June 22, 2005 4:00 AM PDT
When 'digital bullying' goes too far
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results in embarrassment can easily start out as an innocent stab at humor.
Take the Web phenomenon known as "Moshzilla." Earlier this year, 19-year-old student Alex Stram took his new digital camera to a San Diego hardcore rock show, snapped a slew of pictures and posted them to his online photo gallery. One funny but arguably less-than-flattering picture of a young woman moshing sparked the imaginations of viewers, who Photoshopped the mosher into a range of poses, including dancing in an iPod ad, walking on the moon, and duking it out in the boxing ring with Homer Simpson. Creative, to be sure. But some images were less innocuous, depicting the girl, for example, in sexually compromising positions.
"The message we're sending out is, 'Don't suffer in silence. This isn't just a bad joke.'"
Within a few weeks, the photos had spread to multiple message boards, some of which were attracting a quarter of a million hits and 30 responses a page.
"I thought it was all in good clean fun," Stram told CNET News.com. "I didn't post a picture with any malicious intent."
The girl dubbed Moshzilla, apparently, wasn't too thrilled. "Some of the pictures that were Photoshopped were amazing; some were pretty malicious and cruel," she said in an interview on Moshzilla.com, a site that was set up by a mosher other than Stram as a tribute to the phenomenon. "So even though some of those pictures I laughed at hysterically with my boyfriend, you can't help but realize that you are being humiliated across the country. In a nutshell, I feel sh***y."
A message on Moshzilla.com says the site has been taken down at the request of the 17-year-old girl in the picture and a threat of a lawsuit from her parents. Stram, for his part, hasn't been contacted by lawyers, but he has taken down the more explicit Moshzilla pics from his site. "I did try to censor," he said. "I didn't want it to get out of hand."
It comes down to contextFive months after posting the original shot, Stram still finds Photoshopped images of the girl in his in-box. And he's still amazed that a random picture he took at a Righteous Jams concert has spawned an Internet craze. The irony of Moshzilla's reported distress, he said, is that a friend of his whose picture is posted in the same gallery would love nothing more than to be Internet-infamous. "We were like, 'If my picture was all over the Internet, I would be proud of it,'" Stram said.
Carr of the NCH acknowledges that context is everything when it comes to determining what crosses the line from good-natured fun to digital bullying. Digital communication, after all, can lack the nuance of a smirk or a wink, and a comment that comes across as hilarious in person can seem heartless when flashed across a cell phone screen or monitor. In Ryan's experience, it's easier to slam others when you're not looking them in the eyes.
"IM seems kind of cool; it's another way of talking," he said. But sometimes, kids "use it to say messed-up things, as if it's OK to say on IM."
To help young people who have experienced distress as a result of digital bullying, NCH and British mobile phone service Tesco Mobile have launched an interactive Web site, StopTextBully.com, which identifies a variety of high-tech bullying tactics and offers guidelines for alerting authority figures, mobile phone networks, Internet service providers and more.
Categories represented on the site include threats by text message, phone, e-mails, Internet and chat rooms, as well as Web sites dedicated to denigrating young people in front of their peers.
"It's so easy to set up a Web site about anything from skating to your favorite group," the site says. "But it's not OK for a site to insult you or get people at school to say bad stuff about you or 'vote' about how you look or what you're like."
NCH and Tesco Mobile also have set up a 24-hour text message service for kids, who can text the word "bully" and receive a message containing advice and support.
Carr hopes young people will start acknowledging when they feel uncomfortable or threatened via their gadgets--and know that there's something they can do about it.
"We're trying to create a climate in which they feel they can come forward," Carr said. "The message we're sending out is, 'Don't suffer in silence. This isn't just a bad joke.'"
22 comments
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someone is making fun of me with a cell phone instead of to my
face, i'm going to go cry to my mom. Give me a break.
The demans on school children (in the west anyway) are no higher today than they were in the past. I think this way because I'm still in high school and I see no difference in the demands we have today versus the descriptions of the demands that were placed on students in the relatively recent past.
There's no question that most bullies are themselves insecure and terrified of rejection, which is why they attack those they see as easy targets rather than developing actual personalities. And in many cases, other like-minded kids join in, seeking acceptance through conformity. But aside from seeking intervention by adults, which is exactly what this article is about, there's only so much a bully's victim can do, except fight back (which often escalates the problem, and/or gets the victim in just as much trouble as the bully), or withdraw, which you seem to think makes them weak.
I have to say, I'm glad all this technology wasn't around when I was in high school. The power of the internet, and in many cases cell phones, to turn otherwise normal people into complete raving a-holes is well-documented, and I'm sure that only compounds the pressures of high school.
Something needs to be done about this because people are getting hurt and people think it's okay when in reality it's not
And people have become ever braver in their anonymity to insult and attempt to intimidate.
Oh yes and some may call me a wimp for not adapting so well.Maybe I am.I have always been very pro free speech so what is wrong with me ?
Maybe on the internet I have seen it used to often to cry fire in the theatre just for kicks or fraud.
On the other hand,I have seen on ragingbull.com or yahoo stock message boards, gross lies and fraud all for the purpose of making a buck or cheating someone out of theirs.I have seen penny stock company press releases that are only for fraud and there is no 'authority figure' to go to,the SEC does not even patrol these areas or these releases.They allow a penny stock mafia to run free.
