Bullying can take many forms, and since the evolution of the
web, it has even become a problem online, with many bullying campaigns
being fought through social networks and beyond.
We’ve all seen it happen, and some of us may even have been
unfortunate enough to have experienced it ourselves one or
more times in our youth.
For some of the
global population, the horror can even continue into the stretch of
taxpaying careerdom.
Emotionally Damaging
Bullying, be it the punches, the slaps in the face, the
wedgies, the
name-calling, the locker-room antagonism, all of it is hurtful and
emotionally damaging.
All of it falls under that
deeply impactful term, one that can remain clearly fixed in
one’s
memory for a rather long time, even well after the physical abuse and
vehement rhetoric has passed.
And now, with many schoolyard antics
being very widely replaced by far more technologically convenient
alternatives like email, text messaging, and online social networking,
the problems associated with adolescent thuggery have quite easily and
very rapidly spread to many corners of the lives of young
people.
In
some cases, even adults are getting “brow-beaten”
by a steady onslaught
of hate-laced digital bits.
Beatbullying YouTube Channel
So when I ready today a piece of news explaining how some
engineers
at YouTube had taken it upon themselves to
assemble a channel with the
exclusive purpose of helping average individuals find
solutions to and
respite from attacks by cyber bullies
, I figured,
“Alright, sounds
pretty logical.”
And then I wondered, “How long
‘til the effort gets
compromised, and notice of adverse and negatively unintentional effects
begin to crop up?” To which I more or less concluded:
“Better to do
something than nothing.”
Okay, I’ll be honest. When I first read of the
creation of this YouTube channel, dubbed ‘Beatbullying’,
what I really thought, “this isn’t going to
work.”
A Coalition Of Video Postings
An anti-bully
coalition of video postings, while, ideally speaking, could be a force
for good, naturally must carry a great deal of baggage. And baggage,
though potentially valuable to the right set of eyes and ears,
isn’t
something one would be wise to publicly disclose.
Sure, doing so may in some way be
“honorable”, or whatever you wish
to call it. But in a venue as open as YouTube, the ideal is simply
nonexistent.
In a closed, monitored setting, perhaps an online network
specially
assembled to fight cyber-bullying could be a benefit and an effective
mechanism against troubles dealt down the line.
But YouTube
isn’t
closed. (Nor should it be; thus we have something of a conundrum.) And
though it is in fact monitored in a very basic and vague way, sensitive
topics such as this require added attention. Attention that YouTube
likely cannot provide.
Furthermore, one could argue that such efforts to coddle the
“sensitive” topic of bullying and the damage it
inflicts to youth
around the world is nonsensical anyway.
And that the best way to cut
the number of attacks is to instill confidence in victims by way of a
“tough-love” tactic, instructing them as to the
general ignorance of
the perpetrators of physical or verbal violence, and offering options
on how best to exploit such weaknesses to put a stop to
tormentors’
actions.
Unfortunately, such lessons are effectively nullified in this
day
and age. Why? They don’t account for the anonymity afforded
through new
technologies that are now in the hands of millions of young people
around the globe.
Bullying From Remote Locations
Bullies are now very capable of offering unending
abuse from the safety of remote locations, and only through the
discovery of the identities of electronic devices can authorities
really begin to put a meaningful stop to such shenanigans.
Mind you, such “data mining” runs into
numerous gray legal barriers,
the lawful/unlawful circumvention of which is still very much a
controversial issue.
All in all, we now have on our hands a major rats nest to deal
with,
and, frankly, if one is to take a mere glance at the issue of
cyber-bullying today, one can exhausted view YouTube’s effort
to combat
the problem as something “worth trying”, so to
speak.
That the problem
of cyber-bullying is so big, that something YouTube puts together might
just, by some stretch of the imagination, work as a some sort of
miracle drug.
And if the establishment of the new Beatbullying YouTube
channel
happens to create a positive impact, for whatever reason, so be it,
right?
What do you think of this new development? Is it
good? Bad? Will
it turn ugly? Let us know how you feel. Offer your comments below.
Paul Glazowski is a contributing author discussing the social networking world, his work can be found on Profy.com
