Tyler Clementi: A Call to Act on Cyberbullying
This commentary was originally posted by CBS technology writer Larry Magid, in his "Safe and Secure" blog, on CBSNews.com's sister site, CNET.
The recent suicide of Tyler Clementi, which raised the visibility of cyberbullying and digital ethics, is serving as a call to action to end something much deeper than that: cruelty, homophobia, and a distorted sense of entitlement to disclose information about others.
Clementi, an 18-year-old freshman at Rutgers University, jumped off the George Washington Bridge after his roommate, Dharum Ravi, and Rutgers student Molly Wei (both also 18) allegedly used a Webcam to record and live-stream Clementi kissing another male in his dorm room.
Tyler Clementi: Complete Coverage on "Crimesider"
What these two students did was wrong for a number of reasons - and it would have been just as wrong if modern technology hadn't been employed, or if the victim were heterosexual.
As my ConnectSafely co-director Anne Collier pointed out in a blog post, this story "is not (about) technology, but inhumanity." CNET's Greg Sandoval made a similar point, that humans, not machines, are responsible for Clementi's death. But the fact that technology was involved does change the equation somewhat.
"Like so many documented instances of cyberbullying," said Dr. Patti Agatson, co-author of "Cyber Bullying: Bullying in the Digital Age," "it is unlikely that [the two youths charged with streaming Clementi's intimate encounter] could have foreseen the horrendous outcome of their actions."
When it comes to bullying, the Internet can encourage what psychologists call "disinhibition." As Rider University psychology professor John Suler put it in his free 1996 online book "The Psychology of Cyberspace," "people say and do things in cyberspace that they wouldn't ordinarily say or do in the face-to-face world."
It's somewhat similar to road rage. How many times have you seen someone in a passing 3,000-pound vehicle make a hand gesture that he or she probably wouldn't have made if encountering a similarly frustrating situation while walking down a sidewalk?
The Net is the real world
Like it or not, the Net now is reality for the overwhelming majority of children and adults in the developed world and, increasingly, for the rest of the world. It was real for Tyler Clementi because real people were witnessing an intimate act from his dorm room that he had a right to assume was taking place in private.
Whether it's an invasion of privacy, or outing, as in this case, or some other form of cyberbullying, such as defamation, impersonation, or just plain being mean, cyberbullies can inflict mental anguish that can hurt worse than physical wounds because a cyberattack can reach a vast audience, and it can haunt the victim forever. It can follow children home from school and possibly for the rest of their lives. And it can affect different people in different ways.
Some people can deflect situations better than others. How they react depends on a host of factors the perpetrator often can't possibly predict. At least in a school yard brawl, a bully can see his or her victim suffer. Online bullies may never know how much suffering they're inflicting.
We will never know the full story of why Clementi took his own life. Suicide experts say it is rare for one instance to lead someone to such a desperate act. And while suicide remains a statistically rare consequence of cyberbullying, Clementi's death is one of several recent examples of young bullying victims driven to that tragic end.
Worse for LGBT youth
Long before teens started flocking to the Internet, suicides among lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgendered youth were too common. The 1989 Secretary's Task Force on Youth Suicide from the Department of Health and Human Services found that gay youth are two to three times more likely to attempt suicide, according to Iowa State University professor Warren Blumenfeld, who recently conducted a study on cyberbullying of LGBT youth.
Blumenfeld's survey found that 54 percent of LGBT youth had been victims of cyberbullying in the past 30 days. Forty-five percent of the respondents "reported feeling depressed as a result of being cyberbullied, 38 percent felt embarrassed, and 28 percent felt anxious about attending school. The authors reported that, "more than a quarter of LGBT cyberbullying victims (26 percent) had suicidal thoughts.
Tipping point and call to action
I don't think there are many who would disagree that it's time for all of us - young and old - to think more about the implications of our actions on and off the Internet. Cruelty and bigotry of any sort has no place on the Internet, in our schools, in our workplaces, and in our communities or our political discourse, where even our national leaders too often are negative role models.
Every parent needs to talk about bullying and cyberbullying with their children, every school needs to integrate it into their curriculum, and every civic leader - at all levels of society - needs to incorporate civility in their messages and the way they act. It's not just about lecturing kids about how to treat other kids; it's the way all of us lead our lives in public and in private.
Being active includes not being a bystander but an interrupter of negative behavior. "In many of these situations, someone knows beforehand or early on when mean material is being posted," said Nancy Willard of the Center for Safe and Responsible Internet Use. "It's essential for everyone to take personal responsibility and speak out by saying "hey, it's not OK."
Willard recommends that young people learn to work in groups. "If you see something wrong, and you don't feel safe saying stop, you can find two friends. Then it becomes the power of three speaking out. That's very powerful."
