The Rise of Cyber Bullying 803
santos_douglas writes "The Detroit Free Press has an article detailing the problems schoolchildren now face in the form of online cyber bullying. As if parents didn't already have enough to worry about! Examples include rumor spreading typically via text messaging, threatening emails, invasive pictures taken with camera phones, and the most extreme - creating entire websites to criticize/threaten/harass another student. The article suggests many tips for combating the problem - chief among them being the establishment of specific school policies. I suppose this is another example of an inevitable downside to the interconnected world. Mandatory Google search for your added reading pleasure."
Oh man... (Score:4, Funny)
Does Front Page Express still come free with Windows? I hope not...
Nobody picked on me (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Nobody picked on me (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Give'm the Slashdot Effect (Score:4, Funny)
What sweet irony it would be to have a site making fun of me for being a geek, then using abilities gained from being a geek to kill it. Nobody successfully attacks us geeks on our home turf.
Re:Nobody picked on me (Score:5, Interesting)
I was a Scrawny Geek(TM), and I got the bejeezus knocked out of me on a regular basis (until I finally learned how to fight). But when I saw what was done to my female counterparts, I was glad all I had to deal with was getting the occasional beatdown. All an asshole jock could hand me was some humiliation and maybe a trip to the hospital.
The girls got utterly destroyed, in ways no physical harm could match.
My theory on this is that from middle through high school, boys form a linear hierarchy of individuals. We're constantly moving up and down on it, usually within a fairly narrow range, within which most boys find their small circle of friends. With few exceptions, each boy is on there somewhere.
Girls form a hierarchy of groups whose position is fairly fixed. The girls within a group are of roughly equal stature, but there might be one or two leaders. A particular girl is either all the way in or all the way out of a particular group, and some are out of all the groups altogether. Very few boys ever have to deal with that level of alienation (and most of the boys I know who were that far off the hierarchy were off by choice).
Having never been female, though, that's just speculation; feel free to correct me if I'm wrong.
Re:Nobody picked on me (Score:4, Interesting)
Just some random thoughts
The above post shows what is wrong (Score:5, Insightful)
This gets lots of laughs, and gives liqudsin the attention he craves. The net effect is to discourage outward signs of intelligence by belittling the "nerds." Ha Ha Ha. You sure are cool.
God forbid anybody is smart in this dumbed-down society.
Pathetic.
Re:Oh man... (Score:5, Funny)
Yeah, and they probably have to pay someone to fix that expensive Porche they have! And look at the money you saved by not buying breast implants for your trophy wife!! I guess the joke is on those losers!
Re:Oh man... (Score:5, Funny)
So is it level 1 or level 2?
Something to ponder .... (Score:3, Interesting)
I am not taking a position pro or con on the ACLU but it does seem like an interesting situation.
Just as an interesting thing to add, the ACLU does have a student rights forum [aclu.org]
Re:Something to ponder .... (Score:5, Informative)
Bullying is not protected by the First Amendment.
More to that, as I was once a victim (Score:5, Interesting)
I was about 16 then, trying in vain to sound like a lawyer. Anyway those kids posted pictures a blurred out scanned picture of me from the yearbook, and posted some false information about me, and went to an online game I played and spread the link.. slight damage was done, but whatever, after I sent that email the site was gone within 24 hours, and they replied saying that had been taken care of.
Then again, if those kids knew how to set up a personal server.... DDoS time.
Re:Something to ponder .... (Score:2)
Re:Something to ponder .... (Score:3, Interesting)
ACLU Message Board Policy [aclu.org]
Fairly self-explanatory. You're pretty safe to post whatever you want as long as you aren't being a serious asshat.
Re:Something to ponder .... (Score:3, Interesting)
There was a case in school (Score:2, Insightful)
You're looking at this the wrong way . . . (Score:3, Funny)
Re: (Score:2)
Re:You're looking at this the wrong way . . . (Score:2)
if bullys can use their genetics to beat up on us little guys, we should be able to do the same.
Re:You're looking at this the wrong way . . . (Score:5, Insightful)
I did precisely that, by embarrassing them. What could be worse for the "cool guy's" tough image than getting kicked in the throat by the fat nerdy black kid?
