{"id":216,"date":"2013-10-17T22:47:21","date_gmt":"2013-10-18T05:47:21","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/briancebuhl.com\/?p=216"},"modified":"2013-10-17T22:47:21","modified_gmt":"2013-10-18T05:47:21","slug":"cyberbullying-and-the-first-amendment","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/briancebuhl.com\/?p=216","title":{"rendered":"Cyberbullying and The First Amendment"},"content":{"rendered":"

I recently read about a case of cyberbullying<\/a>\u00a0that led to arrests made of the girls that did the bullying. \u00a0In another article (which I can’t find, otherwise I’d link it), I read someone’s opinion that they should replace the word “bullying” with “assault” in cyberbullying.<\/p>\n

I think we should take a deep breath, and think very carefully about what our response should be to this, and the ramifications of that response.<\/p>\n

I don’t want to be callous about this subject. \u00a0A little girl took her life, and that’s tragic.<\/p>\n

How we react to that tragedy can have lasting and devastating consequences, however, and I think we should be careful about that.<\/p>\n

Let me go off on a tangent for a moment. \u00a0For years now, the formula seems to be “something terrible has happened, therefore, we should react horribly.” I hate to bring up September 11th, but our reaction(s) to that tragedy were terrible, and resulted in the loss of lives of people all over the world. \u00a0It resulted in atrocities done in the name of security. \u00a0I think we need to change the formula to “something terrible has happened, so let’s not do anything until we’ve taken some time to calm down.”<\/p>\n

I don’t think these girls should be arrested for saying horrible things. \u00a0I think saying stupid or mean stuff should not be the grounds for anyone to get arrested.<\/p>\n

Does that mean I think there should be no ramifications for cyberbullying? \u00a0Maybe. \u00a0I might have to think on this some more, before I have a definitive answer. \u00a0I think in this case, all of the parents involved have some questions to answer. \u00a0What were the parents of the instigating children doing? \u00a0How did the parents of the girl that committed suicide not know that their daughter was hurting so badly?<\/p>\n

It’s that last one that gets me. \u00a0My children have unsupervised and unrestricted access to the internet. \u00a0Maybe I’m being an irresponsible parent in regards to that, but I’ve thought this through, and I’m not just being lazy. \u00a0My kids are both teenagers, and I know that if I prohibit them from something, whatever it is that they are denied, they’re going to crave that much more. \u00a0Worse, they are going to go around me, and they are going to get it anyway. \u00a0If they can’t see what they want at home, they’ll go out somewhere else. \u00a0Also, and let me be completely blunt about this: if my kids want to look at porn, that’s their business. (I think I’m going to have to explain this more at some point. \u00a0I’m going to table that for another post)<\/p>\n

My kids have unrestricted internet access, but they’re not alone. \u00a0I check up on them. \u00a0Not necessarily what they’re looking at, but I talk to them. \u00a0I check to see what’s going on in their lives. \u00a0I make sure they’re happy, and getting everything they need. \u00a0I make sure they know that they’re loved, and I make sure that they know that I’m there for them.<\/p>\n

Whatever a parent’s policies might be surrounding their children’s internet use, I would think that they would, like me, take an interest in their child’s life, and talk to them. \u00a0So what were the parents of the victim doing?<\/p>\n

This makes it sound like I’m blaming the parents of the child that committed suicide, and I don’t mean to be mean. \u00a0They must be feeling a kind of pain I never want to know, and hopefully will never understand.<\/p>\n

I guess the bottom line is, I don’t want to see freedom of speech infringed or curtailed because 3 sets of parents were not paying attention to their children.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I recently read about a case of cyberbullying\u00a0that led to arrests made of the girls that did the bullying. \u00a0In another article (which I can’t find, otherwise I’d link it), I read someone’s opinion that they should replace the word “bullying” with “assault” in cyberbullying. I think we should take a deep breath, and think […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-216","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/briancebuhl.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/216","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/briancebuhl.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/briancebuhl.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/briancebuhl.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/briancebuhl.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=216"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/briancebuhl.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/216\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":217,"href":"https:\/\/briancebuhl.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/216\/revisions\/217"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/briancebuhl.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=216"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/briancebuhl.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=216"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/briancebuhl.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=216"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}