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The bullies win again[W710; 739]

Aderleth said:
I get that, but you really could make that argument about quite a lot of things. E.g. fistfights on the playground (assault/battery), stealing someone's lunch money (larceny/robbery), etc, etc. There are far less severe ways to approach childhood misbehavior that don't involve the legal system. This situation, is, if anything, less intentionally bad (from the perspective of the kids involved). If a child is stealing from someone, or beating them up, they know what they're doing is harmful (unless they're sociopaths). If they're taking pictures of each other without clothes on, they may genuinely not understand why that might be harmful. From a legal perspective, it's a much less criminal thing than the more overt crimes I mentioned. Given that, it makes more sense to deal with the issue in a non-legal context.
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It's the permanence of the photos I think that get me more than anything. I do get where you are coming from about the violence, larceny, etc. but I dunno, those things go away after the fact. In this particular case the girl is dead because of the behaviors and her pictures are permanently out there, it's just something that there is no easy fix for IMO.
 
Pinkie said:
The "sexting" craze (I hope) usually involves kids in middle and high school, which is bad enough -- but this crap of taking naked photos for purposes of bullying and shaming can happen in the 2nd grade.

My kid supports a "no cell phones on school property" rule, backed up by jammers and security.



I would be homicidal.
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1) It's scary what kids are able to get into now. 2) I would also be homicidal, but sick first.
 
LaMidRighter said:
It's the permanence of the photos I think that get me more than anything. I do get where you are coming from about the violence, larceny, etc. but I dunno, those things go away after the fact. In this particular case the girl is dead because of the behaviors and her pictures are permanently out there, it's just something that there is no easy fix for IMO.
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There's definitely no easy fix. And no matter what anyone does, things are going to happen that are awful. But I think this kind of thing gets really really tricky when you get the law involved directly. It has a nasty habit of potentially screwing the victim. It's not like it's just the photo-taker who is potentially in legal trouble. Sometimes (under currently existing law) it's the person in the photo. There have been cases involving teenage girls in possession of photos they've taken of themselves getting busted for child-porn. That's just messed up. Obviously 14 year old girls really shouldn't be taking naked photos of themselves and sending them to other people, but punishing them as if they're pedophiles is kind of insane.
 
Aderleth said:
There's definitely no easy fix. And no matter what anyone does, things are going to happen that are awful. But I think this kind of thing gets really really tricky when you get the law involved directly. It has a nasty habit of potentially screwing the victim. It's not like it's just the photo-taker who is potentially in legal trouble. Sometimes (under currently existing law) it's the person in the photo. There have been cases involving teenage girls in possession of photos they've taken of themselves getting busted for child-porn. That's just messed up. Obviously 14 year old girls really shouldn't be taking naked photos of themselves and sending them to other people, but punishing them as if they're pedophiles is kind of insane.
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Of course it is, at 9 years old. At 15, 16, it's not as easy to see this is never appropriate -- and if you have a teenager, I can promise you, they have had a naked photo of a classmate on their cell and the bystanders who are sent these images are "just as guilty" in the eyes of the law.

Parents: talk to the child. Drag them down to sit with an ADA, if need be. Hell, arrange a visit to the county jail. Do what you need to to get this through their thick heads.

And:

If you photo your new baby naked on a bearskin rug, as parents have been doing since cameras were invented, DO NOT UPLOAD those photos. YOU are a "child pornographer" under the law as well.

Lastly, at least one school that issued laptops to students used coding that turned the webcam on randomly, for security purposes. I would order a laptop that has no webcam, if they are available, and if not, make sure the programming of that device is removed.

 
Pinkie said:
Of course it is, at 9 years old. At 15, 16, it's not as easy to see this is never appropriate -- and if you have a teenager, I can promise you, they have had a naked photo of a classmate on their cell and the bystanders who are sent these images are "just as guilty" in the eyes of the law.
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The part in bold gets tricky when you start to think about why child-porn laws exist to begin with. To be clear, I'm talking specifically about the punishment that's appropriate for the person who makes the picture. Most of the time, we're talking about a girl uploading a picture of herself. Since child porn laws exist to protect children (and, let's face it, mostly that's going to involve girls, and frequently teenage girls) it seems ludicrous to me to punish a girl who voluntarily exposes herself as if she were a predator preying on herself. Again - that's obviously a dumbass thing for the girl to have done, but it emphatically does not remotely warrant the treatment that a genuine predator deserves. The law as it stands doesn't really make that distinction.
 