Before you ask, yes I did this. Later that same year, I lifted a kid 2 years older than me off of his feet and blackened his eye with a haymaker right hand.
We need to start teaching children how to defend themselves. Regardless of school policy, legally you have the right to defend yourself. If bullies are pushing your kid around, if bullies are beating your kid up, give your child the means to defend him/herself. Let your kid know that even if he/she gets in trouble at school for standing up for him/herself, you'll back him/her up.
Thankfully my mother let me off of the leash, so to speak, that the school tried to keep me on. Beat the bullies senseless two or three times, and guess what, they leave you alone.
LK
Re:You're looking at this the wrong way . . . (Score:3, Interesting)
Cyberbullying is another problem entirely. When you see an embarrasing picture of you broadcasted to all emails of your classmates, there is very little you can do to catch the sender, as you don't even know who he is...
I do believe we need a cyberpolice that would have the right (with an appropriate warrant-like paper) to get IPs of any user in a reasonnable timeframe
Re:aww, they're so cute when they kiss (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:You're looking at this the wrong way . . . (Score:3, Informative)
Re:You're looking at this the wrong way . . . (Score:3, Interesting)
Bullying often does include violence. Punching. Slapping. Kicking. Even if I lost, any one of those was enough to earn a bully a good fight.
Once, on the school bus, round about 4th grade a bully kept slapping the back of my head. I put up with it for two
not really (Score:3, Funny)
my boss (Score:2, Funny)
the persistence of boners (Score:5, Insightful)
this is a very interesting side-effect of the 'net. i don't know if this can be remedied, but it does imply that children now have accept the possibility of total transparency in their lives. as hard as it is to swallow, maybe this is how the new culture begins...
i would say i'm glad i'm not her, but this could, in reality, happen to ANYONE. it's just harder to ignore as a child, and it's harder to sue for libel/slander. but still, who to sue?
gah.
the transparent society is gonna suck.
Re:the persistence of boners (Score:3, Funny)
Re:the persistence of boners (Score:4, Insightful)
In practical terms, there are no technical solutions, but there are solutions nonetheless. It is somewhat rare that a kid is abusive for no reason, and the two most common reasons are a disturbed family and being sufficiently different from other kids that it's vital to them to obscure those differences.
The first problem can be solved, but it requires that the family unit as a whole recognises that it's up shit creek, and needs to make some adjustments. The kid's behaviour, in this specific case, is merely a symptom. You've got to treat the disease, if you want to make a difference.
The second problem requires more teachers and smaller classes. Improving the ratio of adults to kids will allow for better attention to what is going on and why. It also allows greater understanding of the kids, which would allow for better organization, and therefore less alienation.
Beyond those two steps, I really don't think anything can be done. Suing won't help, it might even make things worse. (Gives the kid who is sued a bigger audience, for a start.)
You can't do nothing, but virtually everything that you can do is potentially disasterous. There are no easy answers, even if there are plenty of easy questions.
Re:the persistence of boners (Score:3, Insightful)
If I see (Score:5, Funny)
Gimme your lunch money! (Score:5, Funny)
I got in trouble (Score:2, Funny)
Funny that... (Score:5, Funny)
My the profanities! I'm thinking of making Apache redirect to goatse.cx the next time someone comes back from the offender's
Re:Funny that... (Score:2)
Re:Funny that... (Score:2)
Camera phones (Score:2)
You could look all professional on your pda and secretly snapping pictures of her butt. Sure it's not ethical, but when technology makes it so easy...
Re:Camera phones (Score:2)
Re:Camera phones (Score:2)
At least... (Score:2, Insightful)
Being bullied is getting pushed down a flight of stairs, not getting an anonymous text message about how dopey your shoes look. Sheesh.
Re:At least... (Score:2)
Re:At least... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:At least... (Score:2)
"How many guys did you have sex with?" What the fuck? You think that's bullying? I'm sorry, but having that written on the blackboard before your c
Re:At least... (Score:2)
how many of you parents taught your kids how to fight? and how many taught your kids how to blo
Re:At least... (Score:3, Informative)
I know that, with the advent of zero-tolerance, even 'blocking' is considered fighting and grounds for suspension/expulsion. It's to a point where the victim can be half-dead and in a coma and still the administrator can only wring his/her hands, say that s/he has no leeway, that it's School Policy, and
Re:At least... (Score:4, Insightful)
Actually, it's been shown that psychological pain causes the exact same portion of the brain to react as from physical pain. In other words, your brain can't tell the difference. And let's face it: Physical trauma (up to a point), doesn't leave the lasting emotional pain that psychological trauma can.
