from the they-can't-think-twice-if-they-didn't-think-once dept.
A 14 year-old student selected as a Google Science Fair 2014 finalist has come up with a Rethink project that asks teenagers to reread hurtful messages before sending them off and having to deal with consequences they never considered before hitting Send. Trisha Prabhu entered the contest at 13 with a distinct distaste for cyber-bullying and wanting to come up with a solution to help teenagers think twice. "I am looking forward to a future where we have conquered cyber-bullying!" she said in her project notes. Her hypothesis: If adolescents from ages 12 to 18 were given an alert mechanism that suggested to them to revisit their decision to post a hurtful message on social media, the number of hurtful messages would drop lower than for those adolescents not provided with such an alert.
Thinking twice before doing something is not an especially strong skill among teenagers. "As found in this research," she observed in her project descriptions, "the Prefrontal Cortex is not fully developed during adolescence years." Study Methods: She created Baseline and Rethink systems, where both asked users if they were willing to post a series of predetermined messages online. She did 1500 trials, and the results were very encouraging.
See also:
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Ethanol-fueled on Tuesday August 12 2014, @08:09PM
Here we go again with entitled little weenies thinking that the impossible forces of nature should be twisted to their weak-willed whims.
I would normally tell those types to lock themselves in the basement if they're afraid of real-life, but that doesn't work anymore thanks to the internet, and the fact that every little rotten brat is taught that they're special.
Momma! Da-da! A meanie called me a stupidhead on the internet! Tell his mommy and daddy until he gets a spanking!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 12 2014, @08:12PM
> Here we go again with entitled little weenies thinking that the impossible
> forces of nature should be twisted to their weak-willed whims.
And that from the guy who thinks he gets down-modded undeservedly.
(Score: 2) by tangomargarine on Wednesday August 13 2014, @03:07PM
There's a difference between thinking that and taking action to force SN to get people to stop doing it.
"Is that really true?" "I just spent the last hour telling you to think for yourself! Didn't you hear anything I said?"
(Score: 2) by cafebabe on Tuesday August 12 2014, @08:27PM
Among adults, we call that libel and slander. And it isn't fun and games when it costs someone their business.
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(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 12 2014, @08:45PM
It's not libel or slander if it's true.
(Score: 3, Informative) by cafebabe on Tuesday August 12 2014, @10:56PM
In some jurisdictions, telling the truth can be defamation [findlaw.com]:-
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(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 12 2014, @08:30PM
Her idea will not work. People do not 'think' about this sort of thing. What is going to stop them now? Some sort of voluntary system? We basically have that now...
A meanie called me a stupidhead on the internet
I honestly am glad the internet did not exist when I was younger. My bullies would have been ruthless. There is a difference between someone being a dick. Then there is someone who is a bully. The only way I took them down was to fuck them up, and they knew I would do it again. The internet lets them be a bully at a distance. In many ways it is worse now. As there is no physical its all mental now.
My neighborhood had a budding bully, he decided my sister was the target. It went on for a few weeks. Until I grabbed his arm and forced him to sit down and consider I was twice his height and 2x his weight. After that he bullied no one and actually turned out to be a nice kid.
I learned the hard way that bullies exist. My friends mother was a passive aggressive one. It took me 10 years to get out from the thumb of her lies. I didnt not even know she was doing it until one of the parents confronted me years later. She got her crew to do the work for her.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by cafebabe on Tuesday August 12 2014, @09:04PM
When we were kids, bullying would have only occurred in an environment which lasted for six hours per day, five days per week, 40 weeks per year. Nowadays, kids are getting bullied by SMS, email, YouTube, Twitter, Facebook, Instagram and dozens of other channels. It is absolutely non-stop and relentless and people wonder why so many kids are committing suicide.
There are even cases where kids are bullying themselves. Why? As Oscar Wilde said, "There is only one thing in life worse than being talked about, and that is not being talked about."
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(Score: 3, Interesting) by frojack on Tuesday August 12 2014, @09:47PM
Meh, for me it usually lasted till the end or recess. I would invariably be the one walking in with the bloody nose and disheveled cloths, and the teacher would automatically send Dan to the principal's office (again) and he would leave me alone for at least another two months.
Back then schools would actually paddle kids, or at the least demand that a parent pick them up immediately.
