Trolling can Kill

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Message 1399484 - Posted: 6 Aug 2013, 11:47:25 UTC
Last modified: 6 Aug 2013, 12:02:57 UTC

Another sad indicment of today's society. Technology is destroying the family unit, if it hasn't already done so.

How many times have we all heard that the Internet is too big to police?

Yet we see companies & individuals providing programs/apps to keep people in constant touch with the only thought in their heads is to make as much profit as possible. Understandable I suppose, but if they have the intelligence to provide such programs/apps, then there has to be somebody that is capable of providing security/logging & tracability of all users.

Hmmn, too costly/troublesome to do so?
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Message 1399563 - Posted: 6 Aug 2013, 15:12:29 UTC

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Message 1400862 - Posted: 9 Aug 2013, 1:08:11 UTC
Last modified: 9 Aug 2013, 1:22:18 UTC

I think stories like this say more about the person themselves than the trolls.

My first question is. If the bullying on the site was getting to her, why did she keep going there ?

"Cyber Bullying" is not like being physically bullied. To avoid it all you have to do is not visit the site !! If you visit the site with full knowledge of what goes on there, then you should have shoulders broad enough to handle it. Such anonymous messages have the same status as the graffiti on the walls of public toilets, so why take them seriously ?

There is obviously more to this story than has been reported. Before waving my hands in "shock, horror, ban the site" mode, the first thing I would want to see is the contents of her Outbox. The girl was obviously suffering from depression, possibly over the breakup of her parents and was blaming herself for the breakup. In such a state it's quite possible she was sending the messages to herself. It's also possible she was sending similar anonymous messages to others, but the "real" truth is something we'll never know.

FWIW, I can talk from experience, I was physically bullied during my first two years of high school including being "Royal Flushed" a couple of times, but at no stage did I think of committing suicide. Handling on line insults is much easier, that's what the Delete key is for.

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Message 1400864 - Posted: 9 Aug 2013, 1:21:47 UTC - in response to Message 1400862.  

My first question is. If the bullying on the site was getting to her, why did she keep going there ?

This is an easy question to ask, but if you are not in her shoes you have no clue what was going on her mind. Obviously rational thought was not the overriding process. Tragedy caused by the human condition.
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Message 1400865 - Posted: 9 Aug 2013, 1:26:38 UTC - in response to Message 1400864.  
Last modified: 9 Aug 2013, 1:29:53 UTC

My first question is. If the bullying on the site was getting to her, why did she keep going there ?

This is an easy question to ask, but if you are not in her shoes you have no clue what was going on her mind. Obviously rational thought was not the overriding process. Tragedy caused by the human condition.

Read the rest of my post. As I said, I think it very unlikely that the so called "cyber bullying" was the real reason she committed suicide.

There is a lot more to this story than has been published.

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Message 1400870 - Posted: 9 Aug 2013, 1:45:19 UTC

Of course there is more to the story. But from all indications the cyber-bullying was probably just the last straw.

Humpty Dumpty was pushed. Yes she was an egg and she did sit on that wall.
But she was still pushed.
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Message 1400880 - Posted: 9 Aug 2013, 2:16:46 UTC - in response to Message 1400870.  
Last modified: 9 Aug 2013, 2:17:36 UTC

Of course there is more to the story. But from all indications the cyber-bullying was probably just the last straw.

Humpty Dumpty was pushed. Yes she was an egg and she did sit on that wall.
But she was still pushed.

I disagree. "Cyber Bullying" is just a convenient target to put the blame on, and affixing blame on the easiest target is the name of the game. This way, people don't have to look too deeply for the real cause.

Over the years there has been several of my children's and grandchildren's friends kill themselves. This was before the internet, so on line insults can be disregarded. The common factor was they all came from broken homes. But as it is politically incorrect these days to suggest the deepness of the effect this can have on the children, particularly in their early teens, another cause has to be found, and the person's on line activities are the easiest target. Not that long ago, in a situation like this, the blame would have fallen on the type of music she was listening too, particularly if it was Heavy Metal. This way the parents are absolved from any contributing factor to the child's depression.