And you can stand up to a bully who's threatening you physically and get him to leave you alone (at least, it worked that way for me when I was in 7th grade). How do you stop anonymous rumors and character assassination?
Re:At least... (Score:2)
How would you like to feel like the scum of the earth, like you had no reason to live anymore because everyone hated you, because you h
Re:At least... (Score:5, Insightful)
No.
Clearly you weren't one of the kids who got called "Fatty fat fat fatass" every day in junior high school... if you had been, you'd know the kind of lasting damage that words can cause.
PS Your shoes look dopey.
Re:At least... (Score:5, Insightful)
Just takes willpower, which kids today are not being trained to use or improve.
Re:At least... (Score:2, Informative)
School Policies??? (Score:5, Insightful)
Am I the only one who sees a problem with giving schools control over students' lives beyond campus grounds? Why is it that some people are so quick to abdicate control and responsibility of their children to a government beaurocracy? Are today's parents really that bad? Is the government that eager to monitor/regulate every aspect of our lives?
It's time for people to stop blaming the school system and making out kids the taxpayers' problem. If your kid is a fuck-up, be a goddamned parent and put them in their place! Stop automatically run crying to the government!
Re:School Policies??? (Score:2)
Am I the only one who sees a problem with giving schools control over students' lives beyond campus grounds?
I was wondering the same thing. My first thought on seeing the above quote was... How does this have anything to do with a school?
Re:School Policies??? (Score:2)
Re:School Policies??? (Score:2)
Well, that means the only real feasable avenue left is the school. They can punish the kid, even if
Re:School Policies??? (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:School Policies??? (Score:3, Informative)
Yes, and yes. I'm not saying I don't agree that it is pathetic, but it is the fact of the matter. All through high school binge drinking (keyword: binge) was a HUGE thing in this lovely little Wisconsin town. And the worse part about all of it was that parents are well aware of this, and in some cases even supply beer to their children. Parents are that bad, and they would be glad to blame
If they weren't children... (Score:5, Interesting)
A couple things to think about in regard to 'children' in schools and 'bullying'.
Children are
Worse, it's up to the victim's parents whether or not to act... leaving those with the worst homelives the most vulnerable... either to bullying or being bullied.
IMHO, if you can legally require the separation of the bully from the victim, you may have really helped one kid.
I also think the comment in the article that "... while these comments may seem silly to people who have matured, they are very devastating to the young people on the receiving end..." ignores the above reality.
It's tough to draw analogies to adult life, but what if you were legally required to show up for work? What if somebody spread a similarly scandalous rumour about you at work? Oh... let's see... while kids might think it cool to grab a peer's breasts, the reverse might just work for adults. So, your coworker starts telling people that you grabbed her breasts, and you're making passes at her all the time. So your coworkers begin to shun you. You can't quit... you're legally required to be there. You can't call the police, they won't do anything because this is just a little bit of workplace bullying. Now your boss... who happens to be 150% of your height, twice your strength and twice your weight, might just believe the person spreading the scandal, so it will be your word against theirs.
Your friends at work no longer want to be seen with you, because anyone can fall victim to such harassment... so you become ostracised... Some even join in to dispel rumours that they too might be perverts. Few people really believe the rumours, but they know you're not a safe person to be around because you... and anyone you're around is a target.
Seeing that you have no allies, people begin to pick on you, steal your office supplies, scratch your car, slash your tires.
So you keep going to work, despite all this, because you're legally forced to.
Now we're getting close except: kids don't get paid, have little control over their homelife and they've never known anything else.
Re:School Policies??? (Score:3, Insightful)
School teachers should spend their time teaching, not babysitting. I think that mandatory school attendance is stupid. If kids don't want to show up at school, then that is their parents fault. Rowdy, misbehaving kids are ruining the education of the kids who WANT to learn. Let the bullies and truants skip school, commit petty crimes, grow up without a high school education, and end up in jail.