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 2) by cafebabe on Tuesday August 12 2014, @10:11PM
This is the difference. There used to be a definite end point and there would be adults in the environment who would intervene. Nowadays, it is just Lord Of The Flies.
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(Score: 2) by VLM on Tuesday August 12 2014, @09:56PM
"and people wonder why so many kids are committing suicide."
I'm old enough to know better, because when I was growing up they only killed themselves because of Dungeons and Dragons which leads directly to sacrificing your soul to satan and various other unpleasantness. Or so I heard from some of my friends parents who were not so enamored of my interests.
Its an old story, kid is Fed up, nobody wants to talk about the kid being Fed up, its all the fault of DnD, or heavy metal music, or Elvis and his gyrating pelvis, or weed smoking, or apparently the latest fad is cyberbullies on the internet. They'll be a new fad soon enough. Fing google glass, making kids kill themselves left and right because it gives them cyber cooties. I'm sure that'll be next. As long as we focus on some easy to blame nebulous 3rd party we can avoid the whole "kid is Fed up, and the parents and teachers and other adults in the kids life don't notice / don't care / won't fix / are even more Fed up than the kid" which is super awkward and judgmental, despite unfortunately also being completely true. So lets talk about "It's all the fault of dungeons and dragons, errr, I mean cyber bullies from outer space" or some BS like that.
Observationally you can do whatever you want with 252 social services but my kids seem to stick to a handful at a time. Put whatever you want on facebook, that isn't cool anymore, they don't use it. Ditto email, twitter... If a bully bullies and nobody hears it, did bullying happen?
(Score: 3, Interesting) by kaszz on Tuesday August 12 2014, @10:47PM
Cyberbullies is no fad and if other kids are fed up such that they bully others they need be beaten up.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Lagg on Tuesday August 12 2014, @08:43PM
I don't know why you have such a good streak with me this week but goddamnit, I agree again. There are outstanding cases of genuine harassment via internet but similar to this current fad of faux-feminists claiming everything is rape and sexual abuse it's horrifyingly (and I use that literally, it horrifies me) overblown and weakens those aforementioned outstanding cases. People these days are encouraged to "be themselves" and fuck normal behavior and abandon even the slightest hint of showing behavior acceptable to the situation just for the sake of getting things done. This does lead to ribbing (again, just ribbing, bullying is an outstanding case of persistent harassment and physical /or mental harm) but that is what happens when as you say kids are taught that everyone wins and they're a special snowflake and that they should just be themselves these days.
It pains me to bring up the "quit being a pansy and grow some thicker skin" crap. It really does. But I don't know how else to say it. So don't worry Ethanol, I won't downmod you because you say things stupidly sometimes and I don't agree with you (because this is totally what mod points are for). THIS TIME. Dun dun dunnnnn.
http://lagg.me [lagg.me] 🗿
(Score: 3, Insightful) by VLM on Tuesday August 12 2014, @09:06PM
He's our court jester. He's telling the truth quite often but if you don't like reading the truth you can go along to get along by pointing out he's ethanol fueled (perhaps literally) or he uses the N word too much and avoid that whole truth thing.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jester#Fool_in_literature [wikipedia.org]
"that is what happens when as you say kids are taught that everyone wins"
Best entrepreneurial or general life advice I can think of is learn how to fail. Gonna have to fail a lot, if you want to win. We're specifically not teaching our kids how to fail, which means they won't ever win. Sabotage. I'm not kidding either.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Lagg on Tuesday August 12 2014, @09:15PM
Sad part is that actual explicit teaching is rarely necessary for imparting such life lessons. Even the age-old hand on the stove is just something that will happen if you aren't protective to the point of smothering. Going further with that example if they touch the stove you can be pretty damn sure they won't pull a pot of boiling water on themselves later on. There are so many moral panics, hysteria and moral guardianship that kids aren't being taught to harden themselves and actually live. That's the worst and even depressing part of this. In this hyper-protectionism people are quite literally robbing their kid's life in its most essential phase.
http://lagg.me [lagg.me] 🗿
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 12 2014, @09:28PM
> He's telling the truth quite often
Hardly. He's just saying something you agree with is all.
> We're specifically not teaching our kids how to fail, which means they won't ever win.
Not being bullied is a hell of a lot different than not failing.
There are plenty of other forms of adversity for a child to overcome than sadism.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by VLM on Tuesday August 12 2014, @09:41PM
"He's just saying something you agree with is all."
