Thursday, November 7, 2013

Cyber-Bullying Suicide and Authorities Passing Buck

One thing I have noticed is when there is a case of cyber-bullying, especially when it leads to suicide, there is a passing of the buck by the schools involved or a knee-jerk response on the very wrongly named social network sites as they are far from social. I have seen time and time again where the school has said that there was no knowledge or proof of the bullying and yet the parents or the child would have contacted them so many times as well as proof on the sites that it was happening. The sites of course making spurious claims of dealing with such incidences quickly and decisively like the school. 

Question is though is why with all these so-called and invisible methods of dealing with the rampart and vile bullying on-line that the vile and pathetic morons who bully mercilessly via the keyboard are still able to do so even after so many reports outlining with proof the breaking of terms of service or the rules or conduct at schools? It is a constant on Facebook who made a knee-jerk response after the furor of the trolls attacking Amanda Todd, Rehtaeh Parsons and others yet I have seen pages on there, profiles, and groups dedicated to the cyber-bullying of others. I myself have been a constant victim and even though I tended to go after them as I eventually learned that to treat them like the nothings they truly are where they have no impact on you as they are really nothing in your life it gets disheartening when they are able to report you time and time again to get you banned or suspended and yet no matter what you do to show their bullying it is left to continue.

Reality is that it is numbers and advertising that the sites are interested in and for every one that is bullied it it the numbers of those who bully that they are interested in as 1 person leaving is nothing compared to 3, 5, 10 or more people who stay. Revenue. As for the schools where the students continue the campaign of vile abuse of the psychological, emotional and verbal kind they are not as bad but worse with their lack of actions and leaving the victim to the mercy of the bullies because of 'image'. Schools need to be held accountable legally as well as the sites even though the sites owners are getting around this via being in another country like Latvia as Ask.fm which is known for being a haven for cyber-bullying and the direct cause of allowing cyber-bullying to get to a stage where the victim has killed themselves to escape the barrage of vile taunts. 

There is a duty of care to the people who go to the schools or use sites which is ignored by the ones in charge, the ones whose duty is to enforce it and protect those in them. So why is it that it is often the perpetrators who are supported or left alone while the victims are left defenseless or be told they are responsible? There is a major imbalance between the rights of the victims and the rights of the perpetrators and the ones who sit by and allow the crimes to happen so freely and without consequence. 


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