And I have seen the same penny stock 'execs' go to lengths to threaten and abuse or have insiders post threats or abuse to those who speak out against their frauds.Just look at the penny stock fraud insiders to the frauds who tout on ragingbull,visit it.It is like the wild west of internet cyberfraud and the SEC does nothing and you can't go to police or your broker if you're robbed.
If you're looking for just one example try ragingbull's CMKX message board where unfortuneate souls have been lied to and defrauded by Canadian and LKas Vegas criminals including the infamous mafiosi Mr.Maheu of Howard Hughes fame,using fraud claims of 'naked shorting' as they dump unaudited shares that would make German money printing of the 30's seem conservative.All by unending promises of diamonds and gold never found much less mined.
And using even Christianity or whatever scam to brainwash their defrauded cult.
As one example of this do a google search, 'wolfblitzzer0' and find in law.com or 'wolfblittzer0'and this link
<a class="jive-link-external" href="http://www.miaminewtimes.com/issues/2005-02-10/news/feature_6.html" target="_newWindow">http://www.miaminewtimes.com/issues/2005-02-10/news/feature_6.html</a>
to find how how just one alias on ragingbull trying to do good by confronting the penny stock pump and dump of Universal Communications or 'ucsy' CEO Michael Zwebner was harrassed and even the real Wolf Blitzer and CNN who were lucky enough to afford their own lawyer were attacked by the CEO just because he could use shareholder money for frivolous litigation and yes continue even then touting and dumping shares of a non-producing shell of a company without even getting the SEC's attention even then.Money from 'air',or dumped shares,more so than the 'water' from 'air' they claim.
Yes say those who are abused or defrauded are wimps or naive and deserve it,whether they be children or naive adults and you may be correct,I don't know.
But there are no real laws that protect the individual even though the government or criminal corps may successfully abuse or intimidate individuals.Free speech may be curtailed yet but I fear it will not be for purpose of protecting the weakest or stopping fraud.
On ragingbull alone,(where search engines don't go for some reason),I have seen the cyber chatter of penny stock fraud and lies and illegal pumps and dumps that can easily be used for money laundering and no one does a thing.I knew a day in advance,(FROM RB'S 'JAG NOTES' OR 'JAGH'message board),a $100,000 + paid letter-ad to President Bush would appear in the Washington Post on February 8 claiming fraudulently that 'naked short selling' was a danger to SS investments in the market.
Whatever one thinks of investing SS funds in the market this was a fraudulent lie by a known criminal and even far right political gang who had used the fraudulent claim in the past to pump and dump stocks with penny shares the SEC has refused to audit and claim the dumped shares are 'naked shorts'.The SEC or the FBI had and still have a good record on ragingbull of the premedited nature of the securities fraud,the Washington Post does too,but no one does a thing.
Maybe free speech will be curtailed but I fear it will not be to stop the real abuses but to protect the powerful in government and their corporate criminal partners unfortunately.
If you are robbed or threatened or abused in your own home you can at least put in an official complaint of what was stolen or injuries inflicted.On the internet even this all breaks down.
But, text messages like "We know where you live, and we are going to burn down your house, and you will die"? I'm sorry, reguardless of you or others think, that is a threat and should be treated as such. The cell carriers keeps logs on this stuff for billing purposes, so all it would take is a police report and a supeona to prosecute the punk.
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A Childhood Taken Away By a Mother and Grandfather.
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ISBN: 1413775195
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Linda Sommer Farley's reasons for her book are simply to reach out to others that are suffering and to show them that they too can rise above it all and change their lives. Her book is inspirational as well as motivational. Linda Sommer Farley is a proven author and survivor.
First, context: I'm no luddite. I'm a software developer who's done nothing but computers and the Internet for over a decade. I've programmed, eat, slept, and breathed computers since I was 12. I'm hardly your "turn off your phone and go live in the woods" nutjob.
But increasingly, I wonder. I see, over and over, how our stimulation-addled, anonymous culture is beginning to treat lives as disposable commodities. I've seen people eschew real-world relationships in order to spend more time IM'ing or texting or MySpace-ing, or whatever the new fad is this week. I've seen *real suffering*, all in the name of being "trendy" and hip.
I'm seeing more and more people who seem to believe that it's acceptable to be incredibly rude and offensive to each other, just because they're shielded with the anonymity of an online handle or safely ensconced in their car. I get on a bus and I have to listen to the gal next to me jabbering away about her latest pap smear or the guy she's screwing at top volume on her cell phone. To an earlier generation this simply wouldn't be acceptable; it's not just the technology, it's the very rudeness... it's the absolute disregard for the feelings or personal space of the people around you.
No, I'm not in favor of pampering (or, as one poster elegantly put it, "pussifying") our kids. But this isn't about that. This is about our culture, and its slow degeneration into a pack of narcissistic, popularity-obsessed boors.
Is this really the reward we get for all our hard technological work? A society where nobody actually *cares* about anyone else but themselves (except as someone to be used or bragged about), and where everyone is simply a disposable commodity -- an entry on a "friends" list; easily added and just as easily deleted?
Hmm.
From a Fifteen Year Old Teen Who Believes in the Possible Refinement of the Youth
From a Fifteen Year Old Teen Who Believes in the Possible Refinement of the Youth
I think our culture does need a little refinement... nothing wrong with not wanting to be continually harassed. Why do people enjoy this sort of thing? It also takes all your focus and energy away from what is really important. Improving your own life.