LOL yeah thats because I'm usually right too.
We're drifting pretty far off topic AC, and Lagg and I were specifically making fun of "everyone gets a participation trophy". Which is easy, because its such a dumb idea.
None the less, a kid running into a jackass online, in a world full of jackasses, isn't conceptually all that far away from running into a pothole and falling off his bike. Dust him off, Dad's infinite first aid kit is applied, calm him down, teachable moment, protective gear, get back on that bike and don't let the pothole win. Maybe complain to the city to get the pothole taken care of in a reasonable adult opinion its particularity bad. Neither singing Barney songs around the campfire while holding hands, nor giving the kid a participation trophy, nor daydreaming how in a perfect society the roads wouldn't have potholes, is going to be much help learning to ride a bike on a road with potholes.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 12 2014, @10:13PM
> kid running into a jackass online, in a world full of jackasses, isn't conceptually
> all that far away from running into a pothole and falling off his bike.
It is entirely different. Bullies are not passive objects, kids don't run into them. Bullies actively pursue and intentionally beat up kids both physically and emotionally. That's damaging to a kid's ability to socialize and socialization is the essence of what makes us human. Damaging that part of a child is like breaking a child's finger or in severe cases breaking their leg. I'm going to assume you are in favor of discouraging kids from breaking other kid's fingers, right?
But you know what? Even if they were the same, there are still plenty of potholes in life, we don't need to keep bullying around to make up for a deficiency of other adversities.
> "everyone gets a participation trophy".
Well that's nice, but has nothing to do with TFA. Conflating the two is a red herring.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Tramii on Tuesday August 12 2014, @09:49PM
> Not being bullied is a hell of a lot different than not failing.
> There are plenty of other forms of adversity for a child to overcome than sadism.
Dealing with bullies is something you will face all your life. Bullies don't magically disappear once you graduate from school. In fact, once you become an adult, the bullies just get worse and more powerful.
I don't really believe that bullying today is somehow worse than it was 50 years ago. I think we simply have failed to teach our children how to deal with bullies. Parents tend to either ignore the situation, or "solve" the problem for the child.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 12 2014, @10:41PM
> Bullies don't magically disappear once you graduate from school.
Rates of bullying are inversely correlated with age. [childtrends.org] Bullying is, among other things, the result of an under-developed sense of empathy.
> In fact, once you become an adult, the bullies just get worse and more powerful.
You seem to be arguing the equivalent of broken bones are stronger. [nytimes.com] That's not true and neither is it true for the strength of a person's psyche. At best a broken psyche will heal to normal, at worse it will become twisted and deformed.
(Score: 2) by JeanCroix on Wednesday August 13 2014, @12:26PM
Rates of bullying are inversely correlated with age.
Interesting numbers. I'd always assumed it peaked during the middle school years (11-14), but admittedly due to my own and numerous others' anecdotal experiences.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 13 2014, @05:26PM
Wrong. The bullies just get smarter and subtler about it.
(Score: 2) by kaszz on Tuesday August 12 2014, @10:56PM
There is a difference. Before internet you could relax from the bullying after school or when changing village. These days it goes on continuously around the clock and hooks on to you in the next city because online services makes your name searchable and your photo biometrically connected.
(Score: 2) by Tramii on Tuesday August 12 2014, @11:28PM
There is not any significant difference.
Kids have always faced bullies when they were around other kids. It doesn't matter if it's online or in meatspace. It just so happens that today a lot of kids are always online and this always around other kids. Years ago, a kid would get bullied at school and could go home to get a brief respite. Today, a kid gets bullied online and can log off to get a break. Either way, it's still there waiting for them the next day. And it never goes away until you actually deal with the real problem.
(Score: 2) by kaszz on Tuesday August 12 2014, @11:44PM
It's a different situation these days. Kids get bullied in meatspace at school hours and afternoon bullying when trying to socialize electronically using their real name(tm) or real photo.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 13 2014, @12:32PM
(Score: 2) by monster on Wednesday August 13 2014, @10:02AM
I think that it is worse, because of the Fuckwad Theory [penny-arcade.com]. With an extended audience, many times the anonimity part is not even needed.
(Score: 2) by Tork on Wednesday August 13 2014, @12:44AM
🏳️🌈 Proud Ally 🏳️🌈
(Score: 2) by tathra on Wednesday August 13 2014, @06:11PM
Nice strawman, but that's not bullying.
