Slashdot Mirror
Teenager Arrested In England For Criticizing Olympic Athlete On Twitter
An anonymous reader writes "A teenager from Dorset, England was arrested for sending a Twitter message to Olympic athlete Tom Daley saying: 'You let your dad down i hope you know that.' Police arrested the 17-year-old boy as part of an investigation into 'malicious tweets' after Daley and his teammate missed out on a medal. Daley's father died from cancer last year. While it is rarely used and the police have not indicated whether they are pressing charges, the Communications Act 2003 s.127 covers the sending of improper messages. Section 127(1)(a) relates to a message that is grossly offensive or of an indecent, obscene or menacing character. Sean Duffy was convicted and sentenced earlier this year for similar comments. I look forward to tens of thousands of arrests across England over the next few days as all public remarks which may cause offense, regardless of their target, are investigated by the law."
According to the Guardian, another (since deleted) tweet threatened Daley with drowning, but the law doesn't require threats of violence for an arrest to be made.
"relates to a message that is grossly offensive or of an indecent, obscene or menacing character."
Isn't it nice to have such ambiguous laws that they could use against anyone whenever they please?
You can be arrested for an improper message but according to that law, not for a violent message? Shouldn't the latter fall into the former?
It's for the good of the children, lest the terrorists win!
He was arrested as he made a threat to kill the athlete, this doesn't mean any charges will be brought against him. I find it more likely that the Police will give him a severe talking to telling him to stop being a troll or face charges being brought in the future.
The fact that the teenager threatened Daley with drowning is only referenced in a convenient side note. Because that would cause less fear and hysteria than the submitter actually intended to stir up.
When I heard about this story for the first time on the radio this morning, my reaction was essentially "WTF- they're policing untasteful comments on twitter now?".
Having read about it a little more, my reaction mellowed significantly. Actual threats (albeit unrealistic) are just about within what I would consider to be the remit of the police. Of course it would depend on what exactly is done by them about it. Simply arresting and cautioning him would strike me as being proportionate. Any kind of sentence beyond perhaps a small (less than £50) fine would probably not be.
This is a substitute for a clever sig that fits within the maximum number of characters.
I know Slashdot will cover the free speech part of this "case" which is very valid, but I'd like to point out how absolutely classless this teenager is. Hopefully, he will see the error of his ways.
See my journal for slashdot ID's by year. Mine created in 2005. http://slashdot.org/journal/289875/slashdot-ids-by-year
In days past, this was solved differently. The kid would've had his ass kicked. People had more respect for each other back then. Nowadays, every coward troll can peep out whenever they're bored or feeling malicious. Is this the future we want?
...but the law doesn't require threats of violence for an arrest to be made.
Nothing requires arrests to be made, but surely threats of violence are by their nature 'menacing'?
Even the well-known and strongly libertarian political blogger Paul Staines/Guido Fawkes is being a bit cagey about this one. Making death threats via a written, public means of communication is about as far from smart as you can get.
Actually, just noticed that more details of the exchange, including screen-caps of the deleted posts, are available at this blog (along with a bit of commentary, so you can make your own mind up.
The messages sent to Tom Daley were an example of massive douchebaggery, but some of the other tweets on this guys feed look like they could be bullying and fall foul of all sorts of laws.
At what point did publicly being an ass**** become a crime in the UK? And how can they possibly afford enough courts, judges, and prison cells to prosecute that many people?
It's worth pointing out that the idiot in question actually apologised to Tom Daley before he was descended upon by a good portion of Daley's 800,000 followers. It's at this point that @Rileyy_69 began lashing out with offensive tweets and is most likely what he's been arrested for.
Daley himself sparked the whole thing off by retweeting the initial message (which wasn't actually offensive) complete with the sender's username. IMO Daley showed poor judgement there.
There's a reason "Don't Feed the Trolls" is a meme.
This is clearly some 17 year old kid shit talking on Twitter. Just a troll. Getting the police involved is ridiculous, unless he was to continue to do it (i.e., harrassment).
Then again, judging from the other tweets this kid has done, he has some serious problems. Some form of Twitter-Tourettes at least.
