How do you manage bullying on the internet?
It's a simple question: "Who do you hate?"But posted in January by a 17-year-old Smithtown High School student from Nesconset on a Web site called MySpace.com - a popular cyber hangout swamped by teenagers - the question dangles out there like a virtual pinata.
"I want everyone to take a moment and really think about who you hate in our school," he writes, "then choose the one that you have the most disdain for and write it here for all to see. this may cause violance ... agression, and death. but iam willing to look past that for the better of the cause. so lets here it."
A pummeling of messages follow, one verbal swing after another.
The responses stretch for the next eight months over 16 pages, and number 240. They name everyone from a boy that "sucks at life" to "that stupid blind girl." One 16-year-old girl writes that she wants to stab a boy named "alex something ... in the eye with a really hot french fry."
Welcome to the world of cyberbullying, a new age form of aggression that can instantly erupt with a few keystrokes. At least one expert describes such virtual smearing as a suburban phenomenon because so many adolescents have their own computers and unsupervised time to use them - making Long Island the perfect environment for it.
Philisophical questions:
1. Should it be considered bullying if the recipient is not the direct target of the remark, and may in fact never learn about the remark?
2. Should it be considered bullying if it's just speech, and not action?
3. Should it be considered bullying if it's just a joke?
And most importantly:
4. Should it be considered bullying if there's no way to regulate this? It's impossible to catch all these sites, and virtually impossible to decisively identify who is participating. If it's defined as bullying, then it's a problem without a solution.
Posted by kswygert at September 19, 2005 02:59 PM