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The state of cyberbullying in 2015

May 27, 2015 by Guest author

At HumanistLife, our guest authors explore contemporary issues from a humanist perspective. In this piece, writer Daniel Faris asks: what can be done about the epidemic of cyberbullying? 

Cyberbullying is impacting more and more young people. Photo: Fixers via Flickr

Cyberbullying is impacting more and more young people. Photo: Fixers via Flickr

Earlier this year, Monica Lewinsky – yes; that Monica Lewinsky – gave a TED talk in Vancouver in which she explored cyberbullying – that is, bullying that takes place on the Internet.

When the news of her affair with US President Bill Clinton broke in 1998 – right when the Internet was growing into what it has become today – Lewinsky became the first person, she says, to become a victim of cyberbullying. She went to bed one night completely unknown, and then there she was the next day, the subject of headlines and tabloid fodder all around the globe for the next few months.

As time passed, Lewinsky faded from the national spotlight. But she still had a life to live and now, at 41, she’s reclaiming her narrative by speaking about how cyberbullying is a serious problem in the developed world. During her TED talk, Lewinsky said she decided to get involved in the movement to end cyberbullying after hearing about the death of Tyler Climenti, a student at Rutgers University, who killed himself after being cyberbullied about his homosexuality.

‘Public humiliation as bloodsport has got to stop,’ Lewinsky said. ‘Just imagine walking a mile in someone else’s headline.’

Why cyberbullies do it

If we agree with Lewinsky, cyberbullying has been around for about 17 years. Bullying, however, has almost certainly been around as long as human beings. Still, there’s a difference between cyberbullying and the more ‘traditional’ methods.

When a kid says something mean to another kid’s face, the bully gets to see the victim’s reaction with his or her own eyes. Assuming the child isn’t sociopathic, he or she is bound to feel at least a morsel of regret about hurting someone’s feelings.

Now migrate that bullying over to the digital world, and aggressors no longer have to deal with witnessing the negative consequences of their behaviors. With nothing discouraging them from cyberbullying, many bullies’ digital tactics can be even more ferocious.

How prevalent is cyberbullying?

Some groups purport that more than 40 percent of teenagers in the United States have been victims of cyberbullying. But slice that cross-section even further and you’ll find a particularly grotesque statistic: Eight out of every 10 students in the LGBT community are victims of cyberbullying.

On the other hand, those who employ more traditional research methods have concluded that roughly 25 percent of US students have been the victim of cyberbullying, with 16 percent of them admitting that they have been the aggressors.

It doesn’t matter which numbers you choose to agree with; they’re both higher than we’d like them to be. And make no mistake: this issue is hardly exclusive to the United States; a poll of 10,000 youths, conducted by nobullying.com, indicated that 7 in 10 young people worldwide have experienced cyberbullying. They went on to discover that Facebook is home to more online bullying than any other social network; 54% of poll respondents indicated that they had experienced cyberbullying on the site.

Managing the problem

While it’s certainly awful to hear any story that involves a young kid taking his or her own life because of bullying, rather than going on the offensive and trying to eliminate what is a very innate characteristic in children, it’s important for parents to educate their kids and remind them that they’re loved and that words are just words. Yes, people say mean things online. But isn’t that just the nature of the world?

Instead of trying to prevent our children from experiencing life – the ups and the downs, the sadness and the happiness – there’s an emerging tendency to go overboard when it comes to ensuring their safety and well-being. While these parents are certainly well-intentioned, it’s more important to be able to deal with criticisms, failure, and meanness than to act as though such things simply do not exist in the world.

Since we will never completely stop bullying, no matter how hard we try, it doesn’t really make much sense to brand cyberbullying as an ‘epidemic’ simply because the Internet wasn’t ubiquitous 20 years ago. It’s a problem, yes; but the solutions aren’t as simple as we’d like to pretend.

Lessons learned

While many in the media might want everyone to believe that today’s kids can’t walk five feet without getting cyberbullied, kidnapped, or assaulted, the truth of the matter is that kids have learned to deal with the adverse realities of life for millennia. It’s unfortunate that some kids have to be made fun of and picked on, but so long as kids are kids, there are going to be some bad apples in the bunch who are going to push their luck.

