Don't Blame Facebook For Some Kids Beating Up Another Student
from the missing-the-point dept
Pickle Monger alerts us to a CNN story suggesting that a Facebook group "may have lead to the beating of a 12-year-old" boy. Really? Facebook could do that rather than a group of kids who are bullies? The "group" in question was apparently a group (potentially inspired by a South Park episode) for a national "kick a ginger" (redhead) day. There was actually some controversy about this last year as well. It seems bizarre to blame Facebook (or, for that matter, South Park) for this at all, and so Pickle Monger went and checked out the actual Facebook group and noted: "There doesn't seem to be any outrageous comments. In fact most comments are in good humor, some by readheads. The event has one confirmed guest - assumingly the creator, who seems to be readheaded (assuming it's his photo on the profile). The event has two people awaiting reply." Kids do stupid things, and sometimes the stupid things they do involve hitting other kids. That's not the fault of Facebook.
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Filed Under: blame, bullies, south park
Companies: facebook
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Readheads?
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That and everyone knows ginger people are inbred.
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Now, that aside...... it is not acceptable to taunt anyone for anything, and I told my children that and told them that they would get the old 'slap on the backside of the head' if they did that... and they took me seriously and didn't do that, at least not in front of me.
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if anything we should be greatful to facebook
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but i meant "kids who did the beating". my bad. If there were no beating and 'readheads' were not a protected group it would be ok to say lets beat em.
Personally i am on the "you have to at least attempt to do the crime, to do the time" school of thought, but that no longer holds in this country.
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If I think really hard about killing somebody; all I'm guilty of is using my imagination.
If I stab a guy two dozen time in the liver with a dull pair of scissors; that's attempted murder.
See the difference? Real world action vs NO real world action. Colloquially known as "no harm, no foul."
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This "conspiracy to commit" douse not extend to many other things. There is no such charge as conspiracy to commit bullying.
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See the difference?
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Still got to do an ACTUAL ACTION that shows that you were planning to ACTUALLY TRY to do the thing in question.
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isn't that the definition of attempted murder?
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> hate crime. You can not say lets beat all
> the gays these days. We have legislated thought
> crimes in the good old USA.
Wrong.
The Supreme Court has specifically ruled that hate speech is protected speech and cannot be outlawed. (See American Nazi Party vs. City of Skokie, Illinois)
If you actually beat up someone for being gay, that's a hate crime. If you just talk about how much you want to beat up gay people, that's hate speech, but it's perfectly legal.
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but really, where are the parents in this? why arent they stepping up and not procreating if they have red hair?
/lolz
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Essentially its irreponsible parents who don't keep an eye on what their kids are doing. These parents then feel guilty for their failures but don't want to feel guilty. They summon up some outrage and unleash it at the "cause" of all the problems, which in this case is a cartoon watched and appreciated by millions of adults. The media then jumps on it because they love moral panic stories and we end up with this kind of rubbish.
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nice avatar btw, Malkavians rule!
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I saw that on the news the other day
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Where were the ISP cops?
While the ISPs are adding magic filters to automatically detect copyright infringing and business model damaging traffic, they should also add filters for other illegal activities. That way the children* would finally be safe
*Those with red hair at least
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being a parent has never been easier!
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:o)
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It was probably the fault of the news media.
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Of course blame facebook! Think of the Children!
/sarcasm
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"Where are the parents"
And just what do you expect the parents to do? Restrain them; spank them; punish in some way? That just invites the Neighborhood Watch Facebook group to chime and and helpfully call the Department of Children and Family Services. Then all those silly parents can spend their time talking to lawyers and not messing with their precious Facebook hero children.
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I get sick and tired of reading stories of a spoiled little rotten care bear parents child who calls the cops when they don't get their way. Like the little douche bag who call the cops, because his parents took away his xbox. The kid who killed his dad, because he took something away from him.
There is a difference between flat out beating your child, and disciplining them. Kids now-a-days don't have the fear of their parents in them, and that should change. Stop letting the care bears who don't have kids, and don't deal with a child who is unruly on a daily basis tell you how to raise your children. They get it taught to them at the start that their parents can't spank them if they do they should call 911.
complete BS.
I agree it's up to the parents to make sure that their kids don't do anything bad. Monitor their time on the internet, tv, video games, etc... Parents are too afraid to even do that anymore, because their afraid that their snot nosed little brats will get them arrested or taken away from them for it.
Only thing a social worker should be concerend about is if the kid is just flat out getting beaten, not fed, etc... something that will endanger their lives, but getting a spanking/whooping no not their place to tell real parents how to deal with their children.
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That is the bottom line: filtering software = useless if your child knows how to make a Linux partition (not hard to do) on their computer's hard drive.
It's time to realize that you CANNOT control what your children see..... unless you are going to be standing in the room looking over their shoulder for the ENTIRE time that they are using the internet, which gets annoying to both child and parent.
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You're all missing the point
Even better we could "Blame Canada"
On a serious note... I'm tired of parents NOT parenting their own children but want to parent mine. It's not your damn job, nor did I give it to you.
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Sick of this
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that said, i approve the above post.
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The fact is that most of these children have been raised in homes where they are told that 'beating someone up is a good thing to do if you don't like them!' The definition of white/whatever race trash home, unfortunately.
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It's a fault of the societal group the children are in too.
Granted most parents I see today are clueless about their children and would never think they are in the wrong and even if they did think that they probably put their parental instincts first and ignore the signs.
But communities are also responsible for the environment the children grow up and pick behaviours from.
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Kick the Can Day
* Hey DH, I take no responsibility if you actually get beat up today.
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Post to Facebook
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If you want to avoid gingervitis, marry an asian. They don't carry the gene.
South Park, Colorado.
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Facebook and bias
Maybe it's like the stuff about Japanese-Americans before World War Twice - oh, wait, we put them in concentration camps!
Well, we all know Facebook had no part in it, right? Duh!
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