(Score: 2) by VLM on Tuesday August 12 2014, @08:09PM
Something that might actually work, would be every email you send goes to exactly one other random recipient and you don't know who until after its sent.
And the NSA of course. I suppose the kid equivalent of the NSA reading every adults email would be sending a copy of every kids email to their mom.
So I figured out two better ideas than the provided solution in about 30 seconds. Not bad.
Now let me re-read this to make sure its not too harsh... ah F it, hit submit.
(Score: 2, Interesting) by isostatic on Tuesday August 12 2014, @08:15PM
Yeah, cause kids use email so much
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 12 2014, @08:44PM
> Yeah, cause kids use email so much
What the hell man?
Is it really that difficult for you to conceptualize from email to texting/facebook messaging/snapchat/etc?
Come on, this is a tech site for chrissakes! Commenters like you are supposed to be sophisticated enough understand that email is just one example of messaging and that pretty much any solution that involves reviewing mail would apply more generally to reviewing messages regardless of the delivery system.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 12 2014, @09:37PM
There is no such thing as fuzzy logic. Put a fucking case statement in there next time or it won't compile. Got it?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 13 2014, @10:17AM
Just because your compiler doesn't support fuzzy logic out of the box doesn't mean it doesn't exist.
(Score: 1) by kaszz on Tuesday August 12 2014, @11:02PM
Say message if you mean that. Email is a message. But a message can be email, instant-message (IM), SMS etc. Ie 1:n function.
(Score: 2) by tathra on Wednesday August 13 2014, @06:14PM
we inherited pedantry, more than anything else, from our parent, slashdot. you should know that by now.
and no, this is not a tech site. stop trying to pigeonhole us.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by frojack on Tuesday August 12 2014, @08:41PM
And there you've hit on EXACTLY why this scheme will not work.
A kid sending an insult feels just as vindictive re-reading it as typing it, and is just as likely to pile one more of the NASTY as they are to tone it down or not send it.
Software that could detect Nasty and pend it for 24 hours (without letting the submitter know that it was pended) and then ask for a re-read and re-send MIGHT work. But re-read immediately isn't going to work.
Submit. SUBMIT goddammit!
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 12 2014, @08:46PM
> A kid sending an insult feels just as vindictive re-reading it as typing it,
Why are you directly contradicting the results of the study?
What evidence do you have for your claims beyond truthiness?
(Score: 1) by arslan on Tuesday August 12 2014, @10:25PM
Good idea, in fact every tweet/post/email a kid sends should generate a hundred random traffic to the NSA.. if you can't stop cyber bullying, might as well put it to good use..
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 12 2014, @08:15PM
"Hahahahahahahaha How The Fuck Is Cyber Bullying Real Hahahaha Nigga Just Walk Away From The Screen Like Nigga Close Your Eyes Haha" -Tyler, The Creator
(Score: 3, Interesting) by VLM on Tuesday August 12 2014, @08:28PM
Wanna see something cool? This project might kinda suck but in the same competition, a kid "not quite in my neighborhood but not far away" did a pretty cool, on topic for SN project by using SQL queries and Python to find related gravitationally lensed quasars in a large data set (more or less). Not bad homie, not bad. No sarcasm intended or implied, genuinely impressed.
I was also extremely impressed with Ms. Sand Bioreactor and her project and she at least appears to have done actual research. Another excellent job.
My point being that this politically correct barney the dinosaur saccharine campfire girl bs doesn't mean real science isn't going on as part of this google science fair.
I'm close to asking formally for SN to put up a poll to ask which google science fair experiment was the coolest. I'm guessing this campfire girl sh!t isn't going to score well, and the race would be neck and neck between Ms Bioreactor and Quasar dude. But whatever.
P.S. The google science fair website design sucks ass, sorry if that offends some delicate precious snowflake who designed it. The triumph of presentation and flair over substance. What a steaming pile of dung, yet, in its favor, its not totally unusable, just hideous.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 13 2014, @12:35AM
The new Firefox download website also sucks major ass. They made it a fucking animation with the default layers covering the download links, so if you're using a browser that doesn't support javascript/supports it improperly for their site you never actually see the download link.
Really helpful when you're supposed to be downloading their 'useful browser' to replace your crap one :)
Hilarious part is the seamonkey website doesn't have that problem.