Hopefully the police will drop it, but the experience will cause the idiot to grow up. Haha, unlikely.
In other news, Jan Moir of the nasty UK "news"paper the Daily Mail can write things about athletes being bitches without any police getting involved. This is real personal abuse. http://politicalscrapbook.net/2012/07/jan-moir-olympics-marianne-vos-some-bitch-from-holland-lizzie-armitstead/
No, he did not make any threats. You clearly didn't actually read the article. Threats of violence actually are NOT enough to lead to arrest, but asshole-ish tweets are. Read the article before posting such crap.
I can't believe I'm linking to The Huffington Post as a better source but for lack of any other site that is explaining it better, here's a timeline of the tweets.
Here's the tweet in question:
@TomDaley1994 i'm going to find you and i'm going to drown you in the pool you cocky twat your a nobody people like you make me sick
It is listed in the Guardian article but doesn't say it's from the arrested suspect.
My work here is dung.
If this is true, why haven't they arrested Jeremy Clarkson for his comments about Mitt Romney?
One of our competitors trademarked the term "hypothesis". From now on, we will call them "boneheaded ideas".
*stupidest
He may be a jerk, but he's not a criminal. Ridiculous.
I think the biggest problem was that the tweets were directed at Daley, rather than just being written on the teenager's feed.
Daley was clearly upset about it which is why he re-tweeted the comment which was then re-tweeted by his followers (including several celebrities).
Frankly I was very disgusted when I read what the teenager had written. Losing your father when you're only 18 sucks enough without some twat goading you over it.
Summation 2
There is a lesson in all this. Don't use social media. Anything you say there will last forever, and will be used against you.
And the flip side is that social media doesn't produce anything worth reading anyway. It is generally poorly written junk. If you want to contribute in a meaningful way, work on Wikipedia or write for Examiner.com. Look at me post junk on slashdot...ugh.
The UK having the First Amendment to the United States Constitution would suppose that the United States Constitution applies to the UK. It does not. While some may muse about how much influence the USA has politically over the UK, the UK does have its own legal system. However, it does not have a written constitution.
" You let your dad down" is cannot be termed as "Criticism". There's a difference between the two.
You're right that England isn't covered by American laws. Why should it be? It seems you're yet another typical American who's never been anywhere and 100% believes the propaganda your schools and TV brainwashes you with that US == the world.
I've lived in both countries and you really think people are 'freer' to speak their minds in the US than the UK? Thats laughable.
You need to check your facts too:
Free speech has long been recognised as a common law right in Britain, it also has a statutory basis in Article 10 of the European Convention on Human Rights which has been incorporated into UK law by the Human Rights Act.
Meanwhile, A man got hanged, drawn and quartered for dying in the Houses of Parliament.
*According to the Guardian, another (since deleted) tweet threatened Daley with drowning.
So, the Slashdot story summary is a completely fabricated pile of shit, with a little explanation on the bottom, after the preceding propaganda already riled up the prejudices and produced a cascade of comments from the usual Salshdot poster who can't even bother to read the story summary, nevermind the story, before commenting in completely contrived, manipulated outrage.
Congratulations Slashdot, you are playing the same game as Fox News: half-truths intended to incite anger, without relevance as to actual truth.
Guy threatened someone with violence, guy arrested. Common sense, end of story. Everything else is bullshit.
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
The one thing that's puzzling is that according to the article the same tweeter first made a disparaging comment, then apologized, then backtracked and threatened Daley and was abusive to others. That's some odd behavior. Was he high? Is he suffering from bipolar disorder? perhaps someone hacked his account? I don't know
The fact that the teenager threatened Daley with drowning is only referenced in a convenient side note. Because that would cause less fear and hysteria than the submitter actually intended to stir up.
But are the two tweets from the same person? Or did the cops, ehrm, cop out, and went for the first tweeter due to convenience or ignorance?
People should be able to say whatever they want, but that's a really shitty thing to say. Intentionally malicious.
I think if the law wants to get involved, make the kid spend a few weekends in a hospice center as "community service". Monetary fines and other nonsense just don't matter in cases like this.
Join the Slashcott! Feb 10 thru Feb 17!