Aderleth said:
The part in bold gets tricky when you start to think about why child-porn laws exist to begin with. To be clear, I'm talking specifically about the punishment that's appropriate for the person who makes the picture. Most of the time, we're talking about a girl uploading a picture of herself. Since child porn laws exist to protect children (and, let's face it, mostly that's going to involve girls, and frequently teenage girls) it seems ludicrous to me to punish a girl who voluntarily exposes herself as if she were a predator preying on herself. Again - that's obviously a dumbass thing for the girl to have done, but it emphatically does not remotely warrant the treatment that a genuine predator deserves. The law as it stands doesn't really make that distinction.
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Yup, that's a problem -- this is the lunacy of zero tolerance laws, but as to child porn, it's one of the very few areas in the law where I think a bright line is appropriate.

Now, as to what should happen to our "child pornographers" who actually ARE children and who disseminate only photos of themselves.....clearly, something less than what we do to adults, and something more than nothing at all.
 
Pinkie said:
I'm just not a huge fan of creating new civil remedies -- I'm not opposed to it, of course, but these behaviors seem criminal to me, and crime is better deterred by a prison sentence than a lawsuit. If the first priority is to stop the behavior and protect the child, a lawsuit is a poor substitute for an arrest.

That said, these social networking sites that allow kids on -- facebook will allow a kid as young as 13 to join -- in my mind owe a duty to the children they attract, to protect them. We all know they don't -- none of the major social networking sites will ban a member for harrassment. The owners of these companies need to feel it in the pocketbook when they design staffing and coding plans that create an unreasonable risk.

But for me, the bottom line is, these predatory adults should be sent to prison.
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Without some civil access, criminal prosecution is almost impossible because of trying to gain identity. The other problem is often the bullies are young teens themselves for which criminal prosecutions are particularly difficult and hardly worth the effort of going into federal court to try to get the offender's IP address - if that will even do any good.
 
joko104 said:
Without some civil access, criminal prosecution is almost impossible because of trying to gain identity. The other problem is often the bullies are young teens themselves for which criminal prosecutions are particularly difficult and hardly worth the effort of going into federal court to try to get the offender's IP address - if that will even do any good.
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It'd be terrific if ISPs would voluntarily cooperate with law enforcement. I do not support an ISP giving my IP address to every Tom, Dick and Harry who asks for it -- but if the Cleveland Police department asks ATT for it, they should be given the information.

Bear in mind, too, that DP (and facebook, and MySpace, etc.) all have the IP addresses on everyone who has ever posted there, and we could ask those companies for more cooperation.

We could even make that a legal requirement via a new law on the operation of an ISP or a social networking site that solicits membership from the US, regardless of where the servers are physically located.

 
200px-BraveNewWorld_FirstEdition.jpg


Just imagine what issues we'll face when Person A in Toledo can feel Person B in Japan?
 
Aderleth said:
There's definitely no easy fix. And no matter what anyone does, things are going to happen that are awful. But I think this kind of thing gets really really tricky when you get the law involved directly. It has a nasty habit of potentially screwing the victim. It's not like it's just the photo-taker who is potentially in legal trouble. Sometimes (under currently existing law) it's the person in the photo. There have been cases involving teenage girls in possession of photos they've taken of themselves getting busted for child-porn. That's just messed up. Obviously 14 year old girls really shouldn't be taking naked photos of themselves and sending them to other people, but punishing them as if they're pedophiles is kind of insane.
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You raise good points here, I tend to agree and don't believe in getting too legal for problems involving children. I just don't see a fix to this without enforcing consequences, the only other thing possible could be for schools to address the issue and reinforce that these behaviors can lead to bad results, furthermore the permanence of these mistakes cannot be understated.

EDIT - substitute involving children with committed by children.
 
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Pinkie said:
Of course it is, at 9 years old. At 15, 16, it's not as easy to see this is never appropriate -- and if you have a teenager, I can promise you, they have had a naked photo of a classmate on their cell and the bystanders who are sent these images are "just as guilty" in the eyes of the law.

Parents: talk to the child. Drag them down to sit with an ADA, if need be. Hell, arrange a visit to the county jail. Do what you need to to get this through their thick heads.

And:

If you photo your new baby naked on a bearskin rug, as parents have been doing since cameras were invented, DO NOT UPLOAD those photos. YOU are a "child pornographer" under the law as well.

Lastly, at least one school that issued laptops to students used coding that turned the webcam on randomly, for security purposes. I would order a laptop that has no webcam, if they are available, and if not, make sure the programming of that device is removed.
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Naked baby photos are just not a good idea, they aren't child porn though.....at least not according to the statutes I had to learn in my law and ethics classes though that could have been changed since. Child pornagraphy is concerns the sexualizing of children through a recording medium. So baby during a bath on a rug wasn't previously covered but a girl under 18 flashing most certainly is. That said I agree with everything here, kids have got to understand that there are consequences associated with behavior, and usually the more adult the behavior the worse the consequences.
 
