Double standards

Sadly, young women (and some young men I suspect) will continue to be victimized for their choices because at the root of our culture is a huge double standard around the human body:

Movie star films a realistic sex scene for money - lauded
sex trade worker - delivers the real thing for money - shunned

Don't get me started on the so-called family friendly sports broadcasts such as professional hockey, which is largely a billboard for nubile young women to flaunt their assets and those of major breweries... I mean where would a young girl get the idea that showing off her body will result in approval from our most revered male celebrities (sarcasm).

What's up with that as the kids say? :-)

Obviously I would never suggest young women should start offering their naked images to whoever might be interested, but what happens to our society if the sight of a naked body is not a shocking cause for tut-tutting and ostracism? It's a thought experiment worth considering.

One way we could prevent young people from being shamed into suicide by a poor choice is to stop being so puritanical about our bodies. The reality is that this is a recent social construct and as we are discovering it has very real, tragic consequences.

Anyway, I hope people might think a little more about the problem at its root, as well as trying to take ameliorative steps to protect kids from the status quo.

(my recent promise to myself is to waste less time arguing on the Internet - so this will be my only contribution to this thread. I hope it provokes some reflection on our attitudes about the propriety of revealing the human form)

thx - CK

Facebook is not private.

I've noticed that you can Google a name and end up on someones facebook page.
That does not seem right!
My daughter talk to me more about what happened, I'm not surprized.
To me facebook acts more like a virus.
I agree a bit with the comment above about sex on the net, I told my daughter, I know in Ontario that woman being topless is legal, which removes the taboo of being topless.
I'm 100% sure that a sick person wanting to hurt others will always find the right key to press.
My question to my child is can she hit the off button and then delete her facebook page?
I got a list of the reasons she could not shut it down....beats me what could be done.

I do know when she was younger a person posted a video her on utube, I had it removed in under 12 hours...so can we help yes! Facebook? Why not.

Not sure about this

Due to the vague language about SM "doing more to protect young people" this article is kind of useless.

Quite simply, you can't make SM 100% safe for kids. Parents should be the ones tasked with making sure their children are safe, not some huge international. It's just as easy to target a kids offline. There is nothing stopping someone from watching a school and talking to kids.

This article also glosses over the fact that the vast majority of kids are harmed by people they know, not strangers. Comments like "converted mainstream SM sites into highly effective devices for predators and abusive bullies." are over the top and aren't supported by any facts in this article.

They totally forgive parents for being bad parents with the line "Parents simply can't police their kids effectively." That is totally unacceptable. Why should Facebook police kids when the parents can't?

So what are the authours' ideas? They seem to be willing to stay someone should do something but they give any firm ideas. This hand ringing over SM isn't useful. Let's e address the real cause of this, bullying and kids thinking they can't talk to adults. Adults and the TV parents are the reason for this issue, not Facebook.

Good points, Ryan B

The problem with this and most other commentaries on privacy and safety of children online, is that they conflate the "stranger danger" risk of anonymous online interactions with bullying between peers.

Amanda Todd was not harassed by a creepy loner hiding in a basement somewhere, who had just happened to see her photo online. She was harassed by the kids she went to school with every day. If the internet and social media made it worse, it wasn't because of the loss of her privacy, it was because of the privacy protections that prevented her bullies from being held accountable for their actions.

Yes, there are cases of troubled young people expressing their feelings online and having their insecurities preyed upon by strangers. (E.g., The case of the case of a man who was convicted of encouraging strangers (including an Ottawa university student) to commit suicide.) And I strongly believe that companies should be required to set up social media such that maximum privacy settings are the default and users have to specifically agree to sharing information, such as the geolocation data mentioned for instagram. And there needs to be better education -- of adults and children -- about privacy rights and responsibilities, especially when it comes to sharing information about others.

But all that wouldn't stop kids being horrendous to other kids and adults being oblivious to it all. The medium might have changed, but this message isn't anything new. As Ryan B says, the biggest problem is bullying on one hand and kids not feeling they can talk about their problems with adults. As Bob Watts exemplifies, adults have options for addressing malicious content online if your child is willing to come to you for help.

While many parents might wish they had other technological tools available to track down and block out people who use online media to harass their children, one must also remember that the privacy protections which help cloak the identity of an online bully also help protect whistle-blowers and political protesters. There's a reason you need court warrants to access the identity of the person behind an online account.

