In recent news, Carla Franklin, 23, took Google to court over a defamatory Youtube comment. Alongside the comment were unauthorized videos of her, which were later taken down. Everyone is entitled to the removal of a video that breaches their privacy via the Youtube Report feature, but plenty of people are defamed online everyday without any punishment or legal action. This woman wants to find out the identity of the commenter in an attempt to identify her harasser.
Now, I’m not fully informed about the situation, but it seems this person can be selected out of a group of people as they attend the same private events as her. Since this person has been harassing her both offline and now online, she believes that she has the grounds to demand the identity of the person behind the attacks. Having said this, plenty of other high-profile people are harassed by people wanting to make money off an exciting scoop like Tiger Woods’ infidelity. What makes her so special that she should be able to pursue her harasser?
Unless this person has been continuously threatening her safety and life, she deserves no further action than a simple reply or removal of the offending comment and video. The account would then be suspended for review by Youtube.
[CBS News]
In light of the emergence of cyberbullying, the Seattle Public Schools district takes a step outside into the digital world. Upon parental request, the local school administration will review the online comments posted by said bully, and the decision whether or not to take action upon such defamatory or threatening comments or messages to the victim.
As I am an outspoken individual, I feel that my privacy is threatened to some extent as my messages on various social networking sites may offend some. I would not like to be punished for my digital actions that take place whilst away from school grounds. Although they are usually never directed specifically towards one person, I fear that the school district may often overstep it’s duties. This is because these digital incidents are reviewed on a case by case basis.
There isn’t a strict policy that clearly outlines what the school district will be able to do, and thus provides much wiggle room for defining what exactly would constitute a punishable offense towards other individuals. As of this moment, I am against schools that will take action on school grounds for actions outside of the school. Previous news stories of people giving up their own lives over cyberbullies are simply outrageous. Those individuals clearly were too weak and wasted their so-called precious lives over a petty assault on them.
At most, I believe the school district can have the ability to attempt to resolve the situation upon school grounds via talks, but not have the grounds to incriminate anyone and place them under detention or any other form of school bound punishment. They should simply contact the parent or legal guardian of the bully and have them deliver their own punishment. It’s an issue at home, and should be resolved at home.
It’s a compromise, but it keeps the issues and resolutions at home, and not at school. There are probably a good number of parents who are or are basically computer illiterate, and a notice from school is the best way to keep them in the loop while letting schools properly take care of issues outside of schools.
[KOMO News via Schoolsover Forums]
Gonna post interesting little things here on my tumblr about my life, and keep it as a day to day record of anything interesting. If nothing interesting happens, then it’ll just be a boring post. We all happy? Good, let’s start off with the first post.
the ground-zero mosque.
Clearly, the people who wanted to erect a mosque at the world trade center ground zero are stirring up trouble. Considering America and the kinds of people it contains, someone in some group is to be miffed about this. The buildings that once stood were destroyed by the same people who are wrongfully bunched in with Muslims. Although that should not bar Muslims from building a mosque there, it might not be accepted as well or taken in as well due to the connotation that Muslims are terrorists.
I personally think that a memorial would be fitting to have been built at ground-zero, but I have nothing against building a mosque. I’m just wondering if the originator of the idea knows what he’s up against. People show their disagreements or objections to an idea in various ways, and for the safety of all attendees of the mosque-to-be, I don’t think it should be built there. The ability to do so is fine, but the actualization of the idea doesn’t seem to be a good idea. [Yahoo! News]