Aderleth said:
The part in bold gets tricky when you start to think about why child-porn laws exist to begin with. To be clear, I'm talking specifically about the punishment that's appropriate for the person who makes the picture. Most of the time, we're talking about a girl uploading a picture of herself. Since child porn laws exist to protect children (and, let's face it, mostly that's going to involve girls, and frequently teenage girls) it seems ludicrous to me to punish a girl who voluntarily exposes herself as if she were a predator preying on herself. Again - that's obviously a dumbass thing for the girl to have done, but it emphatically does not remotely warrant the treatment that a genuine predator deserves. The law as it stands doesn't really make that distinction.
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It's all based on the concept of consent. While the minor is technically consenting to being naked on a recorded medium they have no legal right to consent, in that way it's akin to statutory rape. Basically the minor owns their body obviously but does not have full legal authority over certain aspects. I am in favor of either dismissal of "self porn"(for lack of a better word) or much lighter sentencing but currently those laws are airtight with little to no wiggle room.
 
LaMidRighter said:
Naked baby photos are just not a good idea, they aren't child porn though.....at least not according to the statutes I had to learn in my law and ethics classes though that could have been changed since. Child pornagraphy is concerns the sexualizing of children through a recording medium. So baby during a bath on a rug wasn't previously covered but a girl under 18 flashing most certainly is. That said I agree with everything here, kids have got to understand that there are consequences associated with behavior, and usually the more adult the behavior the worse the consequences.
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The "naked baby" photo is likely to be blessed by MOST ADAs, but not all. I don't say not to take it -- but store it on your harddrive. Don't upload it to a photosharing site, as the evil neighbor, ex-employee, etc. could (conceivably) make your life miserable with it.
 
Pinkie said:
The "naked baby" photo is likely to be blessed by MOST ADAs, but not all. I don't say not to take it -- but store it on your harddrive. Don't upload it to a photosharing site, as the evil neighbor, ex-employee, etc. could (conceivably) make your life miserable with it.
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Yeah, the couple will probably win in court but at extra expense. Not worth it, people need to be careful with hard driving sensitive materials as well though, a talented hacker could concievably clone it and use it against them.
 
Regarding the stalker, it seems to me that if it can be proven that he did stalk her and coerce her into sexual favors, which would include sending internet pictures or videos of herself, then he can and should be prosecuted for that. It is an evil, evil thing to abuse a minor child in that way. To the extent that he can be held responsible for her suicide on a criminal basis, as I understand it, that's only possible if he encouraged her to do so and not in every jurisdiction. It's possible he could be held liable on a civil basis, but I doubt that he has any assets to go after.

Regarding the victim, she clearly had some serious psychological problems that pre-date and exacerbate the personal interactions surrounding this incident. She was getting treatment of sorts, but she continued to act out in very odd and self destructive ways. I'm thinking that this was the result of a personality disorder. With a person the age of 15 this sort of problem can leave parents bewildered and feeling unable to help their child. I doubt that simply restricting access to the internet and so on would have been enough to prevent this cycle of events from playing out.
 
LowDown said:
Regarding the stalker, it seems to me that if it can be proven that he did stalk her and coerce her into sexual favors, which would include sending internet pictures or videos of herself, then he can and should be prosecuted for that.
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I agree, but if current law is not sufficient to lay criminal charges for such conduct, I think we need more criminal laws.

It is an evil, evil thing to abuse a minor child in that way.
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No argument here.


To the extent that he can be held responsible for her suicide on a criminal basis, as I understand it, that's only possible if he encouraged her to do so and not in every jurisdiction. It's possible he could be held liable on a civil basis, but I doubt that he has any assets to go after.
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He's not criminally liable for her suicide in any US jurisdiction, the last I checked. To me, the child's death was foreseeable and his conduct was calculated to bring it about. I think he should be guilty of negligent homicide.

Regarding the victim, she clearly had some serious psychological problems that pre-date and exacerbate the personal interactions surrounding this incident.
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I don't know and I don't care if this child was mentally unstable when she first started on the net at age 12. We both know, sadistic pedophiles are extremely astute at choosing victims, and that they are drawn to kids with psychological problems.

Are such kids any less deserving of protection by law enforcement?

She was getting treatment of sorts, but she continued to act out in very odd and self destructive ways. I'm thinking that this was the result of a personality disorder.
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You seem to have some facts I don't, and no one else appears to have. Care to share what source you relied on to gather them?

