waah! Waah! Waah! Don't you dare stomp on my free speech! It's my right to hound someone by whatever means I feel like till they feel so low they wanna kill themselves!
Naturally, that's not my thoughts but by god, there's some a-holes out there who would hide behind the right to free speech or in Europe the ECHR who would challenge any attempts to gag, not because they worry about bullying like that but because they want to be able to say exactly what they like when they like. We all know that in real life, half the things we say on the internet, we'd never say in real life because we'd get a smack in the mouth for our troubles. http://www.mcspotlight.org/ |
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| MaryMag |
I agree with this ENTIRELY. |
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| Da_Dark_Dude |
yup TVAW is testiment to that
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| The Very Angry Woman |
And that's why the internet is beautiful. |
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| Jordan |
Doesn't mean that one should use the internet to hound someone to death though, does it? Let's focus on the real story here. |
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| Eponine93 |
I think the kid and his parents both made a lot of stupid choices. I don't want to blame the kid, but obviously, this poor boy had a lot of problems outside the cyber-bullying. He should have known when to hit the block button on AIM and when to delete messages without reading them, then creating a new email. Most importantly, he should have gone to his parents for help. Obviously, his parents knew what was going on. If I ever have a kid who is being cyber-bullied, I would prevent him or her from going online or keep total watch over their activities.
I don't think cyber-bullying can drive a kid to suicide in its entirety. It may have been a factor in the suicide but obviously there were other problems. The parents seem like they are looking for someone to blame. If I were them, I would have done the same thing. |
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| The Very Angry Woman |
He was IMing and people were harassing him. Okay then. STOP IMING. Don't want to stop IMing? Get a new SN. People find you on that one? Block them and allow only your friends. Honestly. How this isn't logical to people is beyond me. |
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| Aimee |
You show such empathy.
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| The Very Angry Woman |
Don't put words in my mouth.
Yes, I do. When appropriate. Computers are different than real-life bullying. You can turn the computer off and walk away and not worry about getting a fist in the back of the head. |
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| Pounce |
Well, remember that this was a 13 year-old trying to deal with this. Even among the best of us, emotions can get in the way of rational thought and on top of that, apparently, this kid was very troubled if he felt suicide was the answer. Sure an adolescent has some logical skills but they still have a way to go in maturing until they are able to make good judgments. |
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| Aimee |
and
How can you mean anything else? You clearly think its the victims fault because they haven't done what you think should be done. I don't agree with you. I feel that internet bullying is very real and to say 'you can just switch off' is trivialising it and I don't agree with your easy way out. I think it is far more complex than that. |
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| The Very Angry Woman |
A 13 year old with parents. (Building my case for parental computer literacy...) Everyone read what Eponine93 said, while you're trying to expound on some kind of reply to me. |
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| Pounce |
But it's not clear how much the parents knew. Children who are bullied don't tend to tell their parents so they might not have been aware there was a problem. |
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| The Very Angry Woman |
Very true. However, you can't just observe your kid's life with blinders. Kids these days come with the internet; it's in the manual.
Back to the story. Are both sides troubled? Hell yes. It's in your right to be a complete asshole online, but it's, well, kinda uncouth, and you certainly have problems if your day is filled with bullying some other kid. Online, at that. But if you are that kid, you need to tell someone. And that someone cannot blame something as huge as suicide on that one thing. Sure, the bullying may have contributed to it, but it there have to have been other factors if the ending is that drastic and tragic. I guess I do blame the victim, but not any more or any less than the other parties. (Of course, we didn't have the internet in my house until I wasn't a teenager anymore, so perhaps I can't identify with teen angst anymore as well as others...) |
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| Jordan |
I think half the problem in this instance is that not all parents 'get' the internet. I know my ex doesn't understand it. It's perhaps thankful then that I am around and can show my daughter examples of best practise when online.