If any change is needed, it is a willingness on the part of law enforcement to devote the resources to investigating harrassment cases through the legal channels. Some recent cases offer hope this will happen, but continued attention is necessary. The biggest thing adults can do to protect kids (and adults) from bullies is to convince the bullies that they will be held responsible for their actions.

Same argument in metaphor form

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QhOXx3JRlMM

Kids 14 and up can be held criminally responsible for their actions in Canada. But for them to recognize their seriousness of their actions, and its consequences, we have to stop calling criminal harassment, identity theft, libel and assault "bullying".

I agree with

I agree with Ryan.
"Instagram...can easily be accessed by young children via smartphones". Who is buying children smartphones?? Who is paying the $50+ monthly bill?? I realize the pressure parents are under to give in to their child's desire to have the newest gadget, but bottom line is, if a person is to young to "police" themselves (since according to this article, parents are unable to monitor their online use), then perhaps they are simply too young to have the device to begin with. Maybe it's time to start teaching kids they can survive just ok without a smartphone. Millions before them did.

Amelia Bellamy-Royds

Actually I believe what Todd faced was a combination of creepy lone predator and then harassment by schoolmates. First a predator enticed her to share a risque photo of herself, then as an act of extortion threatened to release it, and did, which then was taken up as a means of harassment by her peers.

Social media is not at fault

It certainly has it's flaws but the biggest one of all belongs with users that just don't know when to quit, turn it off and walk away. That may not have stopped all of the harassment but it certainly would have made it easier to stamp the rest of it out.

This issue has been blown completely out of proportion and social media has become the scapegoat because one young girl did not have the wherewithal to turn off the damned computer.

Maybe they need a highschool course on 'how to deal with social media'. There should be one for the parents, as well.

Thanks for the correction, Dave

I didn't know that background to the story. I shouldn't have commented without a little more research.

However, it doesn't change the main points of my argument, that a more effective approach would be to focus on education of kids, about their rights, the risks and also about their responsibilities.

I shouldn't have been so dismissive of the "Stranger Danger" lessons for young kids, and I hope those school discussions have been expanded to include a focus on online risks and reminders that people are not always who they say they are online. It does seem to be happening, as described in this interview with a health educator, with the BC curriculum documents she references available here. According to the curriculum, the idea of online predators and their tricks should be introduced in Grade 4. I'd suggest that the basic discussion should come even earlier.

However, as kids get older (by which I mean no later than 5th or 6th grade), the schools clearly need a follow-up campaign emphasizing responsibilities. Amanda Todd's problems may have started with a stranger, but they were multiplied manyfold by her peers, and then exacerbated by adults who did not treat the harassment as a serious issue. (And on that subject, among the list of crimes I mentioned above, which get dismissed as "bullying", I should have included the distribution of child pornography. The Toronto Star has a good article discussing that issue.)

The BC curriculum (linked above) does mention introducing 6th graders to policies and legislation against discrimination, but that doesn't mean that the information is being presented in a way that connects it to their own lives and the consequences of their own actions.

(Continued)

While I and nearly every adult in this country feels strongly that something must be done -- and I admire those involved in this project for trying to do it -- I suspect the anti-bullying campaigners will have more lasting success focusing their efforts on developing curriculum and materials for education projects to give to schools, rather than focusing on the technology companies.

Even if you did get facebook to change, technology trends change so fast that some other potential privacy breach would open up as fast as you closed the first one. The websites that Amanda Todd first got caught up in are ones I've never heard of. And trying to shut any one site down would be like trying to cut off a Hydra's head: more would sprout to take its place.

I am not suggesting that if Tood had been better educated, she wouldn't have had a problem. Everyone makes mistakes, especially when first starting with relationships and dating, but trusting the wrong person shouldn't have led to widespread, continuing attacks.

But if her initial complaints to police about the distribution of her pictures had been followed up with an intensive outreach campaign to convince school children in the area that there would be serious consequences for anyone who was complicit in their distribution, or in the further harassment of a victimized girl (all of which could be done without mentioning specific names or personal details, just a series of well-timed school assemblies reminding that this activity is illegal and the laws will be enforced), then maybe she wouldn't have ended up two years later convinced that no one cared and there was no hope.