With a person the age of 15 this sort of problem can leave parents bewildered and feeling unable to help their child. I doubt that simply restricting access to the internet and so on would have been enough to prevent this cycle of events from playing out.
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I agree, and I'll even go further: for the parents of such a child to prohibit that child to use the internet is more or less as effective as whistling in the dark. Once a child is enthralled by a sadistic adult, far more must be done to protect that child -- and I doubt any of it will be enough, if the sadistic adult cannot be arrested and prevented from continuing the abuse.
 
I just scanned this thread.... "the naked baby pictures" issue. Egads!:roll:
 
madman said:
im not really sure if this is the proper place for this, but since it's the topic of bullying, i guess it's ok to place it here.

qTrv6.jpg





This is a very tragic story of a girl that commited suicide because of bullying. Yes, she made some big mistakes, but these mistakes do not make it ok to bully.

This is the video that she post prior to killing herself. very sad.

This needs to stop!



Amanda Todd: Bullied Canadian Teen Commits Suicide After Prolonged Battle Online And In School


in 3...2...1.... here comes the pro-bully posts
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And the reason why she was being bullied by her peers is because she slept with another girl's boyfriend. The creepy old man thing was because she didn't have the common sense to not send pics of her tits to a complete stranger. It's also not the first time she tried to kill herself, and she practiced self-mutilation, so clearly, there were profound psychological issues that nobody on the MSM is going to discuss, because there's no profit to be made in the truth of the matter.

People get bullied, it's a fact of life, and it's nowhere near as bad as it used to be. Next thing we know, we'll have the "save the children" brigade crying out that bullying is an act of terrorism, and use some other dead child as a martyr for their half-cocked crusade.
 
Bullying is still as isolating, painful, and damaging as that of yesteryear. It may be worse now that we can harass people not only at school but online in their own homes. Words can dig deep and fester. This girl cried for help and a friend and received hate in return from her peers. Yes, she made some big mistakes, but People have done worse and been treated better.
 
Pinkie said:
You seem to have some facts I don't, and no one else appears to have. Care to share what source you relied on to gather them?
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It's in the story linked in the OP. As for therapy it mentions she was getting counseling and anti-depressants. As for acting out it mentions that she was cutting herself. She threw herself in a ditch in front of her teachers. She was posting videos on YouTube implying she was thinking of suicide and talked to the whole freeking YouTube viewing public about how rotten she was being treated by her peers (which probably didn't help her relationship with them). She drank bleach in a suicide attempt. She was into drugs and alcohol.
 
LowDown said:
It's in the story linked in the OP. As for therapy it mentions she was getting counseling and anti-depressants. As for acting out it mentions that she was cutting herself. She threw herself in a ditch in front of her teachers. She was posting videos on YouTube implying she was thinking of suicide and talked to the whole freeking YouTube viewing public about how rotten she was being treated by her peers (which probably didn't help her relationship with them). She drank bleach in a suicide attempt. She was into drugs and alcohol.
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BEFORE she first encountered the internet predator?

Either way, she clearly needed to be hospitalized, and the fact that she was not is likely due to lack of insurance. One of my big beefs with Obamacare is that it did not dictate a reasonable level of coverage for mental health care.
 
Chelsea said:
Bullying is still as isolating, painful, and damaging as that of yesteryear. It may be worse now that we can harass people not only at school but online in their own homes. Words can dig deep and fester. This girl cried for help and a friend and received hate in return from her peers. Yes, she made some big mistakes, but People have done worse and been treated better.
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I agree 100%.
 
Surtr said:
And the reason why she was being bullied by her peers is because she slept with another girl's boyfriend. The creepy old man thing was because she didn't have the common sense to not send pics of her tits to a complete stranger. It's also not the first time she tried to kill herself, and she practiced self-mutilation, so clearly, there were profound psychological issues that nobody on the MSM is going to discuss, because there's no profit to be made in the truth of the matter.

People get bullied, it's a fact of life, and it's nowhere near as bad as it used to be. Next thing we know, we'll have the "save the children" brigade crying out that bullying is an act of terrorism, and use some other dead child as a martyr for their half-cocked crusade.
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Your ignorance is astounding, and what the payoff could possibly be for posing as an asshole on this subject escapes me.

Welcome to my iggy bin.
 
Pinkie said:
BEFORE she first encountered the internet predator?

Either way, she clearly needed to be hospitalized, and the fact that she was not is likely due to lack of insurance. One of my big beefs with Obamacare is that it did not dictate a reasonable level of coverage for mental health care.
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You think all of that could have come just out of this series of encounters over the internet in an otherwise healthy girl? I think that's pretty unlikely, but I'll stipulate that I'm working with a severe deficit of facts, and I could be badly off target.

The problem with hospitalization is probably not funding but the strict requirements that have to be met to confine someone involuntarily. Even though she was a minor professionals are very sensitive to issues of patient autonomy these days.
 
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