(Score: 2) by Dunbal on Tuesday August 12 2014, @08:42PM
Well gee there's one way to find out the answer. Test it and see if it works.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by cafebabe on Tuesday August 12 2014, @08:45PM
The Greater Internet Fuckwad Theory [penny-arcade.com] has an isomorphism with the fire triangle [wikipedia.org]. Specifically:-
Anti-social person <=> Heat
Anonymity <=> Oxygen
Audience <=> Fuel
If you want to discourage fires, remove heat, oxygen or fuel. If you want to discourage fuckwads, do likewise. Unfortunately, fuckwads are more persistent and various reasonable schemes have failed.
Removing anonymity doesn't work and, in particular, a real names policy definitely doesn't work. However, there is definitely much which can be done to control audience. SlashCode's karma system was an early attempt. Systems could be investigated which delay anti-social messages or progressively restrict distribution.
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(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 12 2014, @08:48PM
> SlashCode's karma system was an early attempt.
Slashcode's karma with metamoderation at least.
I sure miss metamoderation here, without it, moderation is just a way to cheer for your team.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by kaszz on Tuesday August 12 2014, @11:30PM
I like your analysis. The sequence of events seems to be that some low life which might have IQ but no respect harass someone and then other dead fish starts to slap that person. Going by what people have written what they have done in such situations. The most effective strategy seems to expedite harsh pain quickly against the leader bully. And show that you are willing to escalate things without remorse.
In the cyberbully situation. One way to crash it is perhaps to undermine the social status of the bullies catastrophically.
(Score: 2) by cafebabe on Wednesday August 13 2014, @04:15AM
Historically, any transgressions from a child were corrected with physical violence from adults. Environments where large numbers of children met were partitioned and contained in a strict hierarchy. Also, bad behavior was visibly corrected before it spread.
Online, this disappears because the market is decided by having the largest scale-free network. This is like having a playground with millions of kids and very few supervisors.
To fix this, the emphasis has been on reducing anonymity. This also has the effect of being financially attractive to advertisers. Various organizations have flim-flammed with account policies in an attempt to reduce anonymity. However, few have attempted to dynamically restrict the immediacy or reach of anti-social comments. I believe this idea has been resisted because it would reduce the ability to cache data and it would increase server load.
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(Score: 2) by VLM on Tuesday August 12 2014, @08:49PM
One observation I have from clicking around the science fair website is the FAQ section is fixated on age groups of the kids to make it "fair" but examining several of the reports, the only one I haven't found where "Dad coincidentally works at the lab where I did my work" class of assistance happened was "ideal pH for Fungus growth" girl who worked with a professor working in the same field she reported on.
I have not so far found any "real science" project on the site where the kid did all the work, which is too bad.
So my point is the competition has a fixation on making it "fair" by separating the kids by age, but what really separates the kids quality level appears to mostly be genetics aka "whos your daddy" and if dad happens to work at a lab, then you end up with a great project. So I'm not sure how fair that is. Separation into "did it totally myself other than allowance funding" "got advice from a school teacher" and "worked as an intern in a lab working on this" and finally "BTW, this is my Dad's day job" categories would be much more fair.
It would be interesting to see what a kid can come up with, without direct family or extraordinary (university prof, etc) help.
(Score: 1) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 12 2014, @09:04PM
That's a tough one. While this is nominally a contest, it is really about teaching the kids to do science. Letting your parents do your homework for you certainly doesn't teach you science (although it probably does teach you about the ways of the world). But just because it is your daddy's day job doesn't mean you haven't learned a lot about the scientific method yourself.
(Score: 2) by VLM on Tuesday August 12 2014, @09:29PM
You do make a valid point AC, but I'm more agitated that its a popularity contest WRT dad's day job.
Coincidentally (LOL) some of these kids dads have cool jobs or at least work at cool labs.
I'm assuming the kids wrote up their own reports. (which might not be completely true). That aspect is valuable. My personal experience in grade school era science fairs is more than half the kids couldn't even figure out the basic parts of the scientific method or even what an experiment is other than some semi-organized Fing around, and especially not any ability to document an experiment, must less "doin something that sounds cool". I made it to regionals (back in the dinosaur era) mostly on the ability to follow directions WRT the scientific method and write a report. I don't think anyone would be "wowed" by what boiled down to an analysis of surfactant concentration across many liquid detergents vs cost of the product (which as you'd suspect had roughly no correlation, and nothing torpedo's "coolness" like a negative result).
