Friday, November 16, 2007

Don't be a Victim of Cyberbullies!

Hey guys and gals. I'm sure many of you have myspace, facebook, or any other social network accounts. I'm sure you guys are mature enough to know who to talk to on these social networks. But if you don't.. maybe you should take a peek at this video: LINK. This video is about a girl who committed suicide last year because she was deeply into myspace and talking to a stranger who played with her heart. It is truly a tragic event and will hopefully teach other members a lesson.

7 comments:

Derek Lee said...

Honestly, I think that this is horrible. I watched the video and apparently it was just another mother trying to get information from the victim, Megan. Yet her posts seemed to drive her over the edge. How could law enforcement not do anything about this. She was obviously one of the main reasons for her suicide. I guess there was no actual illegal activity, but there should still have been some punishment for that woman. This is why it is important not to talk to complete strangers over the internet as they can be somebody completely different.

benji said...

This wasn't regular cyber-bullying. This was a deliberate attack on a girl, from someone she knew. That woman probably still feels bad about what happened, even if it was a year ago. While what she did was wrong and immature, Megan must have also been pretty emotionally unstable to take what someone said on myspace so seriously. Thanks for another depressing video story from CNN that we can't do anything about, Allen. I still got respect for you though.

Allen Kim said...

sorry benji :(

Annie C said...

That's absolutely terrible. :(
To think that someone could do something like that, merely to find out the reason why two thirteen year olds were in a dispute.
What really infuriates me, however, was that the family at fault's only response has been "Give it a rest"
How could you do that after causing their daughter to commit suicide?
I think that the family in question should at least be regretful and sympathetic.
At the very LEAST
Plus, I would imagine that there's something immoral if not illegal about causing someone to commit suicide.


On a completely different note, though this seems somewhat inappropriate, I have to comment on the way these social networking sites are changing and will change our future.
These networking sites allow us to communicate with people, that we've been geographically isolated from, much more conveniently as well as offering a whole new spectrum of enterprise opportunities. TV Shows, Presidential candidates, new businesses, and even interest groups are taking advantage of these sites. Though they seem somewhat natural to us, this is a major change for the older generation. It's bound to affect our futures as we become more able to maintain international relationships, an easy method of finding people, and new quicker forms of reaching more people.
It also offers a new range of methods to set the stage for committing crimes such as harassment, abuse, abduction, identity theft, and the numerous cases of pedophilic rape.
Though this has begun to open numerous doors to changes in the future of our jobs and relationships, instances such as this are going to lead to new enforcement over these networking sites.
Unfortunately the broad scope of the internet provides a limitless field in which people can dodge restrictions. New sites offer new opportunities.
For instance, take a look at illegal downloading of music. Napster was one of the first, and it was believed that by punishing those involved others would be dissuaded from doing it. Despite this, many people continue to illegally download music.
There is no effective way to respect privacy and monitor people to catch them committing crimes.
This will doubtlessly cause problems.

Anonymous said...

Wow this is terrible, I've never heard of anyone committing suicide from a myspace dispute, but I have heard of girls meeting strangers online and then agreeing to meet the stranger in person...only to find out he is not really who he said he was. The internet can be a very dangerous place, especially for people who are emotionally unstable and are easily prone to fall for an online "mystery man" or take a myspace/facebook comment too seriously. Unfortunately, I think the problem of stopping 'cyberbullies' is near impossible because the government cannot regulate every website/social network, and if it did people would complain its a violation of the 1st amendment. And even if social networks try to bar adolescents from joining by making a minimum age limit, teens can just lie about their age and there is no way for the website to verify the person's age.

Ryan Landis said...

Pretty sad :(. I am not a huge fan of any of those sights, but I definitely see how something like this could happen. If anyone has seen the show where they catch child predators it is freaky just what happens on the web. There needs to be some stricter regulation for internet sights because I know the statistics are pretty staggering for website related crimes, attacks, and murders. What is worse though is that it is children that are being effected the most and parents are not realizing how dangerous the internet really is!

erika kwee said...

I hadn't heard about this incident before so I looked at http://www.chicagotribune.com/services/newspaper/printedition/saturday/chi-suicidenov17,0,2946138.story for some background information.

I think it is disgusting and almost unbelievable that this cyberbullying was perpetrated by the parents of a child. The parents! Could it get any more creepy or immature?

Obviously, there should be some way to eliminate false identities online, especially trivial social networking sites such as myspace. This may be completely unpractical or unfeasible but I think people should be made to divulge their social security number (okay, maybe not) or SOMETHING when they register for an account so that they can't just make up multiple accounts and perform such ridiculous hoaxes. Because this is seriously ridiculous.