If getting involved in an on line flame war could really cause depression severe enough for a person to neck themselves, the on line population would be half of what it is today.

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Message 1400890 - Posted: 9 Aug 2013, 3:33:08 UTC

TA

I'm sure the rest of the story is that everyone at school was telling her what was posted. How the "in clique" was dissing her. At 14 years old that is very powerful stuff. Especially if your friends are doing it. Even more so if you have other things going on in your life.

I got bullied and teased. Always the last one picked for the team. Heard the cutting remarks. Hurt like hell. Forty five years later it still smarts and slightly affects me, there is some defense mechanisms and rage under the surface that shouldn't be there, but I can keep it under control today. Must, I post in politics and haven't gotten a time out.

No suicide didn't cross my mind. Don't think I even knew what that was. But if I had and had a method ... the internet brings that to kids today. Don't tell me that is a good thing.


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Message 1400908 - Posted: 9 Aug 2013, 4:42:45 UTC - in response to Message 1400890.  
Last modified: 9 Aug 2013, 4:49:04 UTC

Gary, I knew what suicide was before my age reached double digits, not because of personal experience, but from reading stories in the newspapers, the TV news and fiction. Before I was 10 I knew several different methods whereby a person could take themselves out. These included tablets, poison, rope and guns.

I see the problem here is that it's too easy to blame the internet rather than looking at the true underlying causes. This is my main point here, Don't blame the internet for every thing wrong with the planet. Every generation has had it's whipping boy for the evils of the world. In the 1950's it was Rock and Roll, in the 60's it was hippies, in the 70's and 80's it was Heavy Metal and today the World Wide Web.

You refer to being bullied when young. But this was probably actual, physical, "hands on" bullying. In school I got the occasional defamatory note left on my desk, but I did have a fair idea who put it there. In the online situation the protagonist could be anywhere in the world.

I also see what goes on with my 17 year old grand daughter and her Facebook account. At times her and her friends have threads with 40+ posts on them and 90% of them being extremely insulting, in the next thread the same people are telling each other what wonderful people they are and how much they love each other.

This is just the way her and her friends carry on, yet if anyone outside her group read the insults thread they would think they had fallen into the middle of WW III.

I'm fully aware of the effects of physical bullying and totally agree with you on that. It's that I just don't believe that anonymous insults received on a site that you voluntarily visit, knowing what you will find there, is enough to cause depression deep enough for a person to kill themselves. As I keep saying, the reasons have to be much deeper than the story mentions and the internet is just a convenient scape goat. I do know that a family break up, particularly if it's a nasty one, can have disastrous effects on the children and in this situation I strongly suspect that this would be the root cause, but as I'm a long way from this case I won't pontificate too much on it.

There is also the fact that young teenagers, particularly girls in the throes of puberty, suffer from the wildest of mood swings, even if they live in the most loving and stable home. This has to be taken into consideration as a contributing factor if she was already suffering from depression.

Like you I was always the last one picked, at times I couldn't even make reserve "Orange Boy" (the one who took the oranges out to the team at half time) but as I was fully aware of my sporting capabilities there was no way I could really take offence. :)

T.A.

Edited for grammar and clarity.
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Message 1400920 - Posted: 9 Aug 2013, 5:50:13 UTC - in response to Message 1400908.  

Sounds like Australia is a lot rougher place than America if you learned all that before 10. Then again maybe my parents didn't want me worrying about the Cuban Missie crises and kept me away from news.

As to blaming the internet, if you read some other news reports is gets obvious that the people posting the stuff at first weren't half way around the globe. They were in her school and the stuff went viral.

Put yourself into a 14 year old girl at the onset of puberty with the mood swings that dose of hormones brings on, with all the insecurity and desperate need to fit in, not be different and picked on. Now you see a post calling you a slut and a whore. You see the hit counter is in the tens of thousands, everyone in the whole world has seen it, except your parents. Next day at school your classmates are pointing fingers and calling you those names and quoting the post. You post a rebutal, but bullies being bullies they smell blood in the water like a shark and post more and more. The hit counter just keeps going up. Your life is over.

