Online Bullying Counselling on Increase, Says Childline (bbc.com) 157
An anonymous reader shares a BBC report:The number of children and young people needing counseling about online bullying has increased by 88 percent over five years, according to a helpline. The NSPCC's Childline service said it counselled more than 4,500 children in the past year compared to about 2,400 in 2011-12. The total number suffering online abuse is thought to be far higher. Some children as young as seven told Childline how they were tormented, abused and scared to go to school. The charity said online trolls caused misery and humiliation for thousands of children. Childline's president Dame Esther Rantzen said the figures should be a wake-up call.
"Bullying can wreck young people's lives, especially now that the bullies don't stop at the school gates," she said. Cyber-bullying can follow them home until it becomes a persecution they cannot escape.
I know the feeling... (Score:1, Offtopic)
In what way will not you allow it? (Score:1)
It's not possible "not to allow" bullying on Slashdot for you personally, it's up to the moderators in aggregate.
It is possible to reduce the effect of the bullying, either by simply ignoring it or leaving Slashdot in which case it will have little to no effect on you.
Given the remarkable efficacy of the approach I take to online bullying called "not giving a shit what anyone online thinks about me" I have become essentially immune from even the most caustic comments. I suggest you, and anyone else who eve
An important study... (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:An important study... (Score:4, Insightful)
When I hear about online bullying, it tends to be more than abusive jerks on random web forums, but rather people the children know in real life who use social media to continue the harassment. It's not quite so easy to say "Don't go on Facebook", but for this kind of bullying, the Internet is simply the most convenient means for a much more expansive kind of bullying.
The big problem I have is that children basically are not afforded the same protections an adult is. A lot of the bullying I received at school, even the non-physical kind, would likely constitute criminal harassment if it were a group of adults treating another adult that way. But if a kid is the victim and other kids are the perpetrators, it is just brushed off as "kids being kids".
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Precisely. Random trolling, bullying and harassment by strangers on for example forums is mildly irritating. Constant harassment and bullying by peers who you have to deal with every single day at school that follows you around all of the various social media to abuse and humiliate you in front of your friends and associates is another thing entirely, particularly when so many adults will just brush it off as "kids being kids" (if they see it at all).
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But years go by and kids seem just so attached to their social personas that they can't just walk way.
But aren't their "personas" increasingly becoming THEM? We all live in a social reality we construct. Kids act one way at school, a different way at church, a different way with close friends, and a different way with parents. Facebook and other online interactions are yet another forum/venue where they construct their own version of themselves -- and it's becoming more prominent in social lives for kids every year. Just "walking away" for some of them would be like abandoning a large part of your socia
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It's easy if it's just one place. But how easy is it if it's literally everywhere you go to communicate with friends? When it starts to come in over texts and email as well. Should they become hermits (except that's not allowed, they have to go to school and these days that may include assignments online). Imagine if you try your reasonable adult approach on facebook, but tomorrow when you log back in, the slams are still coming from half a dozen people (who are neither reasonable nor adult). Next week too.
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How do you walk away from bullies who can trivially replicate their presence on every corner?
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I read that children worry what others are saying about them on social media, so they go there just to find out and then get embroiled in it. If they avoid social media they feel excluded because all their peers are on it, and talk about stuff that they were then not involved in or haven't seen. There is some Fear Of Missing Out (FOMO) in there too.
It's tricky to handle because children develop at different speeds. Some may not realize how much harm they are doing. Kids make mistakes too, so zero-tolerance
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An important psychological study may be to determine why younger generation doesn't just "walk away" from the online bullying when there isn't a physical intimidation keeping them from it.
Like me, I'm assuming you're old enough to remember when "socializing online" was primarily done by IRC and BBS...things that 95% of kids then and 99.8% kids today wouldn't be able to figure out. Those dedicated to clearing that bar tended to be smart enough to have already learned "words are words", so even when we did have mean things written to us, we generally had the sense to ignore it. Additionally, the name 'voyager529' is about 20 years old, and although *now* it's pretty simple to figure out my rea
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I guess my point was that back then, you *had* somewhere else to go, and your online persona in the IRC rooms wasn't as nearly a big a part of social circles as it is now. If you didn't log into your IRC room, that was one social circle with whom you didn't interact. Now, *all* the social circles are there, so "walking away" is walking away from everyone. Is it a drug addiction? Well, solitary confinement is a worst-of-the-worst punishment in prisons for a reason, and it is effective on people who have neve
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Look, it took me about fifty years to learn to ignore people who said bad things about me. I may be slow in that direction, but there's no way I'm blaming a kid for not having learned that yet.
