Starting to feel quite uncomfortable with the language being used with regard to online abuse, bullying etc…
While I sympathise with the family of the girl who killed herself recently, the father is saying that the owners of websites where abuse or bullying takes place should be arrested for murder or manslaughter.

At the same time magazines like Zoo, Nuts etc are going to be placed into the Porno section of the news stand under a modesty cover.

Where has this sudden wave of Victorian prudishness cone from and what is happening to the right of free speech?

Surely if you are getting bullied on a website you report it to moderators, give as good as you get…. or simply switch off the computer and do something else?
How do people become so immersed in the online world that they are prepared to take their own life over cyber bullying?!
The language being used in the press is emotive to say the least, talk of the internet ‘invading’ every aspect of our lives, surely it’s a choice whether one goes on these websites?

I can see this being used as the thin end of the wedge for the government to push through internet censorship and draconian laws on free speech unfortunately.

Ive said it before on another thread like this

– welcome to turkmenistan and the oppression of the people.

Where has this sudden wave of Victorian prudishness cone from and what is happening to the right of free speech?

Conservative poll numbers and the fact it’s August.

Surely if you are getting bullied on a website you report it to moderators, give as good as you get…. or simply switch off the computer and do something else?

The fact a young girl hung herself, is proof the above are not always seen as a viable escape route.

We have a tory goverment……

Maybe it’s about finding a balance?

Tug hungry 15 yr old boys can still buy lads mags and toss themselves silly, but my 6 yr old doesn’t have to see and ask about the ladies with no clothes on in the shop?

And while arresting website owners for murder is a bit far, there is also a balance to be found between allowing people to voice their opinions and letting them be absolute shits to people, and since some are clearly incapable of knowing where to draw the line, the govt, on behalf of us all, has to do it?

Something like that.

I guess to someone young, unhappy and troubled online comments could very easily push you into taking your own life but regardless the website owners aren’t responsible.

The victims of bullying feel trapped and powerless, they feel that reporting or taking positive action against the bullying will just make it worse. Bullies don’t tend to pick on strong in control victims.

I am surprised that so many are ignorant of that fact.

Where has this sudden wave of Victorian prudishness cone from and what is happening to the right of free speech?

I think you misunderstand what freedom of speech is.

Zoo, Nuts and the like are just crap jazz mags and should be treated as such. It isn’t anything to do with being a prude.

Do you have a woman who can think in your life? Most readers of such pish don’t seem to.

what is happening to the right of free speech?

did i miss the great argument defending the right of free speech that allowed you to bully someone to the point they take their own life

TBH its not a right any one needs

Of all the free speech arguments I can think of the right to be mean trolls who goad someone to suicide is someway down my list if not yours.

Bit close to home as my youngest and his mate have had a rough time because they are not in the footy/chav/little shit cohort. The online atacks were a bit full on and relentless – walking away totally from the internet would have deprived them of communications with family and friends elsewhere in the UK. Parents need to be hyper aware of what’s happening with their kids. So sad that someone online can cause a young girl to do this, if mags go in bags so be it. No great shakes.

£10 on ask.fm being added to the ever increasing list of websites to be censored filtered by the so called porn filter…

Cheers

Danny B

Somebody on the radio did point out that at least the girls in the lads mags have curves/weight, as opposed to the far too skinny ones in the girls’/womens mags.

We have a tory goverment……

I completely fail to see the significance of that.

How has a Tory government forced the father of the girl who was bullied to make the comments he made?

And how has a Tory government forced the Co-op to make the demand that lads mags should be placed in modesty bags?

The Co-op is affiliated to the Labour Party btw, not the Tory Party.

Feel for the girls family. Kids/teenagers can be cruel , seem to have a knack for preying on the more vulnerable.

With regards the mags, the editor of nuts, I think, said they would encourage their readers to buy the mag, petrol , do the weekly shop elsewhere. Not sure the purchaser of such mags is the same demographic that does the weekly shop.

surely the coop have the right to freedom of expression in their own stores and can say we will not be forced to display something that contradicts our values so if you want us to sell your product it must not have a cover that speaks against what we stand for.

No one has ever had the right to free speach in this country save for the monarch who has usually been constrained by convention or the church.

As has been said above the right to seek to attack the vunerable and destroy their lives is not Free Speaches best advert. If conduct would be a crime in person or by telepnone or post then it is also criminal on the internet.

Surely if you are getting bullied on a website you report it to moderators, give as good as you get…. or simply switch off the computer and do something else?

walking away totally from the internet would have deprived them of communications with family and friends elsewhere in the UK.

?This

welcome to turkmenistan and the oppression of the people.

Nah, Turkmenistan’s quite classy in places! Main problem is being understood if you don’t speak Russian/ Turkmen. 🙂

It is a worrying time though, and one can’t help thinking this year’s silly season is getting a bit out of hand. The government appears to have finally realised what social media are (like they realised what BBM was during the riots of 2011) – and unfortunately, as then, are blaming the channel for the behaviour.

