IT and incompetent parents

[Deleted]

There have been a couple of cases in the past few weeks here in the UK that have raised my ire slightly. The first, as you probably have all read about, is the opt-in porn "ban", and making pornographic videos depicting rape illegal.

The second, was the recent Twitter outcry, where prominent feminists and journalists have been campaigning for a "report abuse" feature after a number of death threats and threats of violence.

The third comes today, after a teen took her life after receiving abuse on ask.fm. Her father is now asking the government to "do something" about these sites, claiming that "the fact that these people can be anonymous is wrong".

As sad as the latter cases are, it seems that people are seriously out of touch when it comes to the internet and how it works. Demanding that Twitter "do more" (what exactly?) to stop trolls is ridiculous. We already have laws in place against making threats, indeed the UK has some very draconian laws about causing any kind of offence. A number of people who made these threats have already been arrested. So what exactly should Twitter do? It's like asking the post office to do more to stop people sending mean letters. In the latter case, a petition has been set up, saying:

Please sign if you would like the Government to step in and insist that Ask.fm and similar sites help us protect our young people. They are able to join from the age of 13 and can post anonymously.

Again, what are people expecting here? Apparently ask.fm doesn't have a block or ignore feature, but that hasn't stopped this happening on Facebook. And, if the parents don't want their children joining these sites when they are 13 then why don't they stop them? This abuse had been going on for a significant period of time, yet the father only just saw it. How is that good parenting? It's akin to letting your child go unsupervised with people she doesn't know into a part of town you don't know, and it smacks of another poor parent using the internet as a babysitter. As for posting anonymously, would the father have preferred his daughter to be posting alongside her real name? Her address? Her school? Of course not. Perhaps she did, but I strongly doubt he has any fucking clue what she put on there.

So, can this sort of thing be regulated, or is it down to the parents? Should governments try to restrict the internet when simple safety measures could start at home?

[Rukentuts]

Parents need to be better parents and not have a website pick up the slack. If there's a problem with your kid, unplug the damn computer.

Shitty populated websites will always exist.

[dawawe]

If they dont want their child to have access to something, dont let them go there. There are plenty of ways to block sites. Also, Nothing you do on the internet is anonymous

[Deleted]

People don't off them self for the sole reason of someone being mean to them over the internet, there are underlying issues and it's the parents job to find out and sort it.

[Deleted]

As harsh as it may sound, he's just looking to play the blame game at this point; yes it was a saddening thing, but really what he's asking for is completely pointless and won't help in the slightest. It's also edging dangerously closely into territory we don't want to go into, removing anonymity from the internet isn't a good idea.

[Deleted]

Parents need to be better parents and not have a website pick up the slack. If there's a problem with your kid, unplug the damn computer.

Shitty populated websites will always exist.

While blunt, you are correct. I see far too many parents, usually either older, tech illiterate parents or younger, lazy parents who expect technology to look after their kids FOR them rather than just as a form of entertainment or potential bonding through games and communication.

These kinds of parents let their kids browse and browse the internet for hours at a time, and when their kid comes crying about something they saw on it the said parent refuses point blank to accept responsibility for their poor-practice and instead insist the government/websites do something instead. It's the same with the porn block, many parents just don't want to bother learning about web filters or just checking what sites their child is going on.

It's the same argument with parents blaming video game shops and developers for making "violent" games that are "making" their kids violent or aggressive. THEY bought an 18+ rated game for little Jimmy, even after being warned of the content by the age rating and sometimes even the guy at the tills/register, but they're so determined to deny they're bad parents by shifting the blame on something or someone else.

[Deleted]

One of the best analogies i heard for this problems was:

Your child is afraid of the dark, but instead of just buying a nightlight and dealing with the problem yourself, you insist that EVERYBODY else has their lights on by default. You can turn them off if you like, but by default they are on.

i totally agree that there is a problem, but it's a problem that parents appear to know about, as there have been enough very unfortunate and sad cases to draw their attention that the internet needs to be controlled by THEM.

I'm guessing that the filter will work by keywords on the sites, so, the way around this is to not have those words? Legal sites will obey, but there will be ways around it and kids will find that way! So, my opinion, parents need to exercise individual control over their children and not rely on the government/ISP's/website to do it for them as they cannot cater for every parents wishes.

[LaserChild9]

I think the websites have some degree of responsibility here. You can blame the parents all you like and say its bad parenting, but parents shouldn't have to sit and look over their children's shoulder every time they want to use social networking sites. Lets be honest, if you were a 13 year old getting that sort of abuse, in 90% of cases, a parent will only find out if the child tells them or they watching. I'm not blaming the websites, they don't condone this behaviour, but I do believe they should monitor it. It disgusts me at just how sick people are when they can hide behind anonymity, because they think there aren't any consequences, its like because they think no-one knows who they are they suddenly lose all decency and can abuse whoever they want.

In my opinion, people should still be allowed to remain anonymous, BUT, in cases like Hannah Smith, those bullies IP address's should be given over to the police, tracked and the people involved should be charged with manslaughter. If there are no consequences then people will be as abusive and disgusting as they want because regardless of how the situation turns out, they can just sit back knowing there are no consequences.