But here’s an underreported factoid: young people are increasingly coming to their parents when they’re cyberbullied. Word has gotten out, and people are talking. Bullies have fewer and fewer opportunities to hide behind their devices as they poke fun at their peers, and some who are caught are even facing serious legal troubles.

Cyberbullying is a problem, but so is virtually everything else. Kids watch too much TV. They don’t eat the right foods. They stay up too late. They are too busy. They don’t have enough to do. They have too much homework. The curriculum is not challenging enough. And so it goes.

The remedies for cyberbullying reveal that this is a human issue – not a partisan, religious, or sectarian one. Religion, for example, while purporting to teach us to ‘treat others as we would be treated,’ continues to fail us in real-world issue pertaining to social justice. Humanism, in existing solely in the material world, and concerning itself with objective values, can better speak to the ‘value and agency‘ of human beings – that is, the founding tenets of the humanist movement. In other words: a Christian may tell us that cyberbullying is wrong because God would frown on it. A humanist, meanwhile, will maintain that cyberbullying is wrong because it’s wrong. Objective truths.

Only one of these worldviews is capable of instilling the value of personal responsibility. The other defers to the supernatural as a deterrent.

But here’s another truth: As long as kids are allowed to communicate amongst themselves, they are going to pick on each other. To make sure their children don’t become victims of cyberbullying, parents need to maintain an ongoing and open dialogue with their kids, consistently reminding them to not take things said on the Internet too seriously. Parents should also let them know the kinds of trouble they’ll find themselves in should they decide to harass one of their peers. The more active parents are in their kids’ lives, the less likely we are to hear stories about cyberbullying. It’s as simple as that.

Filed Under: Comment, Ethics, Humanism, Parenting Tagged With: cyberbullying, online abuse, social media, trolling, Twitter, young people

Righteous anger and the death of Leelah Alcorn

January 13, 2015 by Emma C Williams

In death, Leelah (pictured above) plead for better treatment of transgender people

In death, Leelah (pictured above) plead for better treatment of transgender people

The recent suicide of a transgender teenager in Ohio is a painful reminder of the worst that can happen when empathy fails us.

In a distressing suicide note, scheduled to appear on her blog within hours of her death, Leelah Alcorn outlined a litany of failings by her parents, most of which appear to have been driven by religious dogma, ignorance and prejudice. In an interview with CNN, the teenager’s mother asserted that she and her husband loved ‘unconditionally’ the dead child that she still insists was her confused and troubled son. As for the gender dysphoria, described so harrowingly in her child’s own suicide note? ‘We don’t support that, religiously,’ she said.

The angry responses to Leelah’s death have been powerful and unsurprising. LGBT activist Dan Savage called for Leelah’s parents to be prosecuted: ‘[they] threw her in front of that truck. They should be ashamed—but first they need to be shamed. Charges should be brought.’ Leelah’s family postponed her funeral and wake due to threats, and hundreds of people have sent enraged messages to the teenager’s mother, accusing her of driving her child to suicide. Online rallying calls urge others to send messages too, providing links to the mother’s Facebook profile and advice on how to contact her and her husband. ‘Let’s all message that woman on Facebook,’ one tweeter exhorts; another has even published what he claims to be the family’s home address. In an ever-growing barrage of furious tweets, Leelah’s parents have been called everything from ‘murderers’ and ‘monsters’ through to ‘demons.’ It makes for horrifying reading, and while I understand the anger, I am disquieted by the lack of humanity shown.

