I was reading through People magazine the other day and saw that the lead story was about a gay teenage boy, Tyler Clementi, who committed suicide after his roommate recorded and streamed a video of him and a love interest online. This story really made me think about the power of the internet, and how it's lack of privacy can lead to such destructive behaviors.
The boy's roomate created an internet chat group with the intention of sharing the video with all of his friends. He tweeted that he was going to videotape Tyler again and encouraged people to video chat with him during those hours. Tyler found out about the webcam and jumped off the GW bridge a day later. What really struck my attention was how selective people are in what they decide to read and respond to on Twitter, or any other online forum. They were interested enough to read about the webcam, but chose to ignore Tyler's "Jumping off the gw bridge. Sorry" post the day he committed suicide. People have begun to take advantage of the openness of the internet, and it has become so suggestive that it causes normal teenagers to believe that they have no reason to live. Although I appreciate the convenience of the internet, as well as it's easy access, I think that it has become far too available for those people who use it with the wrong intentions. Online bullying has become a very serious problem, and I think a major reason behind it is the lack of privacy of most of the social networking sites, including Twitter, Facebook and Youtube that millions of people use daily.
This story made me wonder if such a simple solution as a content filter for such sites, or more specific requirements to become members of those sites could make a difference in the prevalence of online bullying. If these sites were less available would it discourage people from using them in the wrong way? Thoughts?
I tried to find the article online but wasn't successful. I'm sure you could find it somewhere if you looked around enough
While I'm all for freedom and the right to post what you want, I think limits are necessary. A content filter could stop people like Dharun Ravi and Molly Wei from being able to post videos of other people having sex. However, responsibility and maturity should have prevented this. Parents should teach their children what is appropriate to post online and what isn't.
ReplyDeleteI found the article for anyone who wants to look at it. http://www.people.com/people/article/0,,20430783,00.html
I was really hoping that someone would post something about this topic! I think it's an excellent way for us to talk about things that are currently happening in the world that are also related to topics in class.
ReplyDeleteThat being said, I totally agree with your point, Sarah, about people choosing to ignore certain things. I had heard of the suicide but I had no idea that Tyler had posted that he was going to do so on Facebook. Someone could have reported that and sent cops to the bridge...maybe it was an empty threat...or maybe that boy's life could have been saved. I think it would've been worth reporting just in case.
In most situations you have to take the good with the bad and the internet is no exception. All of the great advantages it brings us also come with a heavy price. Cyber-bullying is a serious offense that has led to many people hurting themselves. I hope that something can be done to fix this.
I think the content filter thing is a good idea. I also like Ashley's idea of having parents teach their kids. I think that some sort of ad campaign should be set up to encourage parents to talk to their children and increase awareness. Similar to those ads that went out in the past year about being careful what you say in text messages.
I also hope that those students do receive a severe punishment for this.
i hope we talk about this when we get to cyberbullying
ReplyDeleteThere is a lot of press about this story right now, so it would be an appropriate one to talk about when we get to cyberbullying. Sarah suggests that maybe people ignored the student's warning that he was jumping off the bridge. I don't think that's the case; I think he posted the message just before he died, so unfortunately there wasn't much time to help.
ReplyDeleteI think the suggestion about censoring or blocking certain content from the web or online venues is an interesting one. It is already a crime to "collect or view images of someone nude or engaged in sexual conduct" without their consent (as one of the websites I read put it). It's also illegal to pass along such images. So there are already laws to cover this type of activity. (Keep in mind that viewing people nude online with their consent is legal [just like seeing a movie with naked people in it is not illegal].)
In some ways it seems to me that this post and Mike's are related - both have to do with illegal online activities. I mean - pirating music, movies, etc is illegal right? In both of these cases (pirating copyrighted content; posting video of someone without consent) the internet has made something easy that used to be much more difficult to do.
I like Ashley's suggestion about parental education about correct (and legal?) use of the internet. I mean, I really doubt that the Rutgers students who posted the video meant serious harm. Yes, what they did was horrifically cruel. But by all accounts they are not bad people; they are just typical who did not stop and think about the implications of their actions. I think they are probably good people who did a tragically bad thing. So - what kinds of education do you think might help prevent this type of thing?
This and Mike's post were both very interesting to me and I do see how they are related. I feel like there is this sense of not being connected to anything or anyone (at least those who could get you in trouble) while on the internet... I mean it does just seem like you and your computer... how could anyone else find what you did or said on there? I think we talked about this in class about how things seem "less real" or "less severe" when they are on the internet... like someone said something mean but it was online... Why does that change the nature of the statement? And in this case of the suicide it didn't. It didn't matter that this happened on the internet, it was hurtful and it had consequences.
ReplyDeleteAnd the piracy thing is interesting too. I know people feel like what they do on their computer is their business and who is to watch what they do... but it's illegal and they can.
We recently talked about this story in one of my other classes. I found it extremely sad that people would do something as awful as this, and that it would result in the death of an individual. I guess that is why I sometimes take such a negative view of the internet because I tend to see the bad over the good. Don't get me wrong, I think the internet has so many great aspects and resources, and I am thankful we have technology that allows us to communicate with virtually anyone and provides us so many various opportunities and conveniences, but this alone is what tends to on occassion, overshadow the positive things. I get that this is a result of a person's actions, but with the internet, this persons actions were possible, and not all people have the intelligence or maturity to know that doing things such as this is absolutely wrong. I think sometimes the culture of the internet (it being anonymous and accessible at any time) often encourages negative behaviors.
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