It doesn't matter if she stops looking at the posts. Her classmates are looking at the posts! and reminding her of them!

There is a lot of blame to go around here. But the internet has facilitated the rapid scurrilous distribution of rumors. It must be to blame, at least in part.

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Message 1400942 - Posted: 9 Aug 2013, 7:17:17 UTC

Rehtaeh Parsons suicide: two charged over photos in cyberbullying case

Police in Canada have charged two young men with distributing child pornography in the cyberbullying case of Rehtaeh Parsons, a 17-year-old who killed herself after a photo of her allegedly being raped was shared online.


Rehtaeh's death has been compared to similar cases in the United States, including 15-year-old California girl Audrie Pott, who hanged herself after her family says she was sexually assaulted by friends and a photo surfaced online. Arrests were made in that case.

Rehtaeh's death prompted the Nova Scotia government to launch reviews of the RCMP's original investigation and the school board's handling of the matter. The review of the RCMP's investigation continues.


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Message 1401030 - Posted: 9 Aug 2013, 12:01:14 UTC - in response to Message 1400908.  
Last modified: 9 Aug 2013, 12:01:22 UTC

Don't blame the internet for every thing wrong with the planet.


I read Chris's article and I've read Gary's Wiki (also read it in the news when it happened). I don't see a single person "blaming" the internet for the suicide. I see people blaming others on the internet for using it as a tool to hurt others on a global scale. I see the perpetrators being local to their own towns when these things happen.

The internet is simply a communications tool that allows information to travel the world in microseconds. I don't see anyone advocating pulling the plug on the internet or any specific website over these suicides. What is at issue here is people using the internet to purposefully hurt others and publicly humiliate them. These events have opened up a dialog about how social media can have an effect on an individual - and you're seriously mistaken if you think its the equivalent of graffiti on a wall.

You're telling me that no person has ever committed suicide in the past because "for a good time call..." was written on the bathroom walls? It probably wasn't widely publicized then as local information didn't make the big news back then like it does now, but I'm sure it happened.


I agree with you that there are deeper issues at play. These articles are not about denying that fact. These articles are about how the world has changed and the pressures young people have to deal with today that no one else ever has.

These girls didn't commit suicide because of the internet. These girls committed suicide because their self identity, self esteem, and self confidence were fragile, bruised, then completely destroyed by their peers. Sure, their outgoing emails and posts may have been bad, but its perfectly natural to pretend the stuff isn't hurting you when it is.
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Message 1402200 - Posted: 12 Aug 2013, 15:10:26 UTC

I was bullied for a while at school, around thee age of 14. I soon sorted out the ringleader when I got him by himself. He went home with a broken nose and lots of cuts and bruises. No one touched me after that, especially when I helped set up a Judo club, in the school, about 1957.
It's good to be back amongst friends and colleagues



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Message 1402394 - Posted: 13 Aug 2013, 0:42:40 UTC

Im 61 and back in my school days, Bullys were face to face. You knew who they were. So you either put up with it or fought back. Sometime I got my butt kicked, sometimes I won.

Knowdays with the internet you dont who who is the bully. It could be some clown across the country or the world.
I dont envy todays kids at all. They might have all the cool stuff we couldnt even wish for, But they have the backlash that goes with it.

It seems they are not allowed to just be kids and growup having fun and no worries.

Maybe the kids them selves need to say goodbye to facebook, twitter and all that other social media bull crap.

My grownup kids and my grandkids say you nee to get facebook so we can share stuff with you. My answer is, Hey I have a snail mail address and a e-mail address why cant we share that way.

I dont blame the internet. I blame human nature.
[/quote]

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Message 1402429 - Posted: 13 Aug 2013, 2:29:52 UTC

I had a problem earlier this year when someone went after me in a very personal matter on a public forum posting my home address and posting under an account with my real name. They involved my work and mentioned specifics that only someone who worked with me would know. It got really bad when a picture of my home was put up encouraging people to "pay a visit" and posting racial taunts.

