Internet trolls..

[Jonzjob]

It fascinates me why, when people get so called bullied, on social sites just don't kick them where they should be, the sites that is, into touch and not go near them.

http://www.bbc.com/news/blogs-the-papers-29679010

If the lass in this didn't go on to twatter she wouldn't see the comments and the 'bullies' would be shouting at a brick wall. Personally, I don't touch the so called social sites and wouldn't do even with a long pole!

[EuroTrash]

Peer pressure I suppose. If 'everybody' of importance in your world twitters and you don't, you're 'nobody', and being 'nobody' is what every wannabee is most scared of.

You're right, individually speaking it's only a problem if you let it be. But on a wider scale, society has invested so much into social media and has come to rely on it so much, that it has be cleaned up and kept credible.

I think it's sad that so many people are more concerned with the virtual world than with the real one.

[Quillan]

Amongst kids and teenagers there's a lot of peer pressure to firstly have a 'smartphone' and secondly to be on these social sites, Facebook in particular. It is a bit like when we were kids except now it is technology.  In my day it was getting a pair of Levi's, Ben Sherman shirts and brogue shoes. Maturity with age and hindsite is a wonderful thing and I am sure when these kids get into their 40s, 50s and 60s they will be wondering the same as you (and most of us) are now about kids and some other form of yet to be invented technology or whatever.

[AnOther]

They are deluded if they think tracing trolls is as simple as suggested and it shows what a thin and tenuous grasp of such issues the law makers often have, posting from places like an internet cafe or a McDonalds come to mind, completely untraceable in both cases.

Laws enacted in haste and ignorance are usually bad laws sometimes embodying completely unintentioned peripheral consequences far beyond the scale of the original problem.

[Théière]

Well said Ernst

[YCCMB]

Herre you go...a bit of personal stuff laid bare...

It is all very straightforward with the hindsight of age and maturity, as has been pointed out. But, as the parent of someone who, as a 16 year old, attempted suicide due to the assassination of his character which was taking place (back then it was on MSN, as there was no Facebook, Twitter or whatever), I can assure you that even if you're NOT on these social media sites, the nasty, vindictive, insidious bile that's written about you has a way of reaching you just the same.

My son wasn't on MSN, but that didn't make any particular difference. He found out just the same. It was me who eventually ended up reading the stuff, and I can assure you it's not something I would wish on any family member of the target, let alone the target themselves.

Today, many years later, and despite the fact that it would be enormously beneficial to his chosen career, my son has little presence on social media. He was one of the fortunate ones, in many ways.

And please don't ever kid yourselves that grown-ups on sensible, adult forums are in any way less likely to be the perpetrators or victims of this sort of thing, because they're not.

What does gall me, sometimes, though, is when people bandy about the word "bully" to categorise anyone who disagrees with them or writes something they don't like. Trust me, I've seen what bullying REALLY looks like, and that's not it.

[Chancer]

My Nephew sadly died at the Young age of 30, not through being bullied on the internet, despite being tall and relatively good looking with blond hair he was very introverted, to my knowledge had no what I would call real friends only binge drinking buddies and had never dated a girl he lacked so much confidence.

At the funeral I was suprised but pleased to see how many friends he did (appear to) have who were (apparently) there to mourn for him, then it was explained to me that these were "Facebook friends" the vicar read out some moving tributes to him from these grieving "Facebook friends".

I went round and spoke to most of them to thank them for attending and showing their respects, it was for me the opportunity to find out about what I thought must have been his secret life as there were so many girls there, perhaps he had kept them hidden and didnt want to take any of them home to meet his mother?

It turned out that 90% of them had never actually met him, they may have been contacts with him on Facebook but  for the majority it was a good excuse to have Friday off work, to get free food and drink at the Wake and they all left to go straight to another pub to meet up with other funeralgoers before going out clubbing.

Then I read recently about what a high proportion of relationships are started on line or via social media, OK I can understand that but it indicated that 4 out of 5 people had already started an intimate Relationship sharing sexts and photos of private parts before ever even meeting, that really caused me concern for the future of the human race.

Its not as if in our society with its 50% + divorce rate and all the single parent families that we do very well in selecting our partners when we can see, touch, feel and smell them, all important parts of evolutionary selection but what chance do we have when we select someone from their socia media inflated alter -ego and photo-shopped selfies?

[lindal1000]

I guess like all things..you need to learn how to use these media safely and sensibly. For your nephew perhaps it gave him a chance to have contacts that he would otherwise never have met and that may have made him feel a bit less lonely. And does it really matter that he had never met any of his Facebook friends? I think social media fulfil a very important and positive role in communication in a way that was never possible before.. but you need to keep in touch with the reality at the same time and exert the same common sense rules that you would apply in any other situation.

As to meeting potential partners on-line..well who would ever do a thing like that? Lol.

[EuroTrash]

AnOther, I could be wrong cos I don't use these sites as such, but I believe you have to set up an 'identity' in order to post on fb, twitter etc, which involves giving an email address and clicking on a link to activate your account etc. I agree it can still be done anonymously but nobody is going to set up a new email address and a new fb/twitter account every time they post so there will be some sort of trail to follow.

They ought to have used a different word other than 'friend' for fb contacts, it devalues the concept of friendship. It might help kids not to confuse fb 'friends' with real friends if there were different words for them.

[idun]

I don't trust the politicans to put this through properly.

I don't always trust those who use the word troll either!