Check the facts, rewrite the posts that are CLEARLY trying to manipulate you and the readers.
none
There are no prosecutors involved yet. This is the police following up on a death threat. They didn't know if it was a 17 year old kid talking shit, or a someone who would actually be a real threat. Anyway, talking shit and making threats in public always runs the risk that someone will call you out on it, or call the police. The guy should get a warning for being a complete tit, but it needed to be investigated.
for this kind of people UK police should use Hanlon's Razor
Remember these (for anyone on Slashdot over the age of 12) ? During the mid 70's into the mid 80's, people would talk trash on the radio all the time. I myself remember threatening some kid making racial slurs over the air. I told him I was tracking him down watching the signal meter.
And this was over the air, FCC-controlled airspace. For anyone with a receiver to hear.
Have we become so paranoid, so fearful, so concerned that everyone out there is a maniac, that we are now going to preemptively arrest any kid who trash-talks via the current equivalent of CB radio?
Has our world come to this? Pre-crime? Thought crime? Buttle/Tuttle? It's madness.
If telephones are outlawed, then only outlaws will have telephones.
I've lived in both countries and you really think people are 'freer' to speak their minds in the US than the UK? Thats laughable.
Bullshit. It's not like the UK is China or anything, but are you free to have a Nazi party? Do you have an active KKK group? These things are still free and legal in the US. Hate-speech laws exist in the UK that would preclude that.
Neo-nazi's and the KKK are disgusting, but removing their rights to speak turns us into them.
I think you'll find that Mitt Romney is a 100% owned subsiduary of Likud, and may in fact be even more craven than the average politician when it comes to singing for his supper.
But please, believe otherwise if you wish.
Didn't Mitt Romney just come out and say (yesterday even) that he fully supports Israel?
We are free to speak with our guns too
Show that the arrest was based entirely on the "menacing" aspect of the provision, with the indecency/obscenity aspects not applied to strengthen the grounds for arrest. Or at least why the police would do that, when he has obviously been indecent/obscene but not obviously menacing.
"According to the Guardian, another (since deleted) tweet threatened Daley with drowning, but the law doesn't require threats of violence for an arrest to be made."
Should have been the FIRST line in the summary.
I swear to God...I swear to God! That is NOT how you treat your human!
The defense of Liberty is often spent in the company of scoundrels. . .
Why was the teen who made a nonviolent remark (albeit one that was certainly nothing less than deliberately mean) arrested, while the people who made arguably more threatening remarks, such as the ones which talked about drowing him, or going to his house and shooting him were not?
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
Yet at the same time you've unambiguously stated that they are homosexual.
I can see only two ways out of this:
- either you're suggesting that there are no female athletes at the olympics, and that Caster Semenya is merely a little more obvious than most, or
- all Olympic athletes love male chickens.
While the latter may well be true, it feels a little oblique to the discussion at hand.
However, it's still quite beyond me how olympic athletes can be deemed faggots or faggots.
I can only conclude that you are in fact delusional and that olympic athletes represent a broad spectrum of sexual diversity and chicken consumption.
There are more tweets, plus a link to a YouTube video on Digitalspy
My web domain.
It's abused by individuals lacking something.
Somebody is offended by some outward event entering his/her input sensors and then run through interpretative programming routines, often unpatched boot code burnt into firmware during the initial startup time of maybe 0 - 12 years and this code is usually heavily hacked by vested abusive interests in the surrounding programming institutions (schools, churches, families) to drain energy off the affected individuals.
Patching and cleaning this error-prone code is then left to the individual, taking usually 10 years more.
If firmware code is left unpatched by individuals with severely hacked code unable to do the cleanup themselves it creates all kinds of problems.
One typical situation is - Some system input creates the response "I am offended" and the signal originator is blamed do have created defective signals.
How can someone be blamed for somebody else's defective firmware and be penalized for it?
You must be really stupid, your parents weren't just related, they must have been the same person.
A thought stays in your head, well except in your case. If you want to call it a crime, call it a Twitter crime or even a speak crime. But thought crime is about THOUGHT. This would have been obvious anyone who isn't a walking poster for abortion at any age but alas, killing those with low IQ is not yet standard practice.