Additional Resources:
• Common Sense Media's free Digital Literacy and Citizenship Curriculum
• Stop Bullying Now! (resources from HRSA: the U.S. Health Resources and Services Admin)
• The Federal Government's Find Youth Info, with links to local programs on bullying prevention
• Cyberbullying Research Center's Cyberbullying Identification, Prevention, and Response (PDF)
• Educator's Guide to Cyberbullying (PDF) from the Center for Safe and Responsible Internet Use
• Net Cetera: Chattings with Kids About Being Online from the Federal Trade Commission
• ConnectSafely's Tips to Stop Cyberbullying
Copyright 2010 CBS. All rights reserved. The recent suicide of Tyler Clementi, which raised the visibility of cyberbullying and digital ethics, is serving as a call to action to end something much deeper than that: cruelty, homophobia, and a distorted sense of entitlement to disclose information about others.
Clementi, an 18-year-old freshman at Rutgers University, jumped off the George Washington Bridge after his roommate, Dharum Ravi, and Rutgers student Molly Wei (both also 18) allegedly used a Webcam to record and live-stream Clementi kissing another male in his dorm room.
Tyler Clementi: Complete Coverage on "Crimesider"
What these two students did was wrong for a number of reasons - and it would have been just as wrong if modern technology hadn't been employed, or if the victim were heterosexual.
As my ConnectSafely co-director Anne Collier pointed out in a blog post, this story "is not (about) technology, but inhumanity." CNET's Greg Sandoval made a similar point, that humans, not machines, are responsible for Clementi's death. But the fact that technology was involved does change the equation somewhat.
"Like so many documented instances of cyberbullying," said Dr. Patti Agatson, co-author of "Cyber Bullying: Bullying in the Digital Age," "it is unlikely that [the two youths charged with streaming Clementi's intimate encounter] could have foreseen the horrendous outcome of their actions."
When it comes to bullying, the Internet can encourage what psychologists call "disinhibition." As Rider University psychology professor John Suler put it in his free 1996 online book "The Psychology of Cyberspace," "people say and do things in cyberspace that they wouldn't ordinarily say or do in the face-to-face world."
It's somewhat similar to road rage. How many times have you seen someone in a passing 3,000-pound vehicle make a hand gesture that he or she probably wouldn't have made if encountering a similarly frustrating situation while walking down a sidewalk?
The Net is the real world
Like it or not, the Net now is reality for the overwhelming majority of children and adults in the developed world and, increasingly, for the rest of the world. It was real for Tyler Clementi because real people were witnessing an intimate act from his dorm room that he had a right to assume was taking place in private.
Whether it's an invasion of privacy, or outing, as in this case, or some other form of cyberbullying, such as defamation, impersonation, or just plain being mean, cyberbullies can inflict mental anguish that can hurt worse than physical wounds because a cyberattack can reach a vast audience, and it can haunt the victim forever. It can follow children home from school and possibly for the rest of their lives. And it can affect different people in different ways.
Some people can deflect situations better than others. How they react depends on a host of factors the perpetrator often can't possibly predict. At least in a school yard brawl, a bully can see his or her victim suffer. Online bullies may never know how much suffering they're inflicting.
We will never know the full story of why Clementi took his own life. Suicide experts say it is rare for one instance to lead someone to such a desperate act. And while suicide remains a statistically rare consequence of cyberbullying, Clementi's death is one of several recent examples of young bullying victims driven to that tragic end.
Worse for LGBT youth
Long before teens started flocking to the Internet, suicides among lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgendered youth were too common. The 1989 Secretary's Task Force on Youth Suicide from the Department of Health and Human Services found that gay youth are two to three times more likely to attempt suicide, according to Iowa State University professor Warren Blumenfeld, who recently conducted a study on cyberbullying of LGBT youth.
Blumenfeld's survey found that 54 percent of LGBT youth had been victims of cyberbullying in the past 30 days. Forty-five percent of the respondents "reported feeling depressed as a result of being cyberbullied, 38 percent felt embarrassed, and 28 percent felt anxious about attending school. The authors reported that, "more than a quarter of LGBT cyberbullying victims (26 percent) had suicidal thoughts.
Tipping point and call to action
I don't think there are many who would disagree that it's time for all of us - young and old - to think more about the implications of our actions on and off the Internet. Cruelty and bigotry of any sort has no place on the Internet, in our schools, in our workplaces, and in our communities or our political discourse, where even our national leaders too often are negative role models.
Every parent needs to talk about bullying and cyberbullying with their children, every school needs to integrate it into their curriculum, and every civic leader - at all levels of society - needs to incorporate civility in their messages and the way they act. It's not just about lecturing kids about how to treat other kids; it's the way all of us lead our lives in public and in private.
