Death By The Internet

I have stated in previous posts on the Protect Children Online FaceBook Fan Page that Cyberbullying can kill and has killed.  There are still those that believe this is not the case.  Is it going to take an entire generation for this to be taken more seriously?  Children do not have the mental maturity to handle this type of abuse, Yes I said abuse.  The “Sticks and Stones will break  bones but names will never hurt me” mentality does not apply in this day and age. Just like when I am talking about Internet Predators with Parents and I discuss how the TV and the Internet are being used as a babysitter with them.  Many parents think the Computer is as docile as the TV was, when that could not be further from the truth.  The possibility of your child being hurt because of the abuse they are receiving while on the computer can be life threatening if not ending.

I Recently added a picture of Natasha MacBryde who became a casualty in February of this year to Bullying and CyberBullying.  Before her death the site was FormSpring, where she received comments about her parents divorcing.  After death the site was FaceBook, where her memorial page was marred by insensitive remarks to basically create havoc on her page.  This is not the first time for Formsping.me to be mentioned in a CyberBullying issue where a child had taken their life.  Many will recall Pheobe Prince, who, after receiving many insensitive remarks on this site had also taken her own life.  These are not coincidences.

Facebook was a site originally created for adults, in age that is.  When they opened it up to the world it was like opening this big undiscovered playground for children to go crazy in.  When it was just MySpace, which was geared more towards teens, we only had to keep track of it.  FaceBook is by far the superior product in popularity.  When sites like FormSpring pop up that really have no rhyme nor reason…just an Ask A Question attitude with no real moderation, you are bound and do have abuse.  With the loss of life, that appears to have a grounding in CyberBullying via some of these sites, should we expect more of a moral high ground out of Web Sites that are going to entice our children to play on their playgrounds?  I think we can expect it, but with advertisers wanting more and more people / kids to see their products, I think everything to include the kitchen sink is thrown out the window here to entice people / kids to utilize their particular website.  Whether it is a site that has no real purpose but to allow kids to ask the deep dark secrets, with supposed anonymity, of each other, or a site that has 700 million users and no real way to separate the kids from the adults, we will not be able to get them to take a moral high ground.  This competition has so much money at stake our children don’t have much of a chance unless we, as parents are paying attention.

We have children dying here, and the sites that allow children to just run rampant and CyberBully each other and allow adults to interact with kids, which can put children in danger from Online Predators will just keep drawing in the Teens and now Tweens into the cesspool of Internet Goo which puts our children possibly facing a death sentence.

As I have said time and again Parents, We are the first line of defense in Real Life and Cyber Life that our children have.  We may not get a second chance to keep them safe in this day and age of 24/7 relentless attacks on our children, whether it be a CyberBully attack or an Internet Predator grooming our child for a couple of months until they meet In Real Life (IRL), we need to be there to save them.  Please just educate yourself and pay attention to your child or children.  Get to know your child so when they seem out of sorts you can recognize it.  I know we are all busy and there are some of us, where both parents are working, but our children did not ask to be born, they are and always will be our responsibility.  Lets take our responsibility seriously and watch out for our angles.  Their time with us may only be limited to the time we take in protecting them.  Our Children Need Our Help.