Re:Education not legislation (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Education not legislation (Score:3, Interesting)
It IS the responsibility of the school to provide an environment where learning can take place. Bullying, cyber or otherwise, is contradictory to this goal. This bullying is not just taking place off-campus. Its happening on the school grounds and is sometimes aided by school equipment! Schools DO need to have policies to address this No camera phones in the locker room, rules on what is appropriate on school sponsored web sites, what can be done
It won't be long... (Score:2)
Technology changes nothing (Score:3, Interesting)
Simple solution (Score:2)
Seriously though, things like this just prove that in basically any group, you'll have bullies. Even if you take all the geeks and seperate them, bullies will emerge from the geeks.
Kids need to deal with it! (Score:5, Interesting)
At least, there is no physical harm done in cyber-bullying. There's also no reasonable way to stop it. Shall we enact rules for school children that they never say anything that isn't nice on school time or off? Some of the examples amount to slander, and if they get particularly bad, you could bring a suit, but c'mon there are enough lawsuits now without every school child suing every other child for slander.
I realize that being made fun of isn't very pleasant, but that's something that kids have to deal with. Their parents should help put it in perspective.
Clearly.. (Score:4, Insightful)
From the perspective of a victim, your comment is the equivalent of blaming the woman for getting raped. Yes, it's that bad.
Re:Kids need to deal with it! (Score:4, Insightful)
This is going to sound wrong, and probably modded as such, but the more bullies continue to fuck around, the more likely we're going to have another school massacre. Kids do have breaking points just like anyone else...and it seems like a lot of people don't remember that. If it gets bad enough, they'll kill themselves or someone else.
I disagree that parents can put things in perspective. For example, I was walked out on at a dance when I was 14 in front of most of the school. It was quite the funny event to a lot of the school. Importance now? Zero. Importance then? Catastrophic.
Taken insults...if done so over a long enough period, a kid can get so closed off that it can cause nearly permanent emotional damage and stunt the development of normal peer relationships. "Suck it up" is an inadequate strategy.
I have to agree with several other posters on this thread that the school has no jurisdiction as to what happens outside of school property and school hours. Then again, I'm not proposing answers.
Re:Kids need to deal with it! (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Kids need to deal with it! (Score:3, Interesting)
My witty remarks usually got me a swift ass-kicking. I quickly learned to be sullen and withdrawn. I got my ass kicked less. As the years of school abuse went by I became more and more depressed and cared less and less about anything. When I started going to school I got to go to a private school, when I was five I was starting to do multiplication and such, learning a little spanish, learning how to use computers. When I was in high school I spent most of my time just avoiding being made to do things I di
soap box miss used. (Score:5, Insightful)
At first read I found this laughable but after a bit of thought I see a rekindling of an already occurring problem. Children will always be children, they will always be immature, they will always be impressionable. The problem herein is parents. I have a 10yo, and 11yo. They do not go on the internet without permission and they conduct themselves as we dictate. No chat rooms, no e-mails from anyone we dont already know. The parents of all there friends form a network with us via e-mail and the children are aware of this. They also respect it understanding the inherent dangers of the internet. Using yahoo parental controls anyone sending them e-mails with profanities or pre flagged words gets reported to us. If the account they are using is linked to a parental account reporting it to the parent is easy. So before someone starts blaming the internet look to the Parents.
No emails from people they don't already know? (Score:3, Interesting)
And I dissagree with your comments, that children should be taught not to talk to unknown people online. I believe that the ability to converse with people they have never met, and most likely will never meet, is one of the most important things your child can be taught.
Thanks to the Internet, your child can make acquaintances with people from a multit
Luckily (Score:2)
All my bullies either insulted me behind my back or to my face where they could beat the crap out of me and take my stuff afterwards. Everyone was either out to get me or unwilling to interfere, even the teachers.
Mandatory? (Score:4, Funny)
Another reason why parents should be involved. (Score:2, Insightful)
Who is responsable? (Score:4, Insightful)
Is it really a school's responsibility to deal with this?? Would a school be held accountable if signs of a derogatory nature were put up around town?
