BlogBullies

ThoughtStorms Wiki

Must read : http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/03/magazine/03trolls-t.html?_r=1&pagewanted=print

Disturbing use of blogs for teenage bullying

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/08/26/education/26bully.html?ex=1251172800&en=75fcc217518a0daf&ei=5090&partner=rssuserland (Thanks to RichardP for NyTimesPermalink)

And read JasonCalacanis : http://calacanis.com/2009/01/29/we-live-in-public-and-the-end-of-empathy/

The episode reflects one of many ways that the technology lubricating the social lives of teenagers is amplifying standard adolescent cruelty. No longer confined to school grounds or daytime hours, "cyberbullies" are pursuing their quarries into their own bedrooms. Tools like e-mail messages and Web logs enable the harassment to be both less obvious to adults and more publicly humiliating, as gossip, put-downs and embarrassing pictures are circulated among a wide audience of peers with a few clicks.

...

The technology, which allows its users to inflict pain without being forced to see its effect, also seems to incite a deeper level of meanness. Psychologists say the distance between bully and victim on the Internet is leading to an unprecedented - and often unintentional - degree of brutality, especially when combined with a typical adolescent's lack of impulse control and underdeveloped empathy skills.

...

"I have kids coming into school upset daily because of what happened on the Internet the night before," Ms. Yuratovac said. " 'We were online last night and somebody said I was fat,' or 'They asked me why I wear the same pair of jeans every day,' or 'They say I have Wal-Mart clothes.' "' (See also WhatsWrongWithInequality/TrainerDiscussion)

...

The new weapons in the teenage arsenal of social cruelty include stealing each others' screen names and sending inflammatory messages to friends or crush-objects, forwarding private material to people for whom it was never intended and anonymously posting derogatory comments about fellow students on Web journals called blogs. *

Hmmm. Maybe falsifies SarcasmDoesntScale