So out of nowhere I started thinking about Amanda Todd. For those who don't know Amanda Todd commits suicide weeks after heartbreaking Youtube video | National Post The summary is a girl from British Columbia who claims she was lured by an anonymous male to expose her breasts online. Needless to say in internet fashion it exploded and the picture went around the circuit. So anyway, she became depressed and attempted suicide by drinking bleach which was damaging but unsuccessful. Shortly after she made a video explaining her recent history. Then the explosion. So-called cyber bullies harassed her relentlessly calling her a myriad of names. Finally she broke down and committed suicide. So for whatever reason I thought of her today while trolling my usual sites and it brought up a question I am hoping we can discuss rationally. Does cyber-bullying exist or is it an excuse the media uses for stories like Amanda? Do you feel she brought these problems on herself or did the so-called bullies destroy her life? I don’t really know what the range of responses there will be (if any) but I feel that cyber-bullying is a huge problem. When I was a kid I was bullied quite a bit but mostly physically as boys tend to do. Afterwards I caught my share of emotional bullying and admittedly I am biased but I would MUCH MUCH MUCH rather be beaten up than tortured on a social and emotional level. I am sure you can see my answer a mile away but yes I believe cyber-bullying to be legitimate and dangerous Foxface
I don't know this story but I was discussing this topic the other day with a friend of mine. There is no doubt that cyber-bullying goes on in some form or another but that isn't the issue in my eyes. I personally believe that traditional every-day bullying in school whether that is physical or emotional or otherwise, is more damaging than any of this new-age online bullying can be. For the simple reason that you cannot stop traditional bullying effectively. If someone is going to beat you up every day, there isn't a definite way to get around that. However if someone is giving you abuse on facebook, or phoning/texting you with abuse etc you can block them, change your phone numbers, delete your accounts an start again. Online-bullying is terrible but there is no excuse for sitting putting up with it, moaning. You can very easily sever all contact with these bullies online so I have no sympathy.
It certainly does exist, but the media likes to drum up the "cyber" bit and blame technology as a way to get views and the reactionary comments of "kids nowadays". Cyber-bullying has four massive benefits to the bullies. 1) It can easily be anonymous. 2) It can be done at any time. 3) It can be done anywhere. 4) Even if discovered by parents or police, it can be brushed off as the victim being simply too emotional, despite the obvious emotional trauma and breaking of safe barriers. A very jarring comment about cyber-bullying I've heard is "it hurts so much because you read the abuse in your own voice". It internalises the abuse, and it invades what is usually a safe place; home. The anonymity means that the victim may never know who is bullying them or why. The fear that the bully might be someone "close" to them, or someone who poses a potential physical threat, is very real and nags on the victim emotionally. Anyone being cyber-bullied (or bullied in any way at all) needs to get help as soon as it happens. My school always dealt with it well, but sometimes it's necessary to go straight to the police. -- I've never been cyber-bullied, so take in mind that my opinion is naturally going to be somewhat less credible than someone's who has been.
Id say cyber bulling is 1000% real and the situation is getting worse young lives are being lost because of this. only last week I was reading about a young girl who took her own life because people were envious of her looks She was only 14 . people need to be made aware of the harm cyber bullying causes also people should be prosecuted more . I doubt the media has made the situation worse. I think someone posted a video about the effects of cyber bullying on EC .
Cyber bullying and bullying in general is a very real issue. I think it's like 1 in 3 teenagers will be bullied at school and 1 in 5 fakes sickness because of bullying at some point. Online bullying is just another type of media for bullies to spread their ignorance and bullshit, so they don't have to say anything to anyone's face.
Clearly. I believe online bullying exists, and it's a factor in suicide. It needs to be treated the same as harassment is treated. I don't think a victim ever "deserves it."
It is real but the case of Amanda Todd, she actually had it coming to her, if you look into the literal details of it all, she legitimately put the pictures (while well known of her being underage) of herself half nude on the internet to people she did not know but they claimed to be older men at 40 or so. But they were really fellow students at her school and they basically spreaded the pictures around the school and practically everyone saw; so in this case, I would say; Why the hell did you trust random people with half naked pictures of you and trust them not to spread them? This is Internet 101 of WHAT NOT TO DO that your parents teach you when you go on the internet for the first time, don't trust anyone with any information of yourself unless they have been officially verified! So in this case, I think it depends as well as the severity of the bullying and slander, because in some cases like Amanda Todd where they set up the problems themselves do not deserve to die but do need to understand the implications of their actions; while others who have done nothing wrong require justice.
Firstly, nobody deserves to be put in any sort of position that Amanda Todd experienced. She certainly never "had it coming to her", despite the mistakes that she made. You raise good points about the importance of being vigilante online and not simply trusting anybody simply because you perceive them to be anonymous. However, it's equally as important that people aren't blamed for the mistakes that they do commit, and they certainly don't deserve to be blackmailed into engaging in further sexual activity, as well as being stalked for over a year because of it. There's a vitally important message to get across to all people who use the internet when it comes to internet safety and being educated on the consequences of our actions, but that education should not be underpinned with victim-shaming rhetoric. There's enough people who have that mentality against rape victims because they ignore warnings about not dressing "provocatively" and not walking alone after Xo'clock, so to see a similar rationale being used for online sexual exploitation is wholly disheartening. It's a very brave thing to admit you've made a mistake and reach out for support, and a response to it should never be along the lines of they deserve everything they get for allowing themselves to be exploited. The person who commits the crimes and the bullying deserves the undivided outrage for being so cowardly and horrible. It's bad enough to lie about an identity with the intent to lull a vulnerable person into a false sense of security, but to then blackmail so severely and persistently that they commit suicide is just evil. I'm certainly not denying that the situation wasn't preventable (many exploitative crimes are), but we never do ourselves any favours by pointing any ounce of blame at the victims.
