I am very interested in the topic of cyber bullying, therefore, I am always keeping my eye out for articles published about it. I recently stumbled across an article on cnn.com called Social Networking Sites Criticized on Bullying. This article was about how to try to solve issues about being bullied on social networking sites in an instant. There is a panic button on a Britian social networking site called Bebo. If someone feels like they are being threatened on a social networking site they push this button and the site is immediately informed about online abuse, bullying, or illegal activity. A spokesperson for facebook said that they will not use it because they feel that they have a good reporting system already and that the use of the button can take away from some of their advertising spaces. I am not too sure which one is better statically but I personally feel like the panic button would be better. I think this because if a child or adolescent is getting cyber bullied they can press it and immediate actions will take place. Otherwise they need to fill out a report on what had happened. Children or adolescents might not be willing to do this. In reference to it taking up space where they have advertisements, thats just ridiculous. I think that safety should come first and then advertisements. Besides, they have so much junk on there thats not advertisements that they can get rid of to replace with the panic button. What do you think is more effective and why?
I think this is a really interesting post for a lot of different reasons. Obviously cyber bullying is a huge problem that everyone needs to try to get under control. I read this article and I think it is great that the site Bebo is taking this kind of action to try to stop it. But I do wonder if it will be any more effective than the measures that sites like Facebook or Myspace have in place. Once you hit the “panic” button, do you still have to fill out a report of some kind to let people know what is going on? If you don’t, it is confusing how the people responding would know what the “panic” was in reference to. The other thing I wonder as I read this article is whether or not it is the sites’ responsibility to put something like this into place. I was reading some of the comments at the bottom and one said something about how parents need to educate kids about these things and not a panic button on the site. I don’t agree that it is ALL the parents’ responsibility, but I do think they play a role and educators can play a large role in stopping this problem. There has always been and always will be bullying in schools. These sites are giving students a way to make it easier, but even if they didn’t exist, I think students would find other ways to do it, unfortunately. I think this is why it is SO important for us as teachers to try to bring these ideas into our lessons to do as much as we can to stop this phenomenon.