The school should do something if the site is created on school property, but I don't know if there is anything they should have to do otherwise.
Still, this sucks. I can't begin to say how glad I am that this was not around when i was in school.
Time to educate kids (Score:5, Insightful)
On the other hand, kids need to be taught how to deal with stuff like that, and probably the tabloid press is a good place to use as an example: show them how some celebrities take it too seriously and waste a lot of time an energy fighting it, while others make fun of it and ignore it.
They can also make use of it to find out who their real friends are. People who believe everything they hear without checking at the source aren't much of a friend in the first place.
Just remember: (Score:3, Insightful)
it's a double edged sword [reviewjournal.com]. I personally do not think the schools have any business moderating events that take place outside of school.
Just crack the bullies' systems.. (Score:2)
Re:Just crack the bullies' systems.. (Score:3, Funny)
Jurisdicition problem (Score:4, Interesting)
Granted, if a student posts pictures on a private web site, and those pictures were taken at school in violation of a stated policy, then there could be room for action.
Tragic... (Score:3, Informative)
2. Why doesn't the current hate speech laws on the books take care of this sort of thing?
If some kid puts up a site about how I'm a piece of shit and offers to pay anybody 20 dollars to beat me up, don't I have recourse to go to the police?
What's considered a hollow threat and what's considered authentic?
I also stand proudly among the many fellow geeks who were pushed around and told repeatidly that I was going to die either at lunch, in the hall or after school at the hands of [insert random roving band of fucktards].
That's it, my child is going to he homeschooled. I figure the money I save on bulletproof vests and lunch money, I can put towards social interaction classes
Re:Tragic... (Score:4, Interesting)
You got that right. I was so disturbed by the way other kids treated me (and other kids, whenever they weren't harrassing me) that as a teenager I vowed I'd never have kids at all, because I didn't want them to go through what happened to me (or worse, become one of the bullies).
Then, in college, I was introduced to some families that homeschooled and their kids sure were different than my school peers were. Now I have 3 kids (11 to 16) and they are/were homeschooled until they decided to on their own to change (younger 2 are still being homeschooled). It's a really great option and the people who complain they aren't being "properly socialized" must be the parent of bullies who want more victims for their kids.
My daughter was 15 when she had her first ride on a public school bus. She was a little disturbed by the misbehavior of some of the other students, but she understood that their parents (and teachers) set different standards for them. She has adjusted much better than I ever did (I was in public school from kindergarten on) and is a model student in both grades and extra curricular activities.
There is no question that home schooled kids are "sheltered" from the real world. But I think that's a positive. My kids never learned how to cut down their peers with viscious words or physical violence. They assume that being friendly with people will be to their advantage and they act much more grown up than many adults I work with.
You can write this off as being a "proud father", but I'm very happy my kids were home schooled during the years when it matters most. We geeks understand the pain that can result from "proper socialization" better than most people, and the idea of home schooling is really very logical for us.
The CyberBully's Upper Hand (Score:2)
Tattling is Fun *AND* Patriotic!
Wait a minute (Score:2)
The old days.. (Score:2, Funny)
Same pattern different medium (Score:2, Insightful)
Why should this surprise anyone? 20 years ago this would have been '..was horrified to discover an entire bathroom wall had been created to insult and threaten her'.
necessity (Score:3, Funny)
-t
For every problem there is a solution (Score:3, Interesting)
Where are the links? (Score:2)
I'll show you who the bully is! (Score:5, Funny)
MIKE WENDLAND, I've got embarrassing pictures [freep.com] of you [freep.com]!
And I know where you work [freep.com], MIKE WENDLAND!
I'll be watching to see if you write any more of your "columns" [freep.com], MIKE WENDLAND!
Yeah, don't you forget it MIKE WENDLAND. I'll be watching every Monday [freep.com] and Friday [freep.com], and alternate Tuesdays [freep.com] and Thurdays [freep.com].
5 years ago it was a problem too (Score:3, Insightful)
An interesting bias to the replies (Score:5, Insightful)
Very few, if any, are assuming that the nerds ARE the cyberbullies.
Bullying is about strength. In the real world, that can be physical or political/social. In the internet, that can be technical prowess. He who hacks better, bullies better.
