Online bullying.

[#1]

The BBC is carrying a story today about the effects on children of constant bullying from school trolls. Having been a School Governor, I have seen first hand what the effects of this kind of behaviour can be on children; they often can't escape from it and it's reinforced by having to meet those who are doing it face to face in school every day. Problem is, what can realistically be done about it, apart from banning your offspring from having a twitter or facebook account. Or maybe that's the answer.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-37970725

[#2]

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@nozzer wrote:

banning your offspring from having a twitter or facebook account.

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The solution is right there...

[#3]

The problem with that is often that they are ostracized for not "complying" with the crowd. I don't use either facebook or twitter, but is it possible to restrict who posts messages to you? If that's the case, why do so many people apparently suffer trolling?

[#4]

Sounds like yet another case of schools having to be the social police, is there no end to it?

My daughter teaches and tells me that no end of problems are caused by matters beyond school - with parents being one of her biggest bugbears. Fine that they deal with school issues but when it comes to cyberbullying perhaps they should just ban smartphones from the playground. Kids will always find a way round any restrictions of course in much the same way we'd have a sneaky smoke behind those bike sheds, but still. 

It's in their hands, they might be obliged to go to school but nobody is twisting their arms to go on line. 

[#5]

I don't use either of those accounts but am I not right in thinking parents are responsible for how their children behave so is it not possible for some boffin to design an app that links childrens computers to their parents computers ?

OK we will have a bunch of do gooders shouting about childrens right to privacy but bullying is just one aspect, a number of children watch porn or get talked into sending inappropriate pictures of themselves to others only to find the world has access to them.

If children knew their parents had access to what they were doing the majority of this action would cease overnight.

[#6]

...... and if children had access to what their parents were doing 

[#7]

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Minivanman wrote:

My daughter teaches and tells me that no end of problems are caused by matters beyond school - with parents being one of her biggest bugbears.

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The school I was involved with frequently had to call the police to eject foul-mouthed parents who were just taking the law into their own hands. People seem to have become empowered with the will to do what they like, anywhere they like. Oh well, maybe I'm just getting too old.

[#8]

@nozzer

"......maybe i'm just getting too old."

Well I guess many of us on the forum can relate to that.

I guess most of us were brought up with a set of rules that no longer seem to apply these days.

[#9]

............many of which allowed teachers to batter the smelly stuff out of you. 

[#10]

Never did me any 'arm, guv.

The pendulum has swung too far in the other direction.

[#11]

Well the fear of getting caned at school was for me at least always far greater than the actual punishment - and I got whacked a couple of times. On reflection the teacher in question was probably a sadists.... and definitely a bully.

[#12]

I once had some aggressive trolling from an individual on facebook.  He didn't know me personally and was hiding behind a nickname. When I pointed out his comments were defamatory the aggression got worse. However I did some research on the individual and discovered he'd been careless about disclosing personal information online. I sent him an email detailing his present address and two previous ones, phone number, car registration, his current employer, his previous bankruptcy, his kids names/ages/schools/club memberships and the location of his previous holiday villa; with the message that the Internet doesn't provide anonymity and should he persist he'd be reported to the police.  He posted an apology on Facebook.

In a way it was bullying of this jerk by me, but it points to a solution of the problem of Internet bullying. People do this because they think they can't be traced. It is up to social media companies to properly check the identity of their users so that miscreants can be brought to justice. 

[#13]

I'm not a Facebook user, but isn't there a way to filter the people who are allowed to post to you? Like family and friends only (as per a list you have created). If not, there should be!

[#14]

There is nozzer but it's not easy to use or implement - not for me anyway!.

I'm a facebook user but only in a very limited way with very few friends and even less 'following' by choice. It's  great way to keep in touch with my 'round the world' family..... and much cheaper than those phone calls. Skype would be better, but with more chance of me getting to the Moon than getting fibre broadband any time soon I tend not to bother with it. 

[#15]

@Minivanman

If you are thinking of going to the moon this is the day to go as it's going to be closer today than it will be for many years.