Re:An important study... (Score:4, Informative)
'Actively seek out'
You mean like checking your email, Facebook comments, or turning on an IM program?
You have no idea the trouble a bully will go to in order to win, do you? You know how it used to be that the bullied kid would get chased from school until the bullies caught him and beat him up? That is now EVERYWHERE ON THE INTERNET. So yeah, the victim of bullying should just go fully, completely and permanently offline. With the way the internet is used for everything today, you might as well tell him to go kill himself.
Oh wait. Isn't that part of the bullying, too?
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and this is why I so closely proctor my children's use of social media.
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... he said on the internet.
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By your definition, bullying isn't a thing either. You could always just nail the doors shut and tell the pizza guy to slip it under the door.
Look, snowflakes (Score:2)
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Please give some insight on how to stay away from bullies on social media platforms where anyone can just create a new account if they get blocked.
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Don't let your kids on some BS social media platforms. Block anyone that's not their accepted friends (if that's possible, I don't have FB) if they really "have" to be on there. Talk to your kids and see what they're going through instead of having them resort to calling a stranger on a hotline somewhere.
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It extends beyond that.
Even if your child blocks the bully, the bully may be friends of friends and use that position as a (ahem) bully pulpit.
-nB
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So block the bullies. Bullies aren't "friends". People that pass through messages from bullies aren't "friends" either.
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Since you obviously don't understand the problem (for example, you don't have a Facebook account), why do you insist on your own solution? How are you supposed to talk honestly with your kids if you're going to arbitrarily make decisions for them?
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You obviously don't have kids. You don't let kids make decisions they are not equipped to handle the consequences for. Most sites have an age limit and most kids can't handle unsupervised conversations with random adults which is what social media sites are. What parents let their kid go to a bar or any sort of adult forum by themselves every night?
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My son seems to have turned out well, thank you.
You're spouting off generalities as if they were always good advice, and making assumptions about things you don't know about. Children have to be allowed to make mistakes, or they're not going to learn. Children also should be allowed to fit into their social circle. Internet forums are physically a lot safer than physical ones.
And you have not addressed the question of talking to your kids: if one of your kids brings a problem to you, and you make a
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click here [youtube.com]
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Learning to deal with bullies is vital training.
You don't remember much about school if you think it used to be 'intermittent and partially escapable'. It hasn't changed, it has just moved.
Of course some people learn to deal with it all wrong and grow up to be SJWs. Getting kids to stand up for themselves prevents this. Not going to go through life as victims (and they always will be).
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I don't think any rational person would disagree with this statement, however, a some bullying is not the same as a parent, or sibling engaging in years and years of daily verbal abuse. The first (bullying) is just a fact of life. The second is child abuse.
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These days they all get free hot lunch and breakfast and take home dinner nobody wants to steal the made in mexico truck stop food.
The idiot parents handing a smartphone to a 7 year old because that will shut them up so they can go back to playing on their phones might be the problem. Their lack of parents leads to whining at teachers etc for attention and no ability to cope.
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I'm probably a little younger than you, and I had the same opinion about social media in general. But what I found, is that even as an adult, I needed it, as it's one of the primary ways to stay in touch with my friends.
It's not so much that you've got enough old school grit that you don't need new fancy technology when you can just dial a number from memory to ask when you can come over to play poker, it's the fact that all of your friends are online too, and they all communicate mostly on this platform. A
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Sounds like a perfect scenario to use a white list.
I white list hanging out with my friends. No one sits down and goes "Hey, guys, want to hang out at the KKK rally tonight?". No. Because assholes and bullies hang out there so we go somewhere else.
People are having a hard time accepting that facebook is full of assholes and bullies. Find stories on either side of the aisle and read the comments. It's a cesspool.
You know how a bully can make new accounts? So can you.