Being active includes not being a bystander but an interrupter of negative behavior. "In many of these situations, someone knows beforehand or early on when mean material is being posted," said Nancy Willard of the Center for Safe and Responsible Internet Use. "It's essential for everyone to take personal responsibility and speak out by saying "hey, it's not OK."
Willard recommends that young people learn to work in groups. "If you see something wrong, and you don't feel safe saying stop, you can find two friends. Then it becomes the power of three speaking out. That's very powerful."
Additional Resources:
• Common Sense Media's free Digital Literacy and Citizenship Curriculum
• Stop Bullying Now! (resources from HRSA: the U.S. Health Resources and Services Admin)
• The Federal Government's Find Youth Info, with links to local programs on bullying prevention
• Cyberbullying Research Center's Cyberbullying Identification, Prevention, and Response (PDF)
• Educator's Guide to Cyberbullying (PDF) from the Center for Safe and Responsible Internet Use
• Net Cetera: Chattings with Kids About Being Online from the Federal Trade Commission
• ConnectSafely's Tips to Stop Cyberbullying
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http://toxictopix.********
People, you need to wake up and realize that legislation is NOT a viable solution. If creating more laws to punish people actually worked, then no one would ever be murdered, raped, kidnapped, there would be no prostitution, no one would do drugs, there would be no domestic abuse, no theft, no crime at all.
The fact is simply making a law and saying "if you do this, you go to jail" will in no way prevent stupid people from doing stupid things. It will not work because those who do these sorts of things DO NOT THINK before they act. They do not stop and consider the consequences of their actions. They do not comprehend the impact on their victims, themselves, or others around them.
Legislation can not fix such an oversight on the part of others. While it may cause a few to think more carefully before they act (assuming they are even aware of the law in question, and the consequences of breaking it) it will not, by any means, be an effective solution.
What is that solution? I honestly do not know. I don't think there really IS a "solution"... short of humans no longer existing.
Fact is not a single one of us is innocent of having never made a stupid mistake. Chances are most of the mistakes we've made in our lives are insignificant in nature. They may have been an inconvenience at the time, but they did not result in harming anyone.
Looking at things from that point of view, if we ourselves can not go without making any mistakes ourselves, how can we honestly expect anyone else to do it?
Yes, this incident was an example of a very bad mistake, that unfortunately did result in causing serious harm to the life of another, which in turn triggered other events that caused a cascade of torment for many others.
Common sense would dictate that this act was extremely childish, and had the potential to seriously affect others. Common sense however, is not that common at all.
I do not know how you can prevent people from doing things like this, if I did I would be deserving of a nobel prize.
I am of the opinion however, that trying to teach people to think about cause and effect would be of far greater benefit than trying to come up with some sort of legislation to combat the issue.
Everyone is so obsessed with trying to punish others for their behavior or their mistakes, when what we should be more focused on is preventing that behavior and those mistakes in the first place. One way that seems to work fairly well is education. Perhaps that might actual help to prevent some of these things from happening in the first place, instead of just trying to throw everyone in prison AFTER they have already done the damage.
However even I know that this is not a complete solution to the issue. The fact remains that even through education and awareness there will still be individuals, who for whatever reason... be it childishness, ignorance, apathy, or plain old stupidity... will continue to do these sorts of things.
It's been decided. On October 20th, 2010, we will wear purple in honor of the 6 gay boys who committed suicide in recent weeks/months due to homophobic abuse in their homes at at their schools. Purple represents Spirit on the LGBTQ flag and that's exactly what we'd like all of you to have with you: spirit. Please know that times will get better and that you will meet people who will love you and respect you for who you are, no matter your sexuality. Please wear purple on October 20th. Tell your friends, family, co-workers, neighbors and schools. RIP Tyler Clementi, Asher Brown, Seth Walsh, Justin Aaberg, Raymond Chase and Billy Lucas. You are loved.
Join this event and invite everyone on your friends list. Don't let their deaths be for nothing. Let it mean something, and let's do something to change this country for once.
"You're right in part, many kids died the same day. About half of them were LGBT, according to statistics from sources that include, say, the elder Bush administration's era."
JOedecerx, show the stats. I challenge you to show the actual numbers because what you say is hogwash.
This may have been thoughtless behavior on the part of his roommate and the roommates girlfriend but I don't see anything beyond a stupid prank.
Hey no harm done, no one is really accountable, they were just playing a prank and he (the dead guy) took it way to seriosuly? Just a dead guy and a stupid prank right?
Brilliant. Please don't ever run for office.
Maybe these two can donate both of their legs to science, that would be a good thing. I wonder what they think about all this, now that they have been exposed and we want our pound of flesh. Come now, no excuses. I hear a lot for the bad folks and nothing for the victim.