St4126's Blog

Stephanie Thimothe

Precis #4

Cyber Bullying is a situation when people no longer verbally assault someone they use text and the web to attack another person. Cyber bullies use AIM, chartrooms, MySpace, websites, and emails to attack a person. There is a story that Frontline had covered about a young man who had a pretty good life with his family. He had a close relationship with his father and a couple of good friends. This young man was getting bullied at school and thought that is where it was going to end. However as he would log on to talk to his friends he would get attacked by anonymous users who decided to cyber bully him. Sometimes he would be bullied by one name, other times he would be bullied by groups. He even had the most popular girl in school embarrass him by pretending to be interested in him then telling that it was a joke. This was especially cruel because it was in text, she could share his embarrassing conversation with the whole school if she pleased. He was especially hurt by this. The cyber bullying became intense; there were homosexual rumors that had deeply disturbed the young man.

This story was brought out by the boy’s courageous and hurt father. After such an extended period of time of the boy being bullied at school and at home over the web, the young man searched for an unhealthy outlet. He had found another young man online who had a website that described and assisted in suicide. Because the boy felt that this was a never ending situation and because he felt so helpless this website seemed to be the only answer. No one knew how serious this young man took these online insults. Do to the high frequency of people insulting others online some children became numb to the insults. Not this young man. So he had studied this suicide website and continued to speak to the young man who created the site. The site creator kept encouraging the young boy to commit suicide and seemed frustrated when he prolonged the decision.

So with the encouragement and information from this young man and his website it left our victim with no choice but to commit suicide. When the victim’s sister found him and his parents had to grieve there was nothing but mixed feelings. The father had gone on his sons screen name to discover who and what had led to his son’s irreversible action. When the father had signed on he was attacked with upset friends of his son but then he was comforted with answers. The father had discovered old instant messages his son had saved and had the chance to actually speak to some of his son’s attackers. The father even had a chance to speak to the website creator and the main cheerleader to his sons actions. When the father tried to reach out to the family of the website creator he was met with a cold shoulder. He was never answered and he was never even called back.

This was a terrible story to me. Most children who have the internet have, been bullied, bullied, or witnessed it. You never know how serious it is until it is you who is being attacked. I have defiantly witnessed some online bullying when I was in Highs School. As someone who witnessed it, it could seem like childish teasing, verbal rough housing. I can honestly say within my middle school and High school years I would have never predicted an outcome like this from an instant message. Now as I watch the news I am able to witness a whole lot more and understand a lot more. We have children and adults partaking in online bullying. We have seen fights that have been the outcome of online bullying. Now we have seen online bullying evolve into video bullying. Children now record video of them beating another child or insulting them, then posting it on the web for the whole world to see and comment on. It is embarrassing enough to share a vulnerable moment with those in your town never mind the whole world judging you. I understand you can never stop freedom of speech, but I do believe children need to be educated and encouraged by their peers and parents to not permit bullying. You can never force a child to stop you can only encourage them. I believe a story like this is enough to encourage them.