Cyberbullying? Homophobia? Tyler Clementi's Death Highlights Online Lawlessness

[BridgeTheGap]

When a Rutgers University freshman allegedly streamed video on the Internet of his roommate's homosexual encounter in their dorm room, leading the roommate to leap to his death from the George Washington Bridge, it highlighted the strange new technocratic world kids — and all of us, for that matter — inhabit.

Was it just an unfortunate case of kids just being kids, unaware of the consequences the video prank might have? Or was it full-blown cyberbullying, with an insidious helping of homophobia? Or, perhaps, in our unregulated Wild West of a World Wide Web, the two are inextricably intertwined.

Even bullying experts are undecided, with many calling the humiliation that 18-year-old Tyler Clementi endured outright sexual harassment and others going back and forth on whether Clementi's roommate, Dharun Ravi, and Ravi's friend, Molly Wei, had malicious intentions. Ravi and Wei — whose room Ravi was in when he flipped on the hidden webcam — are being charged with invasion of privacy. As the investigation progresses, it will surprise no one if the charges escalate.

Maybe we are where we are because we've had no teachers. No one has instructed us how to use the Internet. We've learned on our own, pointing and clicking, blogging and tweeting. There are no rules of the cyber-road. In a lawless Facebook-Twitter-chat-room culture with scant etiquette and 24/7 saturation, it can be hard to know where to draw the line. In February, the National Cyber Security Alliance released a report that found that U.S. schoolchildren aren't being adequately prepared to navigate the Internet responsibly. With even toddlers getting handy with a mouse, what's clear is that cyberbullying education has got to start with the Dora the Explorer set if it's going to sink in.

Read more: http://healthland.time.com/2010/10/01/cyberbullying-homophobia-tyler-clementis-death-highlights-online-lawlessness/#ixzz11778kiaI

[no_hypocrisy]

1. Bullying is a developed abuse.

Rarely is it done just once to see what it's like. The domination and control of humiliation are irresistible to the abuser.

[msongs]

2. there were no "kids" involved in this incident. wonder what church they go to? nt

[Bluenorthwest]

3. The OP claims these grown adults living abroad on their own

are 'kids'? I'm stunned at the heterosexual community's need to make this story about 'internet privacy' instead of about hate filled straight adults who feel they can attack gay people with impunity because of the way the straight culture carries on in the world against gay people.
The straights want all of this to be about Facebook, not about their own community's problems.
These were not children. They were vicious straight adults.

[pgodbold]

5. What you said. nt

[marginlized]

4. They're adults in every way...

Aside from some gifted few, by the time most people are in college, they're considered adults by the law. They can marry, and be conscripted: they're adults. These particular adults are sophisticated enough to bug their rooms with hidden cameras and mics. If it wasn't a gay classmate, it was going to be someone. Clearly, they set a trap and were planning to use it. Therapists might call that psychopathy. Shouldn't the rest of us call it some kind of crime?

It's probably past time that our society might want to recognize how internet design promotes this sort of anonymous behavior. Surely there are ways to allow anonymity when it's appropriate. It's about time we began sorting this out.

See Jaron Lanier's "You Are Not A Gadget"
http://www.amazon.com/You-Are-Not-Gadget-Manifesto/dp/0307269647/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1285959787&sr=1-1

[kenny blankenship]

6. Of possible interest: Kalyug

Netflix has an Indian language title called Kalyug released in 2005 whose description reads as follows: When their honeymoon night is captured on camera and broadcast over the Internet, newlyweds Kunal (Kunal Khemu) and Renuka (Smilie Suri) are devastated -- so much that the distraught Renuka commits suicide. Setting out to avenge his wife's honor, Kunal immerses himself in the pornography industry to catch the culprits and ends up befriending a porn queen (Deepal Shaw) who's as much a victim of the system as she is a participant in it.

If I were investigating the Rutgers case, I would like to find out whether Dharun Ravi ever rented this movie.