You are still free to THINK in the UK what you want. It is when you start broadcasting it to the entire world, that the law steps in. You might not like but call it what it is. A limit on free speech, not on thought.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
was it because he also sent threats? http://voces.huffingtonpost.com/blackberry/p.html?id=1722241 But a message sent later from the Twitter account read: "i'm going to find you and i'm going to drown you in the pool you cocky tw*t your a nobody people like you make me sick."
Please consider that your understanding of the context or of the law might be at fault, and not the original summary.
The lowest bar to justify an arrest of this guy would be his indecency/obscenity. The facts that he made some non-menacing threats and that he is a dick are irrelevant - ask yourself instead what stupid laws you have broken which mean that you can be easily arrested when you annoy the wrong person.
Well, to be fair, anti-Semitism and anti-Israel are not the same thing. Far from it. There are plenty of anti-Semitic Israel loving people. And Israel doesn't have much of a problems with anti-Semitism if it suits them: Anwar Sadat was an unrepentant Nazi sympathiser and is loved by every Zionist around. Extreme right wing groups and politicians all over Europe have always been rabid anti-Semitics and now are always seen kissing up to Israel because of a common enemy: Muslims. In the US kkk types used to be anti-Semitic and because of the "ayrabs" they have become Israel admirers. Then there are all those groups of evangelical Christians that love Israel because this way God can strike dead all the Jews in the same place, or that the rapture will only happen when all (or most?) Jews are back in the "holy" land.
To sum it up, it is very simple *and common* to be an Israel-loving anti-Semitic bastard!
This kid had Aspergers. That is sort of an important fact that I don't see being discussed. Aspergers syndrome is an autism spectrum disorder that is characterized by significant difficulties in social interaction. The lack of demonstrated empathy is possibly the most dysfunctional aspect of Asperger syndrome. So the kid, with a disorder that makes it hard for him to empathize with people, posted some words that were emotionally hurtful, e.g. un-empathetic. He is taken to court and convicted.
I'm sure he'll learn his lesson from his punishment — just like how all schizophrenic people stop hearing voices and all depressed people become happier after you sentence them with crimes.
Big apple, new Yorik, undig it, something's unrotting in Edenmark.
Funny how you got modded a troll. Maybe who ever did it got tired of their community garden yelling at them for entering after dark, and informing them that the police had been dispatched. I really wish I'd kept the article, and video on it. Oh well, it was on the telegraph I believe sometime last year.
Om, nomnomnom...
Uncouth, sure, but malicious? It's a sad day when we arrest someone for saying something insensitive. I mean a really sad day. I hope the kid is let go, for what a waste of tax payer money. He didn't threaten he said something distasteful. And he didn't say it to millions, he said it to one.
But next, if you're on twitter and your in the public spotlight, either get off twitter or expect the worst in people. Don't expect that simply because you're in the spotlight that you won't be criticized or piss off your fans. Shit, professionals face this sort of crap every single day, let it go, ignore it.
Personally, my feeling is that each athlete is at the Olympics because they earn their spot (hopefully because of natural raw talent, not because of doping). The feats these athletes perform are phenomenal and the rest of us should be so dedicated to anything. Many don't get sponsorship or much financial help from the country they represent. I know that these men and women bust their asses training all the time. Their training is a 2nd full time job for them. I am personally impressed and humbled to be represented by any one of them in the Olympics, even the worst of them. Being on TV, being in the spotlight in front of billions and being scrutinized in every thing they do must be vast amounts of added pressure to perform their best. Heck I bet most /.'ers are too scared to come out of mom's basement just to see the sun. (j/k) In all seriousness, I wonder how many of those athletes are scared of big crowds or can't speak in public, but there we are with lights, cameras, and mics shoved in their faces demanding to know how they feel.
I don't need them to tell me, I can tell by how they start and finish their competitions. They are nervous and trying to focus on getting a task done and once it is done, they are relieved that it's done, and sometimes they are happy with how they performed and sometimes not so much. The entire point of the Olympics (IMHO) is to compete against people of your equal skills from all over the world, and a close finish between competitors means it was a great competition in which all athletes respect their opponents.