Speaking of which, as you'd suspect, all the projects I looked at were positive results. No negative results. So thats also kinda twisted.
(Score: 2) by kaszz on Tuesday August 12 2014, @11:14PM
I think your point about parents (or near relatives) just shows the game is rigged in non-obvious way. Which gives direct access to people with education with or above a master, labs, social networks etc. And age is no absolute guarantee for wisdom or intelligence either (applies to adults too..).
Better competition: Put the kids in a lab where they have to create themself..
One should also not forget the basics. Ordered home conditions (alcohol or yelling), viewing knowledge as important, economy of the parents to put food and supplies on the table or travel, etc.
(Score: 2) by darkfeline on Tuesday August 12 2014, @09:05PM
>"As found in this research," she observed in her project descriptions, "the Prefrontal Cortex is not fully developed during adolescence years."
Really? She was able to conclude, from asking people to reread their posts, that their prefrontal cortex is not fully developed? Not to mention the fact that the prefrontal cortex still developing during adolescence is a confirmed medical fact that needs no further confirmation, methinks. What else did she find? That asking people to confirm their decisions leads to fewer mistaken spontaneous actions? This is also pretty well-known, especially in the suicide/crime literature. So she's basically being recognized for adding a confirmation box to posting comments.
Sorry if I sound a little jaded, but this reminds me of all the gold star nonsense and handing out patents for the most trivial things.
Join the SDF Public Access UNIX System today!
(Score: 2) by PizzaRollPlinkett on Tuesday August 12 2014, @10:33PM
Didn't a feedback mechanism that determined the likely outcome of actions and alert you if they were harmful used to be called a conscience?
(E-mail me if you want a pizza roll!)
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Wednesday August 13 2014, @12:02AM
Yeah, but you know what? It can't be monetized the way you can do with an application
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 13 2014, @12:25AM
> Didn't a feedback mechanism that determined the likely outcome of actions and
> alert you if they were harmful used to be called a conscience?
We put training wheels on bicycles, kids play tee-ball before they play softball, use water-wings before they can swim, etc. Why shouldn't we have a tool that assists kids in the process of developing a conscience of their own?
(Score: 2) by JeanCroix on Wednesday August 13 2014, @12:43PM
(Score: 2) by zeigerpuppy on Tuesday August 12 2014, @11:34PM
Is it just me or do others think cyber bullying is a non-issue?
The Internet is (was?) a wild place and trolling is part of its character.
This is why any sane user takes a healthy grain of salt, uses a handle to protect (and project) their identity and should treat negative comments as an indightment on the conmenter rather than an affront to their ego.
I cannot see how equating negative/rude comments on the internet with a personal attack makes sense.
I also see this whole issue as a way for those that like spying on people to reduce anonymity on the web.
Zeigerpuppy is not me and I encourage insults to his/her character, safe in the knowledge that this mythical creature has no body to harm and cannot have an offense commited against its person.
This would perhaps be the best focus of the debate, don't reveal your identity online and have a laugh when your handle is slandered, it's part of retaining free speech in a world that seems to be moving against this basic freedom.
(Score: 2) by cafebabe on Wednesday August 13 2014, @01:09AM
I follow your good advice but it works for me because no-one in my social circle uploads geotagged group selfies to private forums with a real name policy and image tagging facilities. For kids, it is almost impossible to have a social life or get a degree without mixing their online and offline identity. And that's the problem because when things turn nasty, there's no barrier and no respite.
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(Score: 2) by zeigerpuppy on Wednesday August 13 2014, @02:23AM
I agree, it is difficult to avoid tagging. The risk can be somewhat limited by not having an account on sites that use such exploitative practices.
As far as web-identity, it's a good exercise for kids to set up a blog (even better on a private server running habari!).
Actually, I know what to do, get the kids installing pump.io instances and use the little darlings to take over the world.....
[maniacal laughter smothered by pillow]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 13 2014, @02:31AM
> The risk can be somewhat limited by not having an account on sites that use such exploitative practices.
Do you have children? They go where their friends are. The network effect rules the social lives of kids.
(Score: 3, Funny) by Hell_Rok on Tuesday August 12 2014, @11:58PM
http://xkcd.com/481/ [xkcd.com]