The issue of cyber bullying is something that I am rather concerned about, so this announcement from Tony Abbott and the coalition is most timely and welcome. Having experienced some of the worst of online bullying myself anything that makes life harder for online scum-bags gets my tick of approval.
Cheers Comrades
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And multiply that ten-fold for teenagers. Whereas bullying would once stop at the school gate, this scourge now follows the victim home. The pressure must be unbearable for those kids subjected to this type of intimidation.
Of course, they can always turn off their phone or facebook, but try telling a teenager that.
It’s too little, Iain, and sounds more like a social media ‘Ombudsman’. How quickly do you think some public servant will move to combat offensive online bullying & stalking? They also seem to think it’s only school kids who cop this.
Abbott probably wouldn’t even know how to launch Internet Explorer let alone be aware of how the slime bags misuse it. But at least Turnbull seems more in tune with reality:
The only way to prevent the type of crap that’s put online is to strike at the source, not at the forum. I.E. to strike at those who put it up in the first place. My suggestion (which I’ve made before) is that all internet users must be registered. Just like your home address and home phone is. Simple, really.
Oh I agree with your suggestion Ray however what the Coalition suggests is better than your favoured mob are suggesting, which is squat…
Neither side has a clue about it, Iain, or really cares. Abbott’s policy (if you can call it that) is just some feel-good vote catcher aimed at suburban mums who want to protect their precious little idiots.
As for registering Internet users, (or licensing them), we need to think about it in terms of our road infrastructures. We don’t let unlicensed drivers hop into unregistered cars and speed down our highways. The cars have number plates and the drivers must be licensed – that’s how the offenders are caught. The Internet is also a public infrastructure and has in fact been described as ‘the super highway’, yet we let any unlicensed person use any unregistered computer to get on it and commit offences. Go figure.
Whenever politico’s want to restrict freedom of speech they always seem to suggest that they are doing something for the common good — bullying, online porn, paedophilia, protecting children etc, etc. Labor discovered that their proposals wouldn’t work, and now Phoney Tony climbs on a slightly different bandwagon, but essentially singing the same tune. This won’t work either. There are far to many clever people out there who will circumvent whatever is put in place given the nature of the internet.
I’ve always ascribed to the view (Voltaire’s, I think) that: “I may vehemently disagree with what you say, but will defend to the death your right to say it!”. Though I must admit the garbage espoused by such as Bold and Jones tends to qualify the ‘death’ bit!
Bullies — block em and/or report em are probably the best ways to deal with such garbage spewers.
deknarf
Having had some experience in this issue I know that there is no easy way to report “garbage spewers” and very little that can be done to block their efforts either.
block em and/or report em
How do you “report” an anonymous f*ckwit slagging you off on an anonymously authored blog while hiding behind a proxy server? Good luck with that. If, on the other hand, both the f*ckwit and the blog owner were required to be registered before the blog and its slander could go to air there’d be a workable process in place. And a big deterrant.
I completely agree, Ray