Took a sheriff and a private investigator but the issue was resolved (at least for now) but I joined a reputation service and have started the process of wiping my existence off the net.


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Message 1402587 - Posted: 13 Aug 2013, 11:58:47 UTC - in response to Message 1402534.  

@James - I think Facebook & Twitter have caused more problems thaan they solve. We know for a fact that facebook was used to proagate the 2011 England rioits. I have a facebook account because a Canadian relative will only post family phots there and nowhere else. But I never use it for anything else. Personally I would shut them both down, but it will never happen, they make too much money.


And this is where I disagree with you Chris. I just responded to T.A. stating that no one was advocating shutting down websites because we understood them to be tools. Now you're suggesting exactly that.

Shutting down the tools will only cause people to create new ones, and if you make them against the law, they will simply go into the underground. Blaming the tool for the actions of people is not the right way. That isn't the answer to the problem. Addressing the people is the problem.

And I think it's an over-reaction to state that those two sites have caused more problems than they solve. You are only focusing on the negative you hear in the news without regard for the every day use that millions, if not billions of people use without maliciousness.
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Message 1402814 - Posted: 13 Aug 2013, 23:05:40 UTC - in response to Message 1402799.  

And I think it's an over-reaction to state that those two sites have caused more problems than they solve. You are only focusing on the negative you hear in the news without regard for the every day use that millions, if not billions of people use without maliciousness.

Well, we will have to disagree then. I see far more negatives than positives. I see almost every youngster spending their whole social life on Facebook and the like, to the extent that they have lost the ability to converse and socialise face to face with real people, including their own families.

But that isn't the fault of Facebook. Same was said about the Boob Tube. Mommy and Daddy are at fault here.

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Message 1402830 - Posted: 13 Aug 2013, 23:28:08 UTC - in response to Message 1402818.  

Mommy and Daddy are at fault here.

Yes they maybe, but faced with modern life and the allure of sites like facebook, mommy and daddy have no chance whatsoever.

Chris, as a daddy, I completely disagree.
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Message 1402832 - Posted: 13 Aug 2013, 23:29:59 UTC - in response to Message 1402799.  

And I think it's an over-reaction to state that those two sites have caused more problems than they solve. You are only focusing on the negative you hear in the news without regard for the every day use that millions, if not billions of people use without maliciousness.

Well, we will have to disagree then. I see far more negatives than positives. I see almost every youngster spending their whole social life on Facebook and the like, to the extent that they have lost the ability to converse and socialise face to face with real people, including their own families.


That you see more negatives with technology than positives says more about your age (no offense intended) than it does about the reality of the situation. And Gary is right, there has always been something else to blame in the past that "those darned kids these days" were spending their time on.

In a world where technology is connecting people all over the world, face to face socialization, while important, is taking a lesser role in the future of our race. IMO, that's a good thing.
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Message 1402837 - Posted: 13 Aug 2013, 23:43:06 UTC - in response to Message 1402834.  

That you see more negatives with technology than positives says more about your age (no offense intended) than it does about the reality of the situation.

No it doesn't, if I saw any perceivable benefit from it I would use it. I use email and Skype quite happily.


I don't personally see a benefit from it either - I don't have a Twitter account nor Facebook, but that doesn't mean I don't see a benefit for others or complete negativity around it.

In a world where technology is connecting people all over the world, face to face socialization, while important, is taking a lesser role in the future of our race. IMO, that's a good thing.

Rubbish, that is what is helping to breed a race of couch potatoes with nimble fingers who lack social skills and cannot spell.


Right, just like watching the TV all day was going to create a bunch of mindless couch-potatoes!

Communication in any form, be it face to face or electronic, still requires proper social skills. And it has been proven that bad spelling does not prevent another person from understanding what you're trying to say, and ultimately the purpose of communicating with others is to convey ideas - which even bad spelling allows for.

Electronic communication has also opened up tremendous opportunity for people with high-level autism and other mental deficiencies to be able to function in social environments. This is a huge boon for the race as a whole, IMO.
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