Cyber bullying on Slashdot (Score:5, Insightful)
Let's face it, guys, cyberbullying happens here all the time...a few twits calling each other queer, indulging in the cyber equivalent of towel-snapping in the locker room, modding people down as "flamebait," "troll," and "overrated" just because you don't agree with them or they rub you the wrong way...the irony is so thick it's not even funny.
MsGeek.Org closed down because of a group of cyberbullies and their extended attack on the site. Many of the people responsible still post here, and often. The crapflooders never have, and never will, provide anything of value on this site...they just shovel out the same crap, the same disgusting gay porn and disguised links to goatse and tubgirl. Someone needs to hit the entire lot of the crapflooders over their collective heads with a clue by four...it stopped being "cute" or "funny" years ago.
I kicked the WIPO Troll off my site and got his account pulled because he posted hardcore gay porn pics to my board using an IE exploit. He came by it rightly. I specifically started MsGeek.Org to give women in technology a "clean, well-lighted" environment to post on a Slashdot-like forum. The crapflooders ruined that, up to and including running exploits against the board software itself. The security issues got to be so much for the good people at Hosting Matters that we mutually decided it wasn't worth it.
I wish that Taco and Hemos and the rest of the founders here had the cojones to pull the accounts of those who have made posting here uncomfortable for many people. I have no problems dealing with it...I'm a 10-year Usenet veteran with the virtual purple hearts to prove it. But I have gotten emails from women who don't read Slashdot because the crap posts are so disturbing to them.
Anyway, this is why I continue to have comments turned off on my journal. I wanted one place where I couldn't be shouted down by a small minority of obnoxious idiots, and I have it. I am sorry that the stupid yahoo.com address always gets filled up with spam and people can't get email to me there. I intend to find another webmail account with a bit more space so you have some way of contacting me. I might even break down and pay Yahoo for a bigger mailbox. Whatever.
I was going to post this anonymously, but screw it...do your worst. Mod it down to Kingdom Come. I don't care anymore. Karma is worthless at this point anyway...I posted for awhile under an identity I used when posting from work, and it took me a grand total of 2 months to go from newbie to the 50 point cap. W00t. That account could have been used to troll like a mofo...instead, I retired it, Blade Runner stylee. I don't even remember the password on the account anymore, fuck it.
I'll chime in every now and again, but right now the main reason I use this site is to blog. My
I smell a new hit reality show!!BULLIES! (Score:3, Insightful)
BULLIES!!
Parents who have a kid that's being bullied can call up the shows producers. The producer then sends a private investigator with a video camera (and maybe a couple gorilla's in case things go bad) to follow the victum around school and after school with hidden video camera's.
Bully gets caught on tape. Shows producers go to bully's parents and say "Let us use this tape or we give it to the victums parents to SUE YOUR ASS FOR AGGRAVATED ASSAULT!! Bullies parent gladly signs away the rights to avoid civil and possible criminal court time. Bully get's publically humiliated on national TV.
Nothing takes a bully down quicker than public humiliation.
Your fundemental right to safety and dignity. (Score:5, Insightful)
Just as I would imagine was the _alot_ of guys here, I too got picked on when I was in Junior High. For years..Got randomly spit on, punched, kicked, you name it..by a group of about 3 or 4 of em, all older than me. It was a real blast, lemmie tell ya.
Then one day, I decided I about had enough, picked up a desk, and sent it crashing straight down ontop of one of them. Crushed his larynx. He couldn't talk for months, and even when he regained his speech, he sounded like Popeye. Karma works in mysterious ways.
Anyway, back to the story. I got taken by no less than three teachers down to the Principal's office, where I was given a "5 day out-of-school suspension".. One notch below formal expulsion back in those days. Interestingly, my folks backed me up, and essentially told the school to fuck off, since I had no prior record of doing anything even remotely like that, the school knew this kid was a bully, and never bothered to do anything about him. Bottom line, I was back in school within a day...And even more interestingly, I never had a problem with any of the other bullies after that. Didn't hear a single peep.
Thats not to say I advocate violence. I don't. But if you're dealing with what amounts to a juvenille sociopath who's parents can't control him, and a school who won't protect your kid, then that's what you have to do.