I agree that it is a huge problem. Internet communication has some inherent distance to it, but the people on both sides are still real and emotionally invested. That leaves people vulnerable to harm/manipulation by others. The difference is, cyber-bullying is frequently avoidable. Don't like somebody? Don't talk to them. Of course by the time somebody becomes a target of a larger internet community then they're S.O.L, but we should absolutely reinforce in kids that "sticks and stones" should still be considered, as well as that the relative anonymity of the net is not a license to be a dick.
After I was raped and the police refused to do anything about it, an actual group formed in England that made it their goal to get me to kill myself, they would attack me on a daily basis. I got attack on a gmail account, Facebook at least once a day from different ones of them Yes it exists
I'm 100% sure it's real, and it's terrible. Teens shouldn't have to be afraid of what other teens are going to do to them over the internet, nor should they have to give it up just because some bigots are trying to ruin their life. Bullying can be done as long as you're physically near the bully, however Cyber-bullying can be done anywhere anytime with an anonymous face, and things like suicide wind up happening. We are losing too many youth to this issue.
Cyber-bullying is very real. I was a victim of cyber-bullying before and it hurts much more than regular bullying that you'd encounter in school. Cyber-bullying Facebook posts hurt a lot because the message is remembered in your mind and as you try to delete them, they're repeating inside my head. When you read the hurting posts, you don't read them in the bully's voice, you read them in your own, hurting yourself even more. If you're being bullied and cyber-bullied, then you face pain and bullying 24/7. Bully victims can't wait to get home due to bullying at school, but if it happens on the computer as well, then you would feel like you have no place else to go. I know, you could simply delete your social-networking account and move on, but in this day and age of technology, it's easier said than done. We should seriously charge bullies with murder if their victims kill themselves.
I completely understand that cyber bullying can be anonymous, but I've had it happen to me through someone I considered to be one of my best friends, online and IRL. And the worst part of this is that I'm not the only one who's had it from this person. Some of you may have seen my rant about how I was nearly manipulated to using my mother's credit card and commit identity theft by buying the $15 monthly fee for World of Warcraft. About a year later, when I'd pretty much decided he wasn't my friend for the most part, he stepped one closer by calling me a "13-year-old boy" over Facebook for laughing at certain memes, (the only one that applied was Shoop da Whoop), proceeding to show me the exact ED article he was seriously referring to (and therefore unleashing more strawman insults), and then calling me "butthurt" to ad-nauseum, as if to try and get me back as a friend, when really he was harassing me. And that, specifically was what I stopped being his friend for. So yes, it exists in every way you can imagine. And the last thing I want to do is to hurt someone because of what I said online. The 4chan mentality thankfully has left, for the most part. But there are still people out there that have it.
Going to be that person who is blunt. Turn off the darn computer. Cyber bullies that are purely cyber (aka you don't know them outside the internet) are pretty dang easy to get rid of. In Amanda's case it bled over into her actual life, therefore it became bullying. If a girl post a pic on the internet (no name, way to identify her) and then she gets harped on, it was her own fault. And she can easily get away from the issue by not reading the comments and knowing that she has anonymity. I was bullied on Facebook, so guess what, I deleted my Facebook. Problem solved. As far as I'm concerned if you set yourself up for a fail, the internet will respond. And I'm sorry, that's life. If someone back stabs you, that's bullying. Let's get another "if" in here. Let's use this site for example. Insult someone on here. OMG no way, how could you I'm so hur- oh wait no i'm not because all you know of me is my Username...and i can block you...so yeah. Does cyberbullying exist by itself? No. It is the combination of the internet and your real life being degraded, hurt, poked at. A purely "cyber" bully means nothing. Trolls of the internet, if you can't handle them, then get off the computer and go ask your parents permission to log on to disney.com or club penguin. You know the "I can count to potato meme"? Of the chubby school girl who has what appears to be maybe down syndrome. Her mother found out about this meme and was not happy The Daily Dot - Mother of "I can count to potato" meme girl speaks out That was a more severe case of internet harping. The mother's photo was stolen, and used for trolling. When this little girl found out, she was upset too. But this is the internet. When people have anonymity, they do stupid things.
Oh it exists, Though many people just choose to throw it around as a label to get sympathy, Much like how every third person in this world seems to be OCD, Or have a "Anxiety Disorder". The word is cheapened by society, But to those truly afflicted the pain and suffering doesn't become 'less', Just the perceived value of the term in the general publics eye.
I have been bullied a lot online due to being a sensitive person, so yeah it happens. Nobody ever deserve to be bullied, and online bullying can be just as bad as the real thing (I have been exposed to both my entire life). Thinking you have a friend only for this person to go after you and get his other friends to go after you as well really hurts. Doesn't make it better that when I try to talk about it to other people I think are my friends it have often ended up with them telling me "I am making this up for sympathy, go man up" and other hurtful things, when really I just want someone to help me survive.