Hey, but what do I know, I'm still scare to stop being an introvert.
Life takes interesting turns, but the most interest is when you're off the beaten path.
The V for Vendetta universe is HERE!
Ain't it quaint when they call it the "free" world?
I killed da wabbit -Elmer Fudd
What father's cancer has to do with anything here?
We shouldn't be surprised by that. However, he threatened to kill him, that's grounds for arrest here in California as well. I'm not opposed to what happened to this guy, its another case of people believing they're untouchable online.
Do I agree with how the law can be abused? No
Do I agree with how it was used in this case? Yes
"Your honor, we are charging the defendant with Felony Butthurt."
Yeah, if the black man was insulted he should have drawn his gun and shot the insulter, like in the old days...
If hateful and aggressive comments are forbidden by law, how is Youtube able to function?
The summary conveniently left out this little gem: "i'm going to find you and i'm going to drown you in the pool you cocky twat your a nobody people like you make me sick"
Drill baby drill - on Mars
Uhhhhh, Mr. Gibson's been drinking again.
I was more pointing to the fact of calling some a "Monday". how is that even a racial slur? Someone calls me a Monday, first this that comes to mind is that fat ass from Office Space. People get so butthurt nowadays.
"The idea that your feelings are the most holy ideal is rubbish."
“Common sense is not so common.” — Voltaire
Free Speech in the EU cannot be equated with free speech in the US. If it could, censorship would not be so rampant and unchallenged in many countries, i.e. Germany.
Yes, I think people are far more free to speak their mind in the UK, for better or for worse.
If you ignore ACs because they are anonymous - you're an idiot.
Makes me think... What is the location of the server he sent his messages to?
If it's the USA, he should be protected by the 1st amendment.
"Trump!!", the new Godwin.
We are free to speak with our guns too
Wait a minute... was that a threat?
"Trump!!", the new Godwin.
It's not like the UK is China or anything, but are you free to have a Nazi party? Do you have an active KKK group?
We have 2 nazi parties: the BNP and the EDL. KKK would be legal but (and this is where the line is), hate speech is illegal. Specifically, incitement of hatred against race or religion.
It really shouldn't be a slippery slope but this is what the original article is about.
NuLabour wrote laws such that almost anything was a criminal offence. Teenage kissing is f***ing illegal.
If you are inadvertently in a position which might aid a crime, you can be banished from that part of the country.
Whether or not any crime was committed.
http://www.magnacartaplus.org/news/index.php/?page_id=155
Britain went beyond criminalising thoughtcrime.
If you are inadvertently in a position which might aid a theoretical crime, you can be banished from that part of the country.
http://www.magnacartaplus.org/news/index.php/?page_id=155
Hitler got an Enabling Act passed to give him absolute power in the event of a minor emergency. He burned down the Reichstag and the rest is history.
Blair copied it.
It's Part 2 of the Civil Contingencies Act
There's also:
Legislative and Regulatory Reform Act -- dubbed Abolition of Parliament Act by the media as it could do this abolition without debate in Parliament.
Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act -- unlimited internet surveillance (recent internet surveillance attempts have just been about getting the ISP to pay for data storage). Also made it illegal for you to not hand over your private key even if you forgot it (latter repealed by coalition).
Serious Crime Act -- actually passed by Brown. This isn't even thoughtcrime punishment. Get this: even if no crime is committed or even thought about you can still be punished (banishment etc) for inadvertently being in a position to facilitate a crime. It's like Wrong Place Wrong Time, only it's Wrong Place All The Time.
Identity Cards Act -- forcing anyone who wanted a passport to submit to iris scanning and fingerprinting, along with giving their bank details. Creation of a Stasi 2.0 database with records for every single adult in the country.
There are many many other totalitarian laws, including numerous 'anti-terror' and 'police' acts that allowed random stop and search, kicking your door in without a warrant, taking your DNA upon spurious arrest and banning protest within a mile of Parliament.
Blair had two people locked up for reading out the names of the Iraqi dead at the Cenotaph.
Brown, not to be outdone, passed the aforementioned Serious Crime Act and had Shadow Minister Damian Green arrested for doing his job.