[blink] I was accused of being a troll after my first post on here. I have often mentioned that this person posted my name, address and phone number too, details of which I had not left on this board, so I was actually hunted down too, which was scary. See how the people who accuse other people of trolling can be!

Betty, could you not have gone to the police anyway about the things posted about your son? I sort of thought that the published word, even on the internet, could not be libellous or slanderous?

[Frederick]

Betty wrote :

And please don't ever kid yourselves that grown-ups on sensible, adult forums are in any way less likely to be the perpetrators or victims of this sort of thing, because they're not.

The bored mums in my village that write the bitchy stuff on our village facebook page tyo each other. All seem to have their photos next to these comments ... 15 minutes at the school gate would give anybody an opportunity to ID them all and dish out a slap if needed . But I doubt when they write the stuff that thought has ever entered their minds

[Patf]

Every time I hear about this internet nastiness I wonder what horrible pit of viciousness it comes from. G-d forbid any of my family have to experience it, (or worse, take part in it.)

One of our sons, aged 15, was stalked by a gang of  physical bullies for a few weeks, he never told us, but someone else did and it was sorted. But at least this kind of bullying is in the open, whereas those on the internet are too scared to do it openly.

I couldn't read your link, Jonzjob, but if they're planning legislation at least it's a start.

[Chancer]

[quote user="lindal1000"]I guess like all things..you need to learn how to use these media safely and sensibly. For your nephew perhaps it gave him a chance to have contacts that he would otherwise never have met and that may have made him feel a bit less lonely. And does it really matter that he had never met any of his Facebook friends? I think social media fulfil a very important and positive role in communication in a way that was never possible before.. but you need to keep in touch with the reality at the same time and exert the same common sense rules that you would apply in any other situation.

Some of them did know him, he worked all his life for Macdo's so he did meet many when they worked there for the average staff turnover time which is 4 hours [:-))] (I did a case study on Macdo's for my MBA) and they will no doubt have kept in touch via social media and crossed paths at pubs etc, however there were many that were embarassed to be asked and just mumbled that they were a friend of a friend, what had happened was the message was passed around during the week that there was a good session to be had with a Friday afternoon off of work.

A Young friend of mine said there are friends and Facebook friends.....................

Myself I prefer to have a few very good lo,g term friends with whom I may not even speak for 6 months at a time but that are real friends than to say I have X Facebook friends or Twitter followers.

 

As to meeting potential partners on-line..well who would ever do a thing like that? Lol.[/quote]

A lot more no doubt than those who are happy and comfortable to say so! [:P]

Got to go, tts time to send out a group e-mail photo of my Willy.

[Quillan]

The way I understand it is that the owners of sites like Facebook seem to shy away from any responsibility of what is put on their site. As already said it is difficult to find the people actually posting abusive posts and sites like Facebook are reluctant to pass over any information they do have to the authorities when these things happen. I would think a better idea would to hold them accountable. Create laws to stop 'cyber bullying' and lay the blame at the site owners door. If they then want to pursue the individual and pass the fine on to them then they can but the core of the law should be that they remove offending posts and pay the fine. A final stage of such a system would be to actually block the site within the UK so nobody can access it. Facebook 'reads' peoples posts anyway to target advertising which is how they make their money so to set up a system that 'rings an alarm bell' when an abusive post is made should not be that difficult. Depriving Facebook of their (advertising) income is probably the biggest threat to them and which they will sit up and take notice.

[YCCMB]

According to a Grauniad article from last year, 556 million people access Facebook every day from a smartphone or tablet. I don't know if you'd have to add to that the luddites like me who access it from a laptop or desktop, but either way, that's a herculean task if you have to police their posts, algorithm or not.

It's a bit like someone in Shanghai telling their friend "Betty smells" and me trying to find out who it was from the comfort of my sofa.

[Gardian]

Chancer ...............

If you post that picture of your nether regions on here, would you pls ensure that you re-size the image on Photobucket, otherwise all the text goes ................

[AnOther]

ET.

You can set up a new email address on the web based services in moments and as many addresses as you like too.

You can also buy a PAYG phone and post or SMS from that in complete anonymity.

Believe me if you are determined not to be found you won't be or at least not with the resources likely to be employed for a bit of trolling !

[Jonzjob]

[quote user="You can call me Betty"]It's a bit like someone in Shanghai telling their friend "Betty smells" and me trying to find out who it was from the comfort of my sofa.[/quote]

Of course you smell Betty. That is why you have a nose [Www]

And don't worry if you do post that pikky Chancer. We aren't likely to laugh over such a small item as that [6][6]

[hyacinth bucket]

as AnOther said...

"You can set up a new email address on the web based services in moments and as many addresses as you like too..."

Quite true.

I'm not a troll, btw

[EuroTrash]

"You can set up a new email address on the web based services in moments and as many addresses as you like too..."

Yes I suppose you can, but to me the idea of having multiple email addresses when you don't need to is far too much hassle to contemplate. I have to have 4 different ones for work purposes and even that ties my brain in knots. Setting up endless email addresses - I know it's easy but you still have to think of a username that nobody else has picked, and a password that you'll remember for long enough to log back in - seems such a mindbogglingly boring way of spending your time. But it takes all sorts.

Having said all that, there's probably some program designed for spammers that creates infinite email accounts automatically.

[AnOther]

It might be a hassle for you but for somebody intent on wrongdoing not really.