Topic : 01/08 Cyber Bullies

Ok, well first of all, some people think that 'kids' my age [19], aren't politically aware, and don't care about things going on around them, well your dead wrong.

I just want to say a few things about 'online bullying', first of all, if you walk down the street can you tell me not to curse? No, i can say whatever I desire because I live in America, 'land of the free'. That's what they meant by freedom of speech, you do not have the right to limit my voice.

The 13 yr old girl, sounds like she was the bully, the other girl and her parents just wanted to get back at her for being such a horrible person. Not to mention the selfishness of suicide, she just hurt every single person who cared about her by taking her life. I was bullied for years and years, and thats why i never killed myself, it's completely selfish. Oh, then there's the parents, i see at least one commercial every day telling parents not to let thier children get online unless supervised, where were they at when she was having these chats? Just watching people call their daughter a whore?

Then, we have the Xbox 360 with Xbox live, i am an avid gamer. I regularly play online with other people who enjoy a good competitive game, and also enjoy 'trash talking'. Trash talking is honestly my favorite part of playing the games, if you take it to heart, you already have a mental dissorder. For the children or people who get offended by it, you can add people who feel the same to your freinds lists and create private games where only non trash talkers can play. So quit trying to ruin my gaming expierience, just because your a sore loser, the only people who get upset about people talking trash are the ones who suck to bad at the game to talk trash .

I saw today's show and it botherd me as some of this I had not heard of.  I am a computer professional from my career days but I resigned my position in 2004 to care full time for my oldest son with problems.  I am not a user who does chat rooms, I never thought that they were that safe and sort of stupid to be chatting with complete strangers when you have no idea WHO is on the other end!  I have used message boards before and that seems to be the fartherest of my internet adventure.  I only learned in the last couple of years of the MYSPACE stuff that kids get in trouble with.  I have not allowed my sons to do that at all.  However my husband and I were verbally abused in a message board several years back -- from his ex-wife!  We were in a court battle with her at the time and she had her little group in her message board voting as to how stupid our attorney was, she lied about all of the details and polled her "buds" on badly my husband (her ex) would lose in court.  It was so totally rediculous!  But she never told her online buds about how she just bought a new car and expected us to pay for it and we saw her in that new car on the court day.... and sadly for her, the "poor thing" LOST in court and I guess she had to make her own car payments.  Money that she tried to get out of us was supposedly for their daughter's college - which the girl failed out of and she tried to cover that up, plus she was still demanding alimony from my husband when she was living with the man she was about to marry for the past year.  Yeah, duh, WE WON!!!  So I saw this internet verbal abuse crap from a different perspective than most.  It can be very hurtful, harmful, upsetting and yes I wanted to bonk her one several times but we had to keep quiet that we even knew what she was writing online, so we really did not even get to tell her off for it.  But, you know what?  GOD knows what she did and I have come to learn to let HIM take care of her for me!  I do a sort of prayer about hateful people like that similar to a "God sic 'em for me".

I am very sorry the girl promoted on the show today killed herself.  My heart goes out to her family!  I believe the mother when she said she KNOWS the neighbor was truly guilty.  Now, another thought though is that obviously this girl had some internal issues that she either hid from her parents or they overlooked.  I have NEVER felt like I had to go kill myself over what someone else said.  My son is currently 13 and he has ALOT of issues and right now we are seeking a residential home for him so that he can get the help that he needs that I can't supply at home anymore.  He has been a massive family difficulty since age 5 when he was first diagnosed Oppositional Defiant.  My younger son (almost 10) has not had near the issues that his older brother has, so I don't buy the mess I hear from some that "I was a bad parent".  That is alot of bull.  Different children are just different from each other and that is all there is to it.  I was never given a handbook on how to deal with my oldest son.  But parenting the younger one is alot easier, even though the same disciplines and problems are varied.

As far as the man who pays (what did he say?) $$ thousands of dollars to Bill Gates just to play games online?  Yeah, I would think that after the first incident he would have stopped and requested a refund of remaining time not used in whatever account he dumps money into.  The money he pays to be harassed is rediculous, however, I agree with him that he should be able to participate in such public activities without being subject to such threats or language. 

What I have issues with on the internet is my 13 yr old watching claymation videos of 'figures" laughing and blowing up each other with pancake bombs and the such.  He showed it to me and I told him that anyone who wrote that mess had to be high on drugs as it was just plain stupid and not even funny.  So there is profane language on that and you can't keep up with all the bad sites that keep popping up daily.  Then there are some games that I buy my kids for their GameCube that infiltrates profane language in as well.  It is like you can't keep it from them.  Trying to keep a monitor on all of this is very time consuming and if the parent is NOT on top every day, you can find yourself at a loss.

I am in the process of knocking off game and computer time and I try to be with them each time they use the internet.  But it is sure a battle against the idiots of the world working against decent parents!

why don't the parents take more responsibility in childrens actions? If you alow your children to go into an unedited world, why don't they take more action to hide them from the horrible outside world? Every adult in america knows you can find porn on the web, and when your on xbox live, people have webcams, which are also unedited...

As I watched your show today, my blood ran cold.  My daughter has been through the cyber bully situation...and thank god she made it through it without any terrible incident.  I tend to be an over protective mother (due to many unfortunate situations from my own childhood), and take the time to investigate the activity of my 13 yr old regularly as well as who is responding to her or commenting her...I reprimand her when needed and take away the"currency" when needed...but there is only so far that I can go with this.    In the case of my daughter...the girls were just jealous (my daughter is an above average student, cheerleader and just so happens to be quite naturally pretty)and they had no other way of getting to her.  In the process of the bullying the girls defaced her pictures on her myspace and messages all of her friends then deleted them all.  Not only did this go on at home...but it also carried over to school where the girls proceeded to get a lot of other kids to jump on the band wagon and make lude comments about personal hygene among other things.  Think about it...if everyone at your work place started ganging up on you and tearing you to shreads...you be affected too.  I am seeing alot of comments that are basically saying to "get over it"...I hear what you are saying about preparing our kids for adversity or ridicule...but there are some very mean and demented kids out there...and how do you prepare your child for such evilness?  Luckily in our case I was able to go straight to the parents and handled it immediately...but as far as my daughters self-esteem is concerned...I am sure that she has been damaged by this.  I do my best to keep the lines of communication always open with my daughter...no matter what...but, what if.....it scares me to death. 

I allow my daughter online for many reasons...due to our home location (rural), school work, correspondence with family and friends as well as her being able to be up to speed with the environment that we have created.  It is quite unfortunate that something that could potentially bond our world together has been tainted in such a way that no one feels safe using it ;O(

Oh come on!!!  To some people there is more to MySpace than cyber sex or pediophyles.  Do you honestly think the 2 year old is able to contribute anything to their MySpace account?  I would just about bet the mother has the child on there for the benefit of family and friends.

My daughter has a MySpace account for her English Bulldog.  Is she breaking the law?  Her dog is only 2 years old also.  Some of the dog's numerous friends who also have their own accounts include UGA, the Univ of Ga mascot and the Marine Corps mascot, can't remember his name and about 30 other English Bulldogs.  Their conversations are hilarious and sometimes its hard to remember the dog itself isn't doing the writing.   Her dog has gotten several marriage proposals and a few "propositions" but so far hasn't gotten into cybersex.  My daughter does monitor her dogs account closely though.

My daughter has the right to block anybody she finds offensive and does so at the first sign.  She thoughly enjoys her MySpace accounts and has made tons of friends who share the same interests as she has, stay at home mom, her dogs, kids and quilting.