offline assault, cyberbullying via YouTube, and deterrence

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This story, which involves a digitally-recorded video of three teens throwing a 32-ounce soda on a girl working the window at a Taco Bell drive-thru, is a newer iteration of cyberbullying which we’re seeing more often. The boys posted the video on YouTube, which led to repeated embarrassment and humiliation for the girl. She was bold and savvy enough to discover the identity of the boys and report them to law enforcement – which deserves commendation. I only wish that the punishment handed down by the judge was better conceived. I think that shaming in general can be highly-effective when dealing with real-world wrongdoing simply because we care a great deal about our social standing and the way that we’re perceived by others. I just don’t know if shaming is an effective sanction when dealing with online harassment because the culture as a whole hasn’t collectively shunned and denounced the act (like the real-world offenses of child abuse and rape have been denounced). There is not really any negative stigma associated with cyberbullying in our society, and so shaming is not the best punitive option.

5 Comments

  1. This is interesting. I guess I'm sort of surprised that the teens were punished at all, to be honest. It's an assy thing to do to a drive-thru clerk, and posting the video on YouTube definitely raises the overall level of assiness of their "prank," but I am still surprised that it resulted in any type of official sanction. Plus, you have to wonder: do the kids who threw a full soda at a drive-thru clerk really care about having to make (and post) an apology video? And wasn't making them recreate their actions, only this time deciding to abort the prank, sort of lame? Or am I just cynical?

  2. They´re putting lots of awfull videos in youtube and the network is not punishing them. Also we need to make youtube take down these groups which support cyberbullying and hacking on the network as well. I´m really sick of this cyberbullying party…

  3. I also think parents need to make it their business to know what their kids are viewing online and what they are doing in their online life. Whether they are falling victim (and many times not knowing this) or even if they are the perpetrator.

    My company has just lauched a service (8snaps.com) to help parents and schools deal with cyberbullying by gaining visibility into their childrens online life. The service is currently free – I invite you to take a look and help us spread the word to make the world a safer place for children to grow.

    Jackie

  4. http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20101025/1745461
    This article focuses on cyber bullying. It brings up a case about a youtube video of a group of girls bullying another girl. There is an argument whether or not this violated a young teen girls first amendment. This girl was suspended from school after posting a youtube of herself harassing another student along with her friends. “Another key feature that makes cyber bullying so problematic is the fact that hurtful or humiliating content can be sent to a large number of people in a short period of time” (Hinduja 22). With sites like youtube, one can not only hear but see who is being targeted as a victim. People can make comments and share it amongst their peers

  5. There are a lot of videos on youtube about fighting. There are even bum fights where they pay homeless people to fight. The fighting that happens in these videos can give young kids ideas about fighting or it might teach kids that fighting is not a big deal. With the size differences in middle schools because of kids hitting puberty at different times, if an early developing child decides he wants to fight like he has seen online then he could seriously and permanently damage another kid. Also some people put personal videos on youtube as a way for family and friends to see and strangers could watch and put ugly comments on that will make some people feel very bad about themselves.

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