As much as I disagree with the kid's comments on Twitter, I think that there is a dangerous double-standard at play there: If Citizens will be arrested for just saying things like that in public, 90% of the population would be in jail, because at one time or another, most of us have said foolish things. I will argue here that the issue is that the offensive comment was posted online. If a police officer would have overheard the same comment made in a public place, I argue he would not have been arrested. Then, we ran into the situation where the government is fostering self-censorship, because you can talk about certain things or express certain opinions privately but cannot print or post publicly out of fear of being arrested. This is what a totalitariam regime would do, and it is not good for the UK.
OK here's an exercise:
Burn a US flag in a US street, the US police will tazer you to the ground, kneel on your back while they put you in cuffs, beat you up then put you in a cell with someone called Bubba who wants to rape you.
Burn a UK flag in a UK street and the police may ask you to move but they will recognise your freedom to demonstrate.
Now tell me who has freedom of speech.
Fucking WHOOSH
Take off every 'sig' !!
Because Harry Reid just said approximately the same thing about Romney. I say arrest the bastard and throw his ass in jail.
In an interview with the Huffington Post, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid alleged (totally unsubstantiated, of course) that Mitt Romney paid no taxes for more than a decade, and that his father, the long deceased George Romney, would be embarrassed by his own son.
"His poor father must be so embarrassed about his son."
So in the interest of not having their shit completely ruined again, Germany took it upon itself to censor much of racist speech. Including, perhaps most significantly, criminalizing denial of the holocaust. Even so, Germany wasn't re-unified as a single country until a little over two decades ago. That's two entire generations paying for the sins of their fathers. I'd probably be in a censoring mood too trying to stop a repeat of mistakes from the past.
And don't get me wrong, I'm all for freedom of speech, I'm just saying I kind of understand where Germany is coming from with their particular brand of censorship.
*slow clap*
This is for you.
Also this
What do you think how long it would take before somebody evil would swarm unprotected networked computers with bots for distributed punching attacks (DPAs) on people he singled out for a good beating? And how problable would it be that YOU might be singled out for a second by the first victim for suggesting such a tool ... ;-)
I like my spaghetti with source.
How about a social voting website so we can pick the politician of the day to be presented with a good remote beating as "award" for worst recent "achievements" :-D (just brainstorming options, not intending to harm humans)
I like my spaghetti with source.
shouldn't it be "therminated"? ;-)
I like my spaghetti with source.
Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity.
Hanlon's Razor, as quoted at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hanlon%27s_Razor
I like my spaghetti with source.
Can such laws be used to arrest annoying telemarketers who won't give up, and who would willingly disregard Do Not Call registries? Then I am all for them. I am not for selective implementation.
Chat with other atheists http://secularchat.org
benjfowler is British, so he is not an outsider tarnishing Britannia. Just because he points to the British law enforcement's failings rudely does not make him a troll.
Chat with other atheists http://secularchat.org
We can have a lot of freedom in life, but the freedom to not be offended is not an option.
Freedom to BE offended IS a part of and based on the freedom of speech.
Only way everyone may be guaranteed a freedom from being offended would be through government's or some other organization's BAN on being offended and/or doing things anyone anywhere may find offensive.
Mit der Dummheit kämpfen Götter selbst vergebens
...it is a logically invalid claim presented as if it is a valid argument, with the aim of inflicting psychological pain.
It is also a form of character assassination as it is used to present the other side as evil and morally and otherwise corrupt.
Haven't you heard that only bad people go to hell, where they are then buggered with hot pokers by devils for eternity?
Also, sticks, stones, sentences... Same shit to pSyche. Stress.
Mit der Dummheit kämpfen Götter selbst vergebens
... I don't want to ever hear another word about how screwed up the US is for detaining and deporting those two British tourists who joked about digging up Marilyn Monroe and destroying the USA.
In Reason We Trust
Is that a death threat? that's illegal. While the asshole deserves a punch in the face, that would be assault. That people want to inflict violence on this guy because of what he said, makes me think of the fighting words doctrine in the US.
If you already didn't know, In the US we have a ruling (yay for common law systems) that some speech can be considered "fighting words". And is not protected by the first amendment. People can be and have been arrested for directing personal insults to an individual.
