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Irish Gov't Seeks To Rein In Cyber Bullying
An anonymous reader points out a story on the Irish Times that says "the Irish government is looking for ways to combat 'cyber-bullying' after data indicated that a significant percentage of young children are subjected to this kind of abuse via their mobile phone and popular social network accounts. The industry has been asked to come up with solutions for this problem and a government office is due to publish a guide on the issue in the near future. Surely this is a problem faced by children in all developed countries these days." Add "for the children" to the list of reasons to track the Web-site habits of mobile web users in Ireland.
I second that bollocks. However, three or four of our bullies were built like Biffa Bacon, one of them used an air-pistol to bushwhack other kids on the way to the sweet shop, and they were the main culprits in a group of 15-20 people. Kids who showed obvious transgender behaviour were basically permenent toast. Geeks frequently got hassled. None of the big kids who *weren't* bullies got picked on.
This is a *basic* problem. In adult life, sociopaths end up running countries, religions, and/or large amoral corporations. I'm guessing but willing to bet that a significant percentage of school bullies are sociopaths. Until we can reliably diagnose this and correct the tendency, we will continue to have a problem. Half-assed attempts to monitor and censor the web in a supposed attempt to combat this are just equal epic fail.
I agree. I was bullied a lot during school and it stopped when I actually threw the guy on the teachers desk. Sure, during the next break I got some but the fact that I didn't run away actually did the rest. Never had a problem again.
Bullying is just to easy. The consequences are minor and the work involved is negligible. Since you can't do anything about the work it takes, change something about the consequences.
What I never understood was that often teachers took the side of the bully. I always assumed that probably the parents of those kids weren't much better and the teachers were just afraid.
I, for one, will teach my kids that when someone tries to bully them they have to retaliate decisively, brutally and make sure everyone knows that crossing them means physical damage.
School is like the world during the cold war. You need to demonstrate your power just enough so you never have to actually use it.
if you cant learn to stick up for yourself as you are growing up god forbid when it comes time to step into the real deal where people are cut-throat just put a nicer face on it.
Let's have a Skinnerian look on this: rewarded behavior is repeated, punished behavior is not. Behavior that elicits no response, either good or bad, is not repeated, but that's learned slower.
To make bullying stop, you either have to not respond at all, or to punish the bullies. How could you punish them? Beat them up? I've done that a few times, doesn't work; plus, you get punished for it when people tell on you. Call them names? They don't care. Break their stuff? They'll enact their revenge. They're always better armed than you, because there are more of them. When ever you try standing up for yourself, they tread on you some more, and the "justice" system treads on you as well.
Then you can do nothing. That makes you an easy target, and it means you effectively don't mind them calling you names, punching your lunch out of your hands and onto the floor, breaking your stuff and being violent towards you.
You're saying that people should either fight an unwinnable war, or let themselves be conquered without offering any resistance. Right?