[Asmekiel]

It disgusts me at just how sick people are when they can hide behind anonymity, because they think there aren't any consequences, its like because they think no-one knows who they are they suddenly lose all decency and can abuse whoever they want.

Shows the true nature of those people. They're always like that, just hide behind a mask of innocence when they think there are going to be consequences.

[LaserChild9]

This is why I think there should be clear and severe consequences. You can teach people about right and wrong for their whole life, but the moment some people know they cant be identified they will ignore everything they know is right.

[BergErr]

Its up to the parents. Though I hope this should be a nonfactor problem in some years.
Ofc stupid ppl dont go away, they just seem to increase rapidly but atleast most will know few parts about how the internet work.

I dont think my parents ever checked my webhabits. Honestly I dont think they got a clue how some ppl act online and I never cared =D

Damn little girls, fighting online and can't handle it (generalizing).
Cyberbullying were talked about alot when I were in school, it was so silly stuff but few would take it to heart and it was sad to see

[Deleted]

Its a tough one, and I do think parents need to make a point about learning about the internet (if they don't already know). It's not really the websites fault if people abuse the system they created, its the people doing it. I do think in cases where someone has taken their life that perhaps ip addresses should be sought out, but i don't think thats the perfect answer, but i don't know what is.

[-Skye]

This is relevant.

EDIT: Has swearing, not sure if that's considered NSFW *shrug*.

[Coronius]

Children should not use the internet unsupervised. It's the parents' responsibility to protect them, you can't just demand that every potential "dangerous" site is shut down. Bad people are everywhere, even on children-friendly sites such as Habbo Hotel and fucking disney.com.

[Deleted]

may sound harsh but I hold the view that people should be required to take some sort of test before even being let near a computer.
( Can't set up blocking software? tough shit you cant have a pc. Fail to monitor your kids online activities, no pc for you either. pc not in the front room? no you dont get a pc). Articles such as this as sad as it is, is in reality put together by some newspaper that are worried about falling sales.
Seriously it's far too easy just to pass the buck along by saying 'oh I didnt know'. Also indeed it's sad what happened to that girl.
By sensationalising the whole thing is doing nothing more than give the government more excuses to poke their sticky beaks where there not wanted.

[Chirri]

Ignorance on the part of parents, ignorance on the part of children. It blows my mind that it's been about 20 years since I first got online, and there are still people who don't understand that they need to be proactive to protect themselves - whether their identities, or their feelings - when they go online. It's like there should be some sort of test to see whether someone's capable of handling themselves and others before they're allowed to go online, with the possible exception of through an impersonal website for shopping that doesn't encourage user socializing.

The kids are screwed if their parents are ignorant, but this sort of thing should be touched upon in school as well. This is the world these kids are growing up in, and as much as you take time to teach a kid about crossing the street or walking through a parking lot holding a responsible person's hand, reminding kids not to put all of themselves up online for trolls to abuse seems like common sense to me. "Don't walk off with strangers," wasn't just taught at home, it was taught at the places that took care of me while my parents were at work. This really shouldn't be any different.

There will always be trolls, assholes, and bullies. Just because you can access the internet from your own home, doesn't make the internet as safe as the room you're accessing it from.

[marthsk]

It should be the parent's responsibility.

However, given that a sizeable portion of the internet are using it inappropriately, and more importantly given the fact that this is being brought to light by traditional medias in their attempt to demonize that new media that makes them lose business, it'll get to levels at which policing the internet will become unavoidable.

All of this because idiots think they can abuse anonymity. Anonymity is amazing in terms of freedoms, but abusing it will only have the "elite" take that away from us.

[Soisoisoi]

Parent's responsibility, not the governments. People who keep going back to a website or whatever or are getting bullied online shouldn't fucking keep going online or simply block people. Darwin award much.

Kids her age shouldn't be that stupid and keep going back. Parents should be able to see if their kid is upset and know why, if it's on the internet then why let them on it if they obviously can't handle it.

RIP to the girl and condolences to her family, but death isn't an excuse and nor should it get sympathies for being stupid.

[yetgdhfgh]

I feel sorry for the poor girl who committed suicide

But im afraid its the parents who are to blame for this!

Would you want your little girl to splash all her details about her private life all over the fucking Sun Newspaper or the NY times cause that exactly what you are doing posting shit online for the whole world to see.

Parents need to supervise internet usage and if they cant then they need to have a long fucking chat where they say if you are a victim of internet bullying then you need to deactivate your account and stop posting personal stuff where every evil cunt can see.

I do not have a FB account or anything on the web that even says my real name yeah i troll these forums and other forums but i do not use my real name and my skin is like fucking alligator scales so i can brush off trolls.

[Asics]

I cannot stand when people piss and moan about an issue but don't provide an alternative.

Also there are so many tools out there to keep the internet relatively "clean" (no porn, violence, etc) if they so choose. They aren't always free but they exist. An example, thanks to Lifehacker.