If I bully a kid at school*, I get told off. If I bully a kid over the internet, the website gets pilloried and threatened with closure and censorship.

Same with the Sun page 3. The underlying behaviour (men being chauvinistic pigs, women being unfairly treated) is an issue, and good that it has some focus. But solve the behaviour, not the one page, two breasts per day in the well-read newspaper.
Mental

* assuming I’m another kid, obviously.

what if the school did nothing about the bullying and claimed that what happened there was nothing to do with them and then went on about free speech and government interference?
This is what we are doing now as some seem to think the usual rules should not apply to the internet.
Imagine this place without the mods for example would civility break out?

deviant – Member

Surely if you are getting bullied on a website you report it to moderators, give as good as you get…. or simply switch off the computer and do something else?
How do people become so immersed in the online world that they are prepared to take their own life over cyber bullying?!

Eh… There’s not an “online world” that’s mysteriously separate from the real world. It’s real people bullying real people in the real world, via a computer. It’s like telling someone that gets threatening phone calls “Why not just not use your phone?”

And don’t forget that in some of these cases it’s people using the internet to attack people they know “irl”, it’s not just random strangers.

It is all getting a little Orwellian but the target audience of Ask FM and Snapchat are not always able to make rational and sensible decisions.

I’m as left wing as it comes on most subjects that are argued about debated on here, but I really fail to see how calls to clamp down on bullying are seen as draconian. As junky says, using the free speech arguement to preserve the right of ‘trolls’ to bully people to the point of suicide, is pretty low down on the list of reason to protect free speech.

I’m not sure where we get the idea of absolute free speech from tbh. If someone walked up to a person in the street and started abusing them racially etc then they would quite rightly be held accountable by law. Is that a totalitarian slight on free speech?

The means of delivery are irrelevant; bullying is not a new phenomena and the same answer to the issue of what to do about it applies just as much now as it did when I was at school 30 years ago.

Punishing the websites is a red herring and will only mean that the means of delivery shifts to something else. Sure we can do it, and I think the websites ought to be sensitive and responsive to it, but it won’t solve the problem.

You have to tackle the bullies directly; through the school system and through their parents and if neccessary through the courts.

or just own them with bombers.

which is a bit hard with faceless cowards that hide and stalk online.

I’m as left wing as it comes on most subjects that are argued about debated on here, but I really fail to see how calls to clamp down on bullying are seen as draconian.

Because it’s not the behaviour (bullying) that’s been clamped down on, it’s the website. “Bullies are on ask.com, so shut down ask.com”. “Trolls are on Twitter so…. do something to Twitter”.

If you shut down ask.com, kids will go and bully kids on Facebook. Turn off offensive comments on Facebook, they’ll do it by text. Censor texts, they’ll do it with a letter through the door. Next step is to open and censor the post, or say that Royal Mail won’t send offensive letters.

Social media have greatly increased the scale of awareness of the problems of bullying and trolling. But teens have been killing themselves because they’re bullied since before ask.com existed; people have been getting threatening letters – or bullets in letters, or whatever – since before Twitter was a thing.

It’s utterly pointless as an exercise to try to censor this activity, and risks a much greater danger, of censorship as a solution to social problems. Far better to *find* the culprits and charge/ ridicule/ publicise them – changing the behaviour, not blaming the routes by which they do it.

Why on earth would you tackle cyber bullies acting home through the school system?

If the issue created by it spill out into school life, then the school will have staff in place to deal with such issues, but if the kids are at different schools (which is likely) then the schools are pretty powerless. That is presuming that the people involved are both school aged kids too!

Edit just seen your post ricko. I agree with what you say, I’m not saying that we should shut these sites down (is anyone saying that?) I think it’s more the way in which sites police these matters-twitter seemed to take a very nonchalant role in dealing with numerous very serious threats made against people on their site. I have no idea what ask.fm is, but if it is a social networking site that attracts large numbers of teens, then in my view it should be prepared to take the responsibility to police it and protect its users.

Why on earth would you tackle cyber bullies acting home through the school system?

It’s as valid a question as ‘why wouldn’t you’.

To answer, from my perspective at least, I still regard the school system as a signficant component in the education and socilisation of children, in the same way that parents are (well they used to be at any rate) and so if there are problems with children bullying other children, regardless of where that happens, the school ought to take a stand on it.

It would be perferctly reasonable to argue that in order to be a pupil at a given school, you need to act in a way that is representative of that school’s values, both inside and outside the school gates.

It’s utterly pointless as an exercise to try to censor this activity, and risks a much greater danger, of censorship as a solution to social problems.

I don’t think it’s entirely pointless as there ought to be standards you adhere to, but your point that it’s not addressing the real issue, which is that some kids will always want to bully other kids, is well made. Shutting down websites is not going to stop bullying.

I’m speaking from some pretty extensive personal experience on this subject BTW. The way I handled the issue was to get aggressive/violent with the perpetrators (sort of ‘owning them with a set of bombers’ but before bombers other than the Raleigh kind were invented).