Most people seem to take it for granted that Leelah’s parents feel neither grief nor guilt as a result of their child’s suicide, and some state this supposition as a fact. Others appear to assume that the family’s sorrow and remorse will have been triggered by the actions of online crusaders, and gloat that Leelah’s mother has now blocked all outside messages: ‘Carla Alcorn locked her FB profile. Good. Fuck you. I hope the fear and guilt plagues you and your husband for the rest of your lives.’  The messages are abundant, and increasingly violent: ‘I hope the entire world gives Carla Alcorn hell;’ ‘I hope you wake up every morning and vomit over the guilt you must feel from torturing your beautiful daughter;’ ‘you’ve got blood on your hands, … bitch.’ Most striking of all are the catalogue of self-satisfied statements, in which the authors crow about the lengthy and vitriolic messages they claim to have sent to Leelah’s family: one example reads, ‘sent carla wood alcorn a really long message i basically told her she was going to hell but said it eloquently (kinda).’ One can only imagine its hideous content.

So here’s a thought experiment for those online accusers, safely ensconced behind their keyboards and so confident in the apparent rectitude of their vitriol. Shunned by her community, guilt-ridden, grieving for the child that she clearly failed and confused by the clash between her inherited religious beliefs, the closeted nature of a conservative state and the caustic self-righteousness of her accusers, Carla Wood Alcorn also commits suicide. What would her accusers think then? While some of them, I am prepared to admit, might think ‘good riddance,’ others I am sure would feel responsible. Would they be responsible? Well, partly. This is the power and the danger of social media – we can say anything to anyone, at any time – no time for reflection, no time for regret. It is out there – for better or for worse – just as Leelah’s anguished suicide note is out there, despite her family’s attempts to remove it. Leelah’s own rage at her parents is palpable – ‘Mom and Dad: fuck you.’ She had a right to feel angry, and her parents will have to live with that painful legacy; it is not for the rest of us to hijack those emotions and claim them as our own.

Now I am the first to understand anger. Believe me, I get it. I am someone who rants – I rant and I rave. My favourite topics are all the ones that you’re supposed to avoid at dinnertime. I have risked embarrassment for my husband by calling other men out on sexist remarks, rather than just laugh along like you’re supposed to when a chap engages in ‘jovial banter’ over drinks. I have fought with colleagues over numerous issues, most recently equal marriage, and provoked mortified silences and awkward relations as a result. I will do it again. I have a reputation for speaking out – or shouting out – whatever the social situation and trust me, I am not always popular for it. Thanks to all this, I have lost a few friends into the bargain.

Aristotle believed that there is such a thing as righteous anger: there are times, he said, when not only is it right to be angry, it would be wrong not to be so; the trick, however, is knowing what to be angry about, when to express it, how to express it, and to whom – that’s what is difficult. Blind rage is wrong, he argued, and it is particularly dangerous when it arises from pure emotion, as opposed to reason. Now I reserve the right to embarrass someone at the dinner table, most especially when the table is my own; and with all due respect to Aristotle, I believe that everyone has the right to feel however they wish to, and to express those feelings, within certain parameters. It is entirely natural and understandable that some people have felt unbridled rage towards Leelah’s parents, especially those members of the trans community who have experienced the kind of ignorance and gross misunderstanding that she found herself exposed to. But is it someone’s right to express that anger towards Leelah’s family, so directly and so viciously? Tragic and preventable as her death clearly was, I think it is not.

So where should we direct our righteous anger? Tragically, Leelah’s suicide is anything but unusual. A recent survey indicated that almost half of young transgender people attempt suicide here in the UK, and this shocking statistic is borne out by other recent studies in the USA. Wouldn’t we be better to focus our energies on making things better, to ‘fix society’ as Leelah herself exhorts us to do? In her note, Leelah lays blame very clearly on her parents, but also on the church they belonged to and the Christian counsellors she was forced to see. Shouldn’t our anger be directed at the ignorant self-appointed moralists, those who try to dictate to others how they should live, the pastors keen to say that Leelah did not exist and that Josh was a confused boy who was somehow abused and corrupted by the LGBT community, despite limited access to their support? Instead of sending hateful messages to Leelah’s own family, people should sign the petition to ban transgender conversion therapy, a change in the law that could have a direct impact on improving the lives and prospects of young people like Leelah, and lead a change of hearts and minds in the process.

