Cyberbullying

[dreamer_easy]

The Star Wars kid kicks ass.

Until yesterday, when I read a recent New Scientist article on cyberbullying, I had never heard of the cruel prank pulled on a Canadian schoolkid who filmed himself goofing around with a toy lightsabre. Some of his schoolmates decided it would be a good idea to put it on the Internet. Millions watched it. School became an intolerable nightmare of non-stop harassment for the young man; he ended up in a psychiatric hospital.

But there's a happy ending. He sued the bullies' butts for hundreds of thousands of dollars, eventually settling out of court for an unknown sum.

Other teenage victims of cyberbullying have taken their own lives.

If anyone uses computer or phone to bully my niece or nephews, and I find out about it, the bullies had better move to Antarctica, stat.

The Rise of Cyberbullying, New Scientist online

'Star Wars Kid' cuts a deal with his tormentors

In Memory of Ryan Patrick Halligan

Schoolgirl killed herself after `phone bullying'

Comments

[acelightning.livejournal.com]

[kateorman.livejournal.com]

There are two things which make this different from the bullying I survived twenty years ago. One, as NS points out, is the omnipresence of the net and the mobile phone - home is no longer a refuge. And two, I've been tracing and stopping stalkers online for years. I can and I will track down anyone who tries it on my nieces and nephews; they will not have their shield of anonymity for long.

[acelightning.livejournal.com]

[kateorman.livejournal.com]

Fuck, home was my only refuge. Prank calls weren't a problem, perhaps because it was more likely than an adult would pick up, which isn't the case with a teen's mobile phone.

That's a good point that at least cyberbullying can leave evidence (precisely why no cyberbully is safe from me). Horribly, the bullies can turn that around; the thirteen year old who took his own life confided with an online "friend" who shared transcripts of their talks.

[acelightning.livejournal.com]

[mrteufel.livejournal.com]

The fact that the potential audience for the humiliation is unlimited makes the effect of the bullying an order of magnitude greater. So not only are the sources of bullying unavoidable, the victim cannot be sure that any random stranger has not witnessed the victim's humiliation. And as a kid, that will translate into thinking all strangers have witnessed your humiliation... you have nowhere to hide from your tormentors.

[acelightning.livejournal.com]

[kateorman.livejournal.com]

The victim in this instance was fifteen.

[acelightning.livejournal.com]

[hexacontium.livejournal.com]

Is there a difference between cyber stalking and bullying or are those just terms for the same thing?
As stalking, and thus also cyberstalking was not illegal here years ago my partner and me found help with an international anti-cyberstalking group who represented us at court in the country of the stalker, and with success. The masses of unwanted emails, journal comments, text messages and contacting of our our friends and clients ceased immediately *phew* Still, ever since I refuse to use the same user name twice online.

[kateorman.livejournal.com]

You too have kicked ass! Nice one!

[browneyedgirl65.livejournal.com]

How interesting. I saw that Star Wars Kid video with no idea whatsoever that it was being used to harrass him as well. The version I saw had been given all the visual and sound effects to be "real" and was pretty cool.

Hmph. Glad he won a settlement, although taking it to trial might have been more effective in the longer run for establishing precedent and rules about online bullying (I do think cyberstalking is the same thing as bullying, exacerbated by the additional tools that being online gives you).

Solutions to these problems promise to be multi-faceted -- legal tools, software that allows blocking, tracing, etc, social awareness AND disapproval of these tactics (especially critical, I think, that children be taken seriously if they talk about being bullied online), and so on...

[kateorman.livejournal.com]

Plus me eating any bullies I find like A GIANT PAC MAN.

[queeniefox.livejournal.com]

Hello, I friended you because your journal seems really interesting (and I'm a big fan of '...Intelligent Tigers', hope you don't mind?

Anyway, this is interesting - I never knew until now what had happened to the Star Wars kid. I remember thinking at the time that it was sort of a nightmarish situation - in usual bullying, at least the kind I experienced, you think everyone is laughing at you, and in this case, this kid knew millions had been. :(

I watched a documentary on the Beeb recently about teenagers uploading films of fights on to You Tube - some of them were pretty harrowing, but You Tube maintains its up to the users to moderate their own community. Which is an interesting debate.

[kateorman.livejournal.com]

Of course I don't mind - welcome to the dive! :-)

(I see YouTube are about to get their butts sued off too. :-)