Unfortunatelt it didn’t work; in fact it worked about as badly as constantly trying to explain the situation to the teachers and my parents did. After fiour years of trying to explain I gave up and just started htting people (I fractured a kids jaw when I was ten or eleven) and almost got expelled from school. Not being taken seriously and not having the issue handled properly is the worst outcome for any kid.

surely if ever there was a need for a big brother type presence then it’s for this kind of stuff..?

what about making all online communications accountable to a proof of identity..?

Not being taken seriously and not having the issue handled properly is the worst outcome for any kid.

Agreed, and I’m not seeking to trivialise the seriousness of any of these issues. It’s just what seems to be coming through (perhaps via the imperfect medium of news reporting) is some kind of crusade against websites where this behaviour can happen, as if that’ll solve the problem.

Realistically, it’s a political strategy, more than a genuine attempt to solve the problem (see also conflating “child porn” with “porn” in discussing ISP filtering). My worry is that it may succeed in an imperfect way (“Twitter now has a ‘report abuse’ button, so that’s that solved/ Ask.com is now censoring responses, problem solved”) that sets a precedent for a) slapdash solving of social problems and b) censorship as a solution to issues, real and political. (again, see also ISP filtering of porn – child porn already being illegal and filtered).

If you shut down ask.com, kids will go and bully kids on Facebook. Turn off offensive comments on Facebook, they’ll do it by text. Censor texts, they’ll do it with a letter through the door. Next step is to open and censor the post, or say that Royal Mail won’t send offensive letters.

I think you are over reacting a bit here and making a rather OTT slippery slope argument.

people have been getting threatening letters – or bullets in letters, or whatever – since before Twitter was a thing.

These things are illegal so perhaps not the best example to use to support your case.

It’s utterly pointless as an exercise to try to censor this activity,

They are not banning the internet just like i can still speak and post letters just not abusive speak or abusive letters.
Why should the internet not have the same laws as other methods of communication?

Cameron making hay

Her father, David Smith, has said those who run the website should face murder or manslaughter charges and called for more regulation of social networking sites.

People who make threats online should be/ are subject to the same rules as people making threats through other channels. But “I received a threatening letter so I’m going to boycott Royal Mail” is as ridiculous as “let’s boycott this website, it allows people to post bullying messages”.

What Northwind said, saves me typing something similar….

I received a threatening letter so I’m going to boycott Royal Mail”

That is a poor comparison for a number of reasons.
Letters are closed and cannot be seen and RM do not know what they are delivering so lets say that banning the ISP is like banning Royal mail

This is like objecting to a paper publishing things and then saying it is nothing to do with them what is in the paper so dont ban us.
Perhaps we have a really racist paper making threats. Now banning it wont stop racists bit we would still ban the paper.

It was inevitable that the leviathan that is the legal system would eventually try and apply the same laws to the cyber world as it does to the real world.

I cannot think of any reason why it should be exempt from the laws

vickypea – Member

What Northwind said, saves me typing something similar….

In addition …

… and that’s how gang membership blossom when a person gets bullied and try to seek help by joining a gang for protection from bullies. Bullies get a kicking, new member get high and more members join … then you have no go streets …

In this case she has not encountered gang membership so see no way out from the bullies …

Whether or not it is a valid argument is irrelevant geetee-school have very little scope to intervene with issues are taking place out of school. That’s not my opinion, it is a fact! I work in education so am fully aware of these types of issues.

nicko74 – Member
Same with the Sun page 3. The underlying behaviour (men being chauvinistic pigs, women being unfairly treated) is an issue, and good that it has some focus. But solve the behaviour, not the one page, two breasts per day in the well-read newspaper.
Mental

😐

Surely a load of men leering over young topless ladies is part of the behaviour (are they considering anything but the tits?), and removing page 3 would solve it pretty quick.

I received a threatening letter so I’m going to boycott Royal Mail”

That is a poor comparison for a number of reasons.
Letters are closed and cannot be seen and RM do not know what they are delivering so lets say that banning the ISP is like banning Royal mail

This is like objecting to a paper publishing things and then saying it is nothing to do with them what is in the paper so dont ban us.
Perhaps we have a really racist paper making threats. Now banning it wont stop racists bit we would still ban the paper.

It’s not quite the same though is it, because the paper decides to publish that content, where as on social media etc the content is user generated.

It’s more like someone putting nasty post-it notes up on a public notice board and then going after the owner of the notice board.

Proper processes in place for reporting and removing the notes and then bannign the perp from using the board would be an appropriate response, banning the board is not.

sudden wave of Victorian prudishnes

If we learned anything from the victorians it’s that up-front prudishness covers up all manner of sins. Habitual drug taking, child prostitution, murder on an epic scale, kinks that would make most hardcore porn sites be shut down and so on.

It’s just pandering to the most idiotic denominator really.

It’s not quite the same though is it, because the paper decides to publish that content, where as on social media etc the content is user generated

which the site publish but claim it has nothing to do with them.
Still its a nice counter point you made re how you view it and I do get your point of view but I disagree. I think we do need some sort of happy medium though between a free for all anonymous bullying troll a thon and puritanical censorship.