Hell you can make your own platform now wi
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Ever hear of a "telephone"?
If that's too primitive, perhaps email?
Life exists without Facebook and similar crap.
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If you're asking that, I don't think you read my post. My reply is basically a rebuttal of that mindset. True: Life exists without "Facebook and similar crap" - but when it comes down to it, if your friends are on it, and you're not, you will be out of the loop and miss out. This is more of an issue with kids, but even as an adult I've missed some fun opportunities to hang out with friends and family by not checking in enough.
As an adult that's okay to do though. I totally understand the desire to be left
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Imagine if the bully from your day was free to walk into your bedroom and continue the bullying and your dad was powerless to beat his butt.
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You're not fooling me. You're one of those freaks that likes getting their butt beat. I'm not playing your game.
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Most of the "bullying" that I remember from childhood was not physical, but psychological.
Sometimes things got physical but nobody was stealing other kid's lunch money. That's as cartoonish to me as the anecdote about how the kid that always got picked on learned to stand up for himself and one day he beat the hell out of the bully and sent him home crying and nobody ever messed with that kid ever again.
Didn't Opie do that once on the Andy Griffith show? (Yes, he did - the bully's name was Sheldon and he
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One would stop it by not commenting on Slashdot. How hard is that?
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Well go and play outside already. You might get kidnapped by Romanian peadiofiddlerists or stabbed by check-clad chavs but hey - no risk, no fun!
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Heh, heh.
All I can say is "well done" little one.
School of hard knocks is has a good teacher. Your kid is one of them.
obvious solution: (Score:2)
let kids participate in the purge! ;)
There's a fix (Score:2)
The new TUFN UP plan will eliminate the need for counseling for cyberbullying entirely.
This is important (Score:2)
If our children don't get online bully counselling, how will they ever get good at it?
**Irresponsible reporting*** (Score:2)
Where was the trigger warning that this story and the comments within may offend my sensibilities by being exposed to attitudes and ideas that are inconsistent with my own?
Improvement (Score:2)
Cyberbullying is an improvement over IRL bullying, where only the strong and/or popular could bully the weak.
Now anyone can cyberbully anyone, because on the Internet, nobody knows you are a dog! [wikipedia.org]
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It depends on how far the "bullying" goes. Actual threats are not protected speech. Also, putting a stop to bullying does not have to involve law enforcement. If I heard from another parent that my kid was humiliating or insulting another kid online, I would put a stop to it, regardless of whether it is illegal.
But mostly kids need to learn about the "off" button.
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Oh great. My kid just read your comment and is now trying to shut down my mod{#`%${%&`+'${`%&NO CARRIER
Re:We should ban free speech (Score:4, Insightful)
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Totally agree, except for a bit like here:
"when a punch in the nose usually ended the problem once and for all."
That worked for some bullies, some not. It also worked for some of those being bullied, some not.
---
Overall I think the problem of bullying falls on the adult's who use it to various degrees themselves, and I don't think cutting it out is censoring anymore than preventing physical violence is censoring.
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That worked for some bullies, some not. It also worked for some of those being bullied, some not.
As I just said to someone else: There's absolutely no reason whatsoever to NOT teach kids to stick up for themselves, and NO reason whatsoever to go through life as a perpetual victim.
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What Anonymous said, and sometimes bullies will react by increasing the harassment, by punch back or worse.
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Not every bully operates in the same fashion, some will simply escalate the violence, you can never tell how much they have invested in hurting others.
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Glad to hear what you saw wasn't as bad as it can sometimes gets for others.
And I think the problem today is as it's always been, role models like parents and others in authority who use various degrees of bullying themselves.
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Back before the Internet, dealing with bullies only required a little courage
Nonsense. Victims do not "deserve" to be bullied because they are cowards. "Courage" has little to do with it. Bullies pick on kids that are smaller, younger and weaker. "Standing up to them" may work in the movies, but it almost never works that way in real life, where a punch to a bully often means more torment that ever.
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Victims do not "deserve" to be bullied because they are cowards
I never said that, you're completely reading that into it and corrupting what I'm saying.
"Standing up to them" may work in the movies, but it almost never works that way in real life
There is literally no point in going through life as a perpetual victim and every reason to teach kids to stick up for themselves, and you should be ashamed to suggest anything different.
