Did she make a mistake by flashing her boobs on the Internet? Yes, definitely. Did she deserve to be harassed and hated over that? No way!
I will say deserved may or may not be, but she damn well better have expected it. that is what we need to let kids know, is that you can expect stuff like this when you post boobies on the internet.
All the harassment did not happen on the Internet. Much of it was in real life and it included physical assault. Her parents moved her to different locations twice to try to escape this treatment, but it continued. I know at one point she quit using Facebook. I don't know whether it was before or after she moved the last time. If she quit using it before she moved, then she was stalked down anyway.
I made it through half the story. It is too slow and the signs were bothering me. I am no grammar Nazi, but when it is getting to me you are really screwing up. So if you want fill me in on what i missed. Yeah, she was stalked, and there are ways to get around that. But here is the problem she kept going back to the internet for support. That is a bad thing. The only people on the internet who help are a bunch of wanabe dogooders who will only give words of support. I have seen way too many people rely on online friendships and relationships only to be dissapointed when they blow up in their face. We really have to start teaching people not to go to the internet for support or help. The people there are useless.
I will tell you I am a troll. I dealt with this whiner who was easily butthurt. I blasted the crap out of him, and then he went to his friends online. every one of the POS's were emailing me that i was right that he was a crybaby and that they were sick of him, and who is the dick? I am not pretending to be the guys friend and then talking trash about him to the person insulting him. I would love to say it was one time, but I have been around for decades now and this is what people are like online. I really don't know who is worse, the bullies or the backstabbing drama queens. All I do know is people who get caught up in it get a nasty lesson about friendship.
I will say that the kids i know and i am in the lives of i will try and help to keep their online life safe and to give them a sense of levity about it.
I guess I can agree with you that we should warn kids about sexting, and I don't believe those fairy tales either. But we should protect them from hateful bullies too. With perfect 20/20 hindsight, I can say if I had been her parent, I would have taken her out of school entirely and home schooled her. We may not be able to guarantee that there will never be bullies, but those that we catch should have to suffer serious consequences.
i am not saying we should not try and stop the serious stalkers who interfere with people's real lives. However, we need to do it right because when we do it wrong it will be used against the people it is there to protect. It is not hard to troll a riled up person to make threats and incriminate themselves. Then you give the bully fuel to use against them. the best way i see to reduce damage from this is focussing on the hurt people and making them stronger and giving them better ways to find their self worth than looking to online approval. I am trans, and because of that i am a hardcase and you can't insult me. Tomorrow the headlines of the wallstreet journal could real tererun is a jackass, and I would laugh at the hate. my friends would still be my friends. If they werent then so be it. I am not saying we need to make every person as cold and aloof as I am, but we need to bring them somewhere down this path to knowing your own self worth and being able to shrug off a few insults.
And weren't you disgusted with the person who had the attitude of, "She did it to herself"? She made some mistakes, but she didn't deserve the treatment she got.
I am not disgusted by that idea. I think it is something that should be used to educate weaker kids as to the dangers of the internet and to try to help them to come out of that sort of attitude. One of the best ways to stop a bully is to stop them from taking from you. Though running away seems like a good idea, it actually fuels the bully's ego. That bully hit her so hard with his taunts that she had to move. That is fuel for the bully. When I jump on someone and they run i like it.
you also have to ask why. not everyone is bullied. Certain people have a certain way of behaving that seems to attract abuse. I know it sounds like blaming the victim because you should not abuse, but if you can get out of that pattern you can turn things around. this is coming from a person who was a victim of bullying. I look at somje of my behaviors and actions and it is hard to remember what exactly happened way back then, but I did fall into the desired outcome with the bullies. that sort of behavior can be corrected and changed, and I think it is a negative behavior that results in poor treatment of the person all around. It would be good for that person to find better ways of expressing themselves because it will help them later in life and in areas that are not about bullying.