Is Mobile Bullying Worse?
from the the-enemy-you-can't-see... dept
This isn't the first time people have been upset that online and mobile bullying seems worse than physical bullying. In fact, the story has been covered many times before. However, there is an interesting discussion on why the bullying seems so much worse. With mobile and online bullying, the victim often feels as though everyone is ganging up on him or her. They have no way to tell how many people are really taking part in the bullying -- or sharing in the results. Bullies are often taking information and posting it on the internet or sending it to plenty of friends, leading to a feeling of all against one. At the same time, unlike traditional bullying, mobile bullying can follow you everywhere you go. Also, the last resort to physical bullying, punching the bully back, isn't available. So is there anything that can be done? Should kids learn to virtually bully back the virtual bullies, or are their better solutions? Some people have said that cyber-bullying has allowed for a "revenge of the geeks," since it's often the geeks who are better able to cyberbully, compared to other kids who are better built for bullying on the playground. Of course, these days, with so many kids learning and understanding phones and computers, that's probably not as true any more.
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Paper trail
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Re: Paper trail
Local police and/or school administrators are often too clueless to follow it. Even when presented with evidence you can still get "kids being kids" type thing and refer it back to the parents (who likely do NOTHING at all...), OR you will be told that the evidence itself isn't admissible if it was collected in the wrong manner.
On the other hand, the target of the bullying likely is not savvy enough either to realize that he CAN fight back (either with evidence and going to the authorities, or simply using other tactics in cyberspace etc..) and so feels incredibly helpless.
If the bully is both computer savvy and subtle, the bullying can go on for a long period with devastating effects without looking serious enough in the few cases that CAN be brought to authorities to warrant an arrest or sanctions.
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How to bully online
This went on for years and I still have transcripts of all of this saved to disk.
For my piece de la resistance last year I printed out all three of the photo's in a lovely photoshop collage including all 3 email addresses he uses. I took the 50 copies and mailed them from another state to every customer of his I could locate. To seal the deal, I emailed the pictures to everyone in his office including his boss.
To this day I suspect he knows it might have been me, but the fact is he has no proof AND he is the idiot that sent me the compromising photo's in the 1st place.
and no, I have no regrets.
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Re: How to bully online
Good job.
(note the sarcasm)
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