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There is literally no point in going through life as a perpetual victim and every reason to teach kids to stick up for themselves
If your kid comes to you for help, the worst thing you can say is "I am not going to do shit to help you, you are on your own, so use violence." That is a terrible life lesson, because real life beyond junior high school is nothing like that.
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If you don't think people use violence outside of junior high school, then you probably don't get out much.
Of course life outside of JHS has violence. That doesn't mean resorting to violence is the "right thing to do". Violence is almost never the correct choice.
Children that are bullied are the most likely to later be bullies themselves, especially if they see that the system does nothing to protect victims.
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Some bullies can be dealt with without violence.
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For the record: I don't like violence any more than any other rational adult person does. But I do recognize that sometimes you can't avoid it without the long-term consequences being worse; you shouldn't start fights, but you should finish them.
Now, then: I'm not saying to tel
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When you punch the bully you need to hurt him/her.
You don't need to win the fight, but you need to hurt the motherfucker.
Re:See, violence works! (Score:4)
If violence doesn't solve your problem, you just aren't using enough of it.
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Suppose you have a problem, and use violent regular expressions....
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Back before the Internet, dealing with bullies only required a little courage
Nonsense. Victims do not "deserve" to be bullied because they are cowards. "Courage" has little to do with it. Bullies pick on kids that are smaller, younger and weaker. "Standing up to them" may work in the movies, but it almost never works that way in real life, where a punch to a bully often means more torment that ever.
Oddly enough, back in Junior High, the hot trick was finding a larger kid that wouldn't fight you, and harass them. One of those kids was me. My parents had taught me that it took a bigger man to walk away from a fight.
In the end, however, I got to be a "bigger man" several times each day.
And the school was no help. Upon reportingg this to the administrators, all I got was a threat of suspension even after noting that I was being hit. So I knew I was in that by myself. So I decided one day that this en
Re:We should ban free speech (Score:5, Insightful)
You have the right to bear arms. But not the right to shoot people, just because you have a gun.
The same thing with free speech. Bullying isn't protected by free speech, as it is a form of attack
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This is an excellent analogy. I'd mod you insightful if I had any points. Well stated.
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Bullying isn't protected by free speech
Unless it involves specific realistic threats, online "bullying" is protected speech. There is no law against insults and teasing. You have no right to not be offended. If you don't like it, then close the browser tab.
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Bullying isn't protected by free speech
Unless it involves specific realistic threats, online "bullying" is protected speech. There is no law against insults and teasing. You have no right to not be offended. If you don't like it, then close the browser tab.
I found the definition https://news.illinois.edu/blog... [illinois.edu] "The participants, 700 children and 38 teachers, also were provided with a definition of bullying that included physical behaviors such as pushing or hitting, verbal abuse such as saying mean things or calling other people names, and relational aggression, such as excluding a classmate from play.
Ugh. This is offensive in itself. It reeks of safe spaces where no one can disagree with you, and an exceptionaly tight control of expression.
Saying mean
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You have the right to bear arms. But not the right to shoot people, just because you have a gun. The same thing with free speech. Bullying isn't protected by free speech, as it is a form of attack
The problem of course, is define bullying. People think that is easy, but there are dozens.
I owuld define it as an actual physical threat, which is already a actionable matter. Other's define it as calling someone names like idiot or moron. Others define it as disagreement. Others as any unkind behavior.
Is "Go die in a fire!" bullying? Is "Go step on a Lego" bullying? Is "Jamie, that's the worst idea I've ever heard!" bullying? Is Jamie - don't be stupid!" Bullying? Is " Jamie, I just don't think you
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"They have no physical intrinsic power."
Bullying has physical consequences, and there is a wealth of neurological data to support that.
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"They have no physical intrinsic power."
Bullying has physical consequences, and there is a wealth of neurological data to support that.
Life itself has physical consequences. I was bullied, with no help from parents or school. Some times you are just in a situation whether you want to be or not. Children should learn that. Instead, we seem to be inculcating them with the idea that there should be no negativity in their life. Like it or not, sometime you gotta grow a set.
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"Life itself has physical consequences. I was bullied, with no help from parents or school. Some times you are just in a situation whether you want to be or not."