“Common sense is not so common.” — Voltaire
I am very disturbed about seeing all the posts that say "this teenager should be allowed his free speech rights". What if the olympic athlete decided, because of this very distasteful, moronic tweet, to take his own life? Would everyone still be supporting his "free speech" rights? Hateful remarks are powerful. They can cause the target of such remarks great pain. I'm sure that if the "teenager involved" is found guilty of anything, he may recieve a slap on the wrist and a stern "don't do that again" from the authorities. I believe a better punishment would be to publish the name and address, both internet and physical, so that the aggrieved party or some of his/her more adament supporters could look this kid up and beat the living cra*p out of him. Next time he may be a little more sensitive about the trash he twits!!!!
My karma is bad. Don't get too close!!!
http://bullies2buddies.com/ He's a school psychologist.
Izzy Kalman points out that behavior that is not rewarded tends to extinguish itself over time. Bullying victims participate in that cycle by their reactions. What sustains bullying as a social process is intermittent rewards for those who bully (seeing the rise they get out of their victims). That is why the grandparent's post is insightful. However, that is not to suggest your personal experience might be unusual either. I liked your "Yeah. No." comment in that sense.
Still, what is the ultimate alternative to encouraging freedom of speech in school (including accepting people will say unpleasant things for all sorts of reasons)? Is it turning school staff into judges and juries (as if they did not have enough difficulties already)? What happens when reporting "bullying" itself is taken as an offensive act by the one labelled now as a "bully", leading to further escalation of the problem? Will such a change towards less and less tolerance (as many other anti-bullying programs promote) even invite new forms of manipulation and misuses of the quasi-legal system as well? What happens when the bullies become those who can use the quasi-legal system to harass innocent victims by making them look like the "bullies"? Is that a place we want to go? For example, what it that tweet was made by someone else in such a way as to look like the now arrested teenager was the one who made it? Like maybe someone who had access to the teenagers phone for two minutes? How can the teenager prove otherwise? That is an example of the law of unintended consequences...
Izzy Kalman does point out that some very small percent of bullies do indeed need to be deal with legally by involving the police (when extreme violence is in the picture). That part also echoes your comment, though one can argue about percentages (as in 10%? 1%? or 0.1%? of the entire population of teenagers). Izzy Kalman mainly focuses on breaking the cycle of escalation that can lead to violence. As he points out, generally these issues start small. They key is to prevent them from escalating. That means breaking the feedback loop. In practice, that means educating the "victim" about better ways to respond to the situation. Focusing mainly on changing the behavior of the one labeled "bully" just does not work that well in practice according to Izzy Kalman.
However, I would agree that cooping up lots of people in a small space where they are compelled by law to be there every day, regardless of personal relationships with others in that small space, is a recipe for creating bad behavior, whatever the institution is called or whatever its supposed aims. One might even argue compulsory schooling models "bullying" itself -- forcing kids to do things they don't want to do for fairly arbitrary reasons (witness the recent slashdot discussion on whether algebra should be forced on everyone).
That's one reason why I prefer the idea of a "public library" to the idea of a "public school" -- where "public" means a completely different thing in the two terms. If someone is mean in a public library, you can generally avoid that person in that part of the library, go to the library at some other time when that person is not there, or just use a different library, or even bring your brother or mother or friend along, etc.. You don't have those choices in a public school where you must legally be in a certain room at a certain time of day most days. If you don't go along with the public school's authority, then ultimately you will be forced to go to an even more controlling institution where you don't get to go home nights and weekends. Unless you opt out of the public system in some formal way, like homeshooling/unschooling, tutors, special private schooling, etc.. But those options in practice so often seem beyond most families given our society's economics (even if more might manage them than think to try).
I am also reminded a bit of the fall of Rome, wh
A 21st century issue: the irony of technologies of abundance in the hands of those still thinking in terms of scarcity.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NmuzrHwMkMU
I swear they give me mod points to shut me up.
Just another moron, or should I say "TWIT", on Twitter. It really is a haven for clueless idiots and imbeciles.
you can quickly prove your innocence [...]
In my days, it was the other way around.