A few weeks ago, one of the kids from her school, heck, someone with whom she went to primary school came on her MSN. "Fishy penis." "What??" "Fishy penis." "Ellie, what the hell are you on about?" "Fishy penis Fishy penis Fishy penis Fishy penis Fishy penis Fishy penis Fishy penis Fishy penis Fishy penis." My daughter deleted and blocked her. No thoughts about it. She also told me immediately, as per our agreement about online problems. The other day she told me that there was a problem at school (these girls are either 12 or 13 years old, year 8 in the UK) in that the 'Emo girls' were going online on MSN to the non-white girls and being racist to them yet if challenged at school, 'Emo girls' just walk off. This is a big scandal amongst my daughter's friends. I thought about this for a moment, weighed up the odds and said "So why haven't they deleted and blocked these people, they're obviously not friends. Maybe they get a kick out of the drama and shock value that's created by allowing these people to carry on like this. Perhaps you should advise them to delete and block the 'Emo girls' and tell them that you're not interested in it any more because they're allowing it to go on rather than taking control and deleting and blocking these idiots." However, this brings me to another point. This site has known its fair share of internet bullies. It took a lot of work but eventually it was stomped out. Not before we had instances of (now ex) members of this site using personal information gathered from across different threads to find home phone numbers and addresses of members. The site owner was once rung up at her home address by a resourceful and determined member. (Ya get why I tell you not to post too much personal info???) However, I've received PMs from young adults here in the past asking me to intervene in matters because the person, although they know they should know better, cannot stop from going and looking at the 'thread of the day' and reading, getting het up and responding and it's to the point where it's consuming more than it should. We are after all human. When we get a wobbly tooth, do we not wobble it more even when it causes bleeding? When we get a mouth ulcer, do we not keep touching it with our tongue even though it makes it more sore? Do we pick at scabs, knowing full well they'll hurt and bleed more? For some perverse reason, we make ourselves suffer on these minor matters. For an even more perverse reason when I was ill last year, I couldn't help but re-visit memories of things I had done with Marc. This is unfortunately how the stupid human mind works. |
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| Aimee |
Is the law changiong to give some kind of protection yet? If you have evidence surely soon there can be convictions? | ||||||||
| Pounce |
Wow Mumsytype, I knew that person was a pest and his postings cruel but I had no idea he was that twisted. Sadly there were some on this board (unsurprisingly I think all have left) that encouraged his behavior. As he gets older I hope he becomes contrite. Things were bad here but I never realized that it reached out beyond this board. Some were suggesting that the problem was with the Mods but the Mods should now feel vindicated.
Trying to police the Internet will be difficult because it is so international and different cultures have different ideas about what can and cannot be said. But all this talk about 'free-speech' makes me angry, as if we can't tell when something is libelous or even harassment. |
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| Jordan |
I don't feel that vindicated is the right word. Not sure what word I would use. It was sad for me in a lot of ways that it came to what it came to. Anyway, the past is the past. We should look to the future. I rather think it's my fault we came off track by mentioning the bullying problems this site had faced. Examples of other internet bullying practises: creating false MySpace accounts for the victim, creating false profiles on dating sites for them, posting humiliating pictures or videos of or allegedly of the victim. It's too easily done. |
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| Jenko |
have a read of this
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/wales/south_west/6390477.stm |
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| Pounce |
It was vindication in the sense that the actions did achieve the desired result. I guess some people got used to JP's loose reins but it just got out of control. As you know, protests against what you and the other mods were doing got intense. It was quite a power struggle and those that left for the other board seemed to expect MdN to fold as if they were its lifeblood. But MdN is chugging along quite well without them.
I sort of alluded to it in my original post...my bad! 
I think something will have to be done to effectively police the internet. It's becoming increasingly important to be on the internet and like any functioning society, we have to enforce rules of civil conduct in order to make it work. |
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| Jordan |
Personally, I'm struggling to think what law they have actually broken that the police would arrest for. Well, sure, you can arrest if you suspect a law has been broken but I cannot think of any charges that the CPS may proffer. |
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| Jordan |
Sorry to resurrect but rather than start a new thread:
http://comment.independent.co.uk/columnists_m_z/joan_smith/article2401687.ece I thought this was a good article. Shame I can't afford to buy a newspaper every day! |
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| Aimee |
This bits good:
The answer isn't censorship, but for sufficient people to find the courage - like Ms Sierra - to say that we do not have to tolerate abuse. |
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| katethegreat |
Sadly it's all so relevant here at the moment. | ||||||||
| Jordan |
Indeed. I've been holding onto that scrap of newspaper since last week I think it was. |
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| ado amber |
im sorry...there is such this as "cyberbullying"?
and i cant beleive anyone could let a "cyber bully" ruin their life... |
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| katethegreat |
Wake up and smell the coffee hun - we live in a warped world... | ||||||||
| Jordan |
Try reading the thread from the beginning. |
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| Robinflamingo |
I used to be a moderator on several AOL boards for years. There was this demented man who IMed or emailed DOZENS of board members with made up logs and stories about my insanity. It took a while, but we got rid of him. He ended up in jail, and tried calling several of us collect to get bail. He was a complete sociopath. In the meantime, my keyboard got a good salty washing, and then my skin grew increasingly thick. Of course, I've been online since AOL's chat rooms were named A, B, and C.
There are still hot buttons that can be pushed for me, though, and when I see them coming, I tend to "excuse myself" from the thread. |
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| Aimee |
That's one of the worst things about the internet, it is a safe haven [at the moment] for psychopaths. Sad but true. They seem so charming to talk to but have no scruples or moral fibre at all. |
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| dwarves r very upsetting |
Its so scary especially now that I have children of my own. Even though they are still only toddlers, I'm so afraid for them to start using the computer. My husband is a computer engineer, we are online all the time. So they see us and they already want to use the computer. Has anyone seen those dateline specials "to catch a predator". They make me shutter. I worry constantly how I will eventually have to protect my kids. When by the time they are 5 they'll probably already know more about the internet than I do. |