By all means, be angry at Leelah’s death. But when someone directs their anger at the parents of a child who has just committed suicide? That’s a very bold stance to take. It’s the stance of someone so confident that they have never erred as to be spectacularly foolish in my eyes. A young person is dead. Blame religion. Blame suburban small-mindedness and ignorance. Blame us all for not fighting hard enough and acting swiftly enough to bring the changes that Leelah herself could have benefitted from. And let’s stand together to make those changes: in our schools, in our communities and in our families. Let’s make things better.

The last words belong to Leelah, and her instructions are clear: ‘the only way I will rest in peace is if one day transgender people aren’t treated the way I was, they’re treated like humans, with valid feelings and human rights. Gender needs to be taught about in schools, the earlier the better. My death needs to mean something. My death needs to be counted in the number of transgender people who commit suicide this year. I want someone to look at that number and say ‘that’s fucked up’ and fix it. Fix society. Please.’

Filed Under: International, LGBT, Parenting, The Internet Tagged With: bullying, LGBT, suicide, transgender, Twitter

Ask me no questions

November 7, 2014 by Emma C Williams

'Ask me no questions, I'll tell you no lie.' Emma C Williams relates an incident on Twitter. Photo: Derek Bridges

‘Ask me no questions, I’ll tell you no lies.’ Emma C Williams relates an incident on Twitter. Photo: Derek Bridges

About a month ago, and this is unusual, I found myself stunned into silence by a lay preacher. Don’t get me wrong, the silence was short-lived. But, for a brief moment, I was dumbfounded.

At the time, I was curious to know how a person of faith could accept the fact that mankind is a product of evolution but still claim that we’re unique in our possession of a soul. Whilst I don’t personally believe that there is such a thing as the ‘soul,’ it’s an important tenet for a Christian; I was curious to know whether he thought that the soul had evolved along with us, or whether God just popped it in one day. You know. On a whim. When He’d run out of Sudoku puzzles and got bored with inventing new parasites.

Now since then I have done some reading on the subject and discovered that there is considerable theological debate in this area – a debate almost as pointless as the one about how many angels can dance on a pinhead in my humble opinion, but that’s neither here nor there. At the time, I was genuinely curious and fascinated to hear what this preacher had to say.

Anyway. I asked my big question, bounding into his timeline like an enthusiastic puppy, and was greeted with the following reply:

‘I’m afraid it’s not a question that’s ever bothered me.’

Sniff. Disappointing.

Not to be deterred, I pushed my nose in further, determined that this preacher, this man who stands before others and makes the claim that their naturally mortal ‘soul’ (whatever that is) can be granted the gift of immortality by the Grace of God (whatever that is), this man must surely be intrigued by a question that explores the very nature of the soul itself?

In the end, he answered as follows:

‘It’s one of the things I don’t understand about atheists that they need answers to questions that most of us who have a faith aren’t concerned about.’

Wow. I mean … wow.

Okay, I didn’t expect ‘an answer’ as I suspected at the time that there wasn’t one (although the Catholic church, if you’re interested, has some entertainingly specific guidance on this very theme). What I did expect, perhaps naively, was a response deserving of respect; something like, ‘I don’t know, I’d really need to think about that one,’ or ‘I don’t know but I bet [insert name of highly-respected theological Prof here] has something to say about it, I’ll look it up.’ To come back with ‘it’s not a question that’s ever bothered me’ followed by a patronising chastisement for being a typical atheist asking silly questions not only left me open-mouthed but took me right back to being at Church school. There my atheism was cemented in place quite unintentionally but quite brilliantly by the fact that I was ridiculed for asking questions.

Personally, I don’t understand how anyone can agree with the evidence that mankind evolved but refuse to accept that there is therefore nothing special about us other than the fact that we are a truly brilliant ape. And this particular ape has questions – lots of them; telling me that those questions are uninteresting or unimportant to you will only make me suspect, rightly or wrongly, that you fear the answers.

So, like it or not, my dear preacher … I’m still asking.

Filed Under: Atheism Tagged With: atheism, Twitter

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