I really, really don't understand how we, as a culture, arrived at the idea that we should expect our kids to "just ignore them", or "talk it out" with a bully. That has never, and will never solve anything. At the end of the day, you have a God-given right to defend yourself and your dignity. End of story.
I'm going to be a father myself, pretty soon..And if theres anything i'd want my kid to learn from my experience, it would be that if ever gets bullied, and decides to beat the snot out of some kid to reclaim a portion of his dignity, Mom & Dad will back him up on it. Ultimately, he has to learn how to handle confrontations in life. Somewhere along the line, they're going to have to learn what "nobody walks all over you without your permission" means.
It just seems my whole generation was brought up to think that "ball your fist up and teach the asshole a lesson" isn't an option.
Cheers,
It's NEW and DANGEROUS because it's the INTERNET! (Score:4, Insightful)
The article spent four fifths of its copy trying to make out that teasing and gossip-spreading were something novel and Internet-age. Yeah, sure. Before text-messages, kids just had no way of insulting or passing information to each other. Certainly, no schoolgirl has ever been teased about her clothes, or boy about his sexuality, before the age of the Dark, Nasty Internet.
Children are vicious. They learn the need to establish a social hierarchy long before they learn empathy. Paul Graham covers this phenomenon quite effectively in one of his essays [paulgraham.com].
Sure, the "instant-on" thing is new, but really, kids will do exactly what adults do when they want to get away from unwanted IMs: go invisible, or register a second screen-name that only their friends know.
I'm not saying it's not a problem, but it's not a new problem. I abhor lazy journalism that finds sensationalism in dressing up something as old as time (pornography, bullying, copying music) in Internet clothes, just because it's easier to scare people that way.
Charles Miller
Violence and growing up (Score:3, Insightful)
For example, if a thief snatched a purse from an old woman and three guys jumped the thief and beat him up, they would be heroes and their action would be morally right. If three guys jump a random guy on the street and thrash him, they would be criminals and morally wrong. If you are threatened with a gun and you shoot back with your own gun, your use of violence would be justified. If someone called you names and you shot him, you would be wrong.
A child needs to learn these things and more. If he is male in many societies, he will be expected to be the defender of his family and his nation. He may have to mercilessly kill and maim as a soldier if his nation is under attack, the ultimate shame and the ultimate honor. He must come to terms with that.
How a child responds to bullying and whether or not he bullies others is part of the process of learning about violence. It will determine whether he eventually becomes a felon, a bully, a coward, a doormat, or simply a well-adjusted member of society. I feel that many children aren't learning the right lessons. The whole topic has somehow become taboo in public discourse, like sex education was in the past.
If a child is forbidden to fight back, even after all reasonable peaceful methods of resolving the issue have been exhausted, then he will learn to be walked on. He will never learn when and how much violence is right or wrong and develop a healthy spectrum of responses to violence. These are the people who will silently be bullied one day, then kill everyone with SMGs the next, since they know of nothing between total submission and total war. Conversely, if a child is allowed to bully others, or to escalate to violence before peaceful means are exhausted, then he is on his way to jail if nothing is done.
There is some happy medium between psychopath and pacifist, between bully and victim. It is enshrined in a society's laws and culture, and transmitted through media and family. A child needs to discover it. He needs to learn how to respond to an insult, a malicious rumor, a threat, a punch, a gun and a war. It's just part of growing up.
Never start a fight, but always end one. Violence must be avoided as far as possible, but no further. Violence is always wrong, but sometimes it is also right.
Re:Yet another... (Score:2, Funny)
Can someone tell me why old people online are such assholes? My mother got involved in the most crazy group of people from an online Bingo site of all places. Then after awhile she started getting into harder stuff like Yahoo Messenger chats and video. It's fucking crazy what dirty old senior citizens talk about. I thought I stumbled into a teen chat room when I saw what kind of backstabbing dickwads prevail on these pla
Re:Slander Laws. (Score:2)
Because the legal system operates with glacier-speed slowness. Half of these kids would graduate before a case ever made its way in front of a judge.
Re:This guy is so off-base (Score:3, Insightful)
Comment removed (Score:5, Interesting)