Glad to hear it wasn't as bad for you as it can sometimes get for others
"we seem to be inculcating them with the idea that there should be no negativity in their life."
Seem?
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I guess you could bully with only emotion and physical body position. I guess a bullet made of jello would cause physical change to your body. Now that I think about it, I'm not sure why bullying being less a physical thing than gun is relevant.
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"Words have absolutely no power of their own."
Neuro biology says otherwise, we might have latitude in how we respond but that doesn't mean words have no power.
"The reaction is strictly personal, an internal affair, a conditioned reflex. The pain is self inflicted."
Again only partly, and in varying degrees depending on genetics. If we weren't a biologically social organisms with brains built in consequence I might agree with you more.
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No physical power?
Words are how we physically transport ideas and concepts from one mind to another.
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That post should not have been modded down.
*There will be no love, except the love of Big Brother. There will be no laughter, except the laugh of triumph over a defeated enemy. There will be no art, no literature, no science. When we are omnipotent we shall have no more need of science. There will be no distinction between beauty and ugliness. There will be no curiosity, no enjoyment of the process of life. All competing pleasures will be destroyed.*
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That post should not have been modded down.
Well yes. The sarcasm is obvious. But perhaps the down-mod came from people who recognized it as a snarky comment and seriously think that we should be banning free speech. And this was a comment that should be pushed below the visibility threshold.
These are scary times that we live in. Today its just mod points. Tomorrow the van will be around to your house.
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But bullying *is* a form of censure
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But bullying *is* a form of censure
How so? In person it is to the extent that a bully an exploit your fear of physical violence to affect your behavior. On line, not so much. What is there to be afraid of? It's only ones and zeros and every four-eyed 90 pound weakling can stand up to the best of them.
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When you tell your 5 year old not to swear, are you not banning their free speech? My point is there's a movable line and you can't always make clear calls.
"What is there to be afraid of? It's only ones and zeros and every four-eyed 90 pound weakling can stand up to the best of them."
One and zeros, and then there's emotion, and the online bullies you also see every day at school, and ...
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and then there's emotion,
Learn to handle it. You are going to have to deal with it as an adult.
and the online bullies you also see every day at school
So what? First rule: We don't tolerate physical violence. Period. So no matter what someone says, it won't go further than words.
I know. That's not the way the world works today. But that's what we have to change. Not the speech part. Bullies resort to violence? They get expelled and maybe go to prison. School administrators and law enforcement don't enforce a zero tolerance policy? They lose their jobs. Forever.
School is a safe place w
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When you tell your 5 year old not to swear, are you not banning their free speech? My point is there's a movable line and you can't always make clear calls.
"So what? First rule: We don't tolerate physical violence. Period. So no matter what someone says, it won't go further than words"
We don't tolerate physical violence already but that doesn't stop it from happening repeatedly, and emotions are so pervasive and integral to human biology way would you think we can 'turn them off'.
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we should ban free speech so that crybabies can have a safe space. Best start with eliminating all negative stories, including this one.
Like Trump suggested, we should shut down the internet. I look forward to Melania to take care of this problem
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we should ban free speech so that crybabies can have a safe space. Best start with eliminating all negative stories, including this one.
yeah, and we should force "our women" to stay indoors, so "real men" don't get in trouble over rape and other trivial misdemeanors (that was sarcasm, in case anybody thought otherwise).
Society has to be based on people "getting along", one way or another. This means compromise are necessary; the need of an individual to speak their mind and go about their daily affairs, is important, but so are the rights of other individuals - and when the two come into conflict, a compromise must be found. After all, why
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" If you complain about it, they call your family and your employer and say that you are a white supremacist who is harassing women on the internet."
So are you saying that shouldn't be stopped?
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Dr. Hibbert: modern Medicine has a lousy record of treating the back. We spend too much time on the front.
Homer: Yeah, there’s some neat stuff in the front.
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Yeah but that doesn't work for everyone, how many parents are bullies, to various degrees, themselves
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Block the offending websites with your router.
Kids can survive without Facebook and similar shit.
If they keep taking it so seriously, just screen it from the network at the home or buy them a fuggin; flip phone without the smarts.