Some Want Cameraphones Banned Due To Happy Slapping

Mon, May 23rd 2005 4:14am — Mike Masnick

It never fails. Every time some moron kids do something stupid with a camera phone, instead of blaming the moron kids, people start screaming about why we need to ban cameraphones. The latest is in reaction to the ridiculous "Happy Slapping" situation -- which sounds like it's been blown out of proportion to how serious an issue it's really become -- where the mother of one victim is saying cameraphones should be banned, or, at the very least there should be an age limit on them, like cigarettes. The problem, of course, is that there's no age limit on stupidity -- and people will still get cameraphones and still do stupid things with them. The real issue is making sure that those who do these stupid things -- especially in the happy slapping cases where the morons film themselves doing stupid things -- get punished.

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Keestaeh, 23 May 2005 @ 4:14am

happy slapping & cell phones
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Keestaeh, 23 May 2005 @ 4:14am

happy slapping & banning cell phones
Sorry about previous post (hit return by mistake). If technophobes want to start banning gadgets because of potential misuse or harmful effects they might want to look at ordinary consumables like tobacco & alcohol (which both would not pass FDA scrutiny if introduced today) before they get their skivvies in a knot about anything else. Remember when kids played with cast acrylic balls on strings. They banged together violently and caused innumerable injuries from impact and plastic shrapnel when they shattered and what about 'lawn darts'? How much brain damage did they cause before we woke up?
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Danno, 23 May 2005 @ 4:14am

... I don't get it. Seems like the standard reaction of a person who doesn't know shit about technology to an act that they don't like that uses a certain technology is to ban it. But why don't they try and do this to older technologies? Like guns, and cars, and non-cellular phones, and television...
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