You hear them talk about it on TV like it's the biggest problem ever, but they think about it from a very one-sided standpoint. "Oh no, these awful people on the internet made a kid sad! Clearly it is the internet's fault, let's blame people who use the internet and no one else." That is a summary of every "cyber bulling is bad :(" discussion ever.
Guess what, the world is full of awful people. There is nothing anyone can do to make them go away. The internet connects awful people together and puts them in one place, so they can feel less bad about how awful they are by being awful to everyone. When you're online, you're pretty much in the position to talk to any bad person who uses a computer. Cyber bulling is nothing like actual bullying though. Actual bullying involves a person you can see, who can actually do things that can actually bother you. Anyone who feels sad because of cyber bullying doesn't belong on the internet, because quite simply, if you go on any website where you talk to other people, it's going to happen. Period. Nothing can be done about it. I don't know what causes people to be bothered by it either. Someone bothering you through IM? Block them. Email? Block them. If you're on a message board where everyone hates you, get off it.
Parents, if your kid is online, get him or her off. Kids don't belong online, period. They bother older people with their immaturity, which tends to trigger the cyber bullying in the first place. Then the kid stays on the website for months because for some reason, he or she can't just get off and never have to deal with anyone from it again.
And a lot of the time, the kids are instigating. The door swings both ways. When kids realize that they can say anything they want online and not get a time-out, they go totally apeshit. Every other word is a poorly written swear. Let me give you an example (written myself):
Mature person: "I enjoy listening to Franz Ferdinand. Does anyone else enjoy listening to this band of which is pretty good in my opinion?"
9 year old's response: "what th shit fucking dude tey suck jonas borthes 4ever!!! u r fucking so stupid u ass shit bitch u r so stpuid go suck ur moms cockLOLOL1!"
Anyone who's been on YouTube will probably describe that as accurate. The spelling and grammar of any kid online will bother everyone else, as well as the immaturity. You can argue that cyber bullies say whatever they want in front of the screen because they can't see the person, but would any of the little kids who do this say these things out loud to someone? No. So parents, get your kids offline.
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