While we were
having the cyber bullying discussion earlier this week, something occurred to
me. We easily pointed out the cyber bullying in other schools, yet we lacked to
acknowledge if we had any in our own community? I pondered my mind to find the
most blatant form of cyber bullying, and then I found it. It can be found on
the Facebook group called New Paltz Secrets. New Paltz Secrets is a
group where people can message a “secret” to the page and said “secret” will be
posted anonymously. The “secret” can range from thinking someone is attractive
to a funny drunken mishap or even cyber bullying. As I scrolled through the
page I found bits of tamed cyber bullying, nothing to the extent of what we
discussed in class. A “secret” that stuck out was one regarding a foreign
exchange student. Someone posted about how annoying he was and others quickly
chimed in. Fortunately, someone understood the harm cyber bullying can do and
defended the foreign exchange student. Others began to come to his aid as well.
Regardless of how the defenders felt about the student, they defended him
because they knew what the anonymous person was doing was wrong. They didn’t
want anything bad to occur as a result of the “secret” and for that these
individuals should be commended. I think it’s a shame that after all we’ve
heard about cyber bullying in the world that people continue to do it. It is
especially disheartening to hear about it in our own community. Luckily, there
are good people who will stand up to this injustice and prevent it from being
another cyber bullying headline. People understand how bad it can get and
decide to do something in the beginning stages. I also noticed on my feed that
these kinds of pages are becoming more popular amongst other colleges. Boston
University has BU Confessions page
and SUNY Purchase has a Purchase Missed
Connections page. If there is cyber bullying going on these pages,
hopefully there are some brave individuals who will put an end to it.
https://www.facebook.com/NewPaltzSecrets?fref=ts
https://www.facebook.com/NewPaltzSecrets?fref=ts
Hi Amir,
ReplyDeleteThank you for posting this. I am the foreign exchange student that was so cruelly and publicly cyberbullied online on the New Paltz Secrets website. Yes, unfortunately I did leave on bad terms with a few people who thought that I was annoying with my Australian accent etc. Despite this though I did everything I could to avoid ending on bad terms with these couple of people which everybody constantly said had SEVERE emotional, mental, social and psychological issues.
I do definitely appreciate this post and it means a lot to me. It's great to see your acknowledgement of how wrong Cyberbullying is, its dangers and consequences. This is because it was designed to turn people who didn't even meet me while I was at New Paltz last year against me. One point I would like to mention though in light of what you said is that MOST of the defenders (except one) actually really liked me and became my very close friends while I was at New Paltz. They posted genuinely lovely thinks like "I adore Bradley" "he has one of the biggest hearts out of any one I have ever met" "he never did anything wrong to any one" and many many more. Although, they do understand the harm of cyber bullying and that what was occurring was obviously wrong they were also defending me because they genuinely value my friendship and I am really close to them and they appreciate me.
I gave a speech to academics here in Sydney, Australia at UTS about Cyberbullying amongst Universities and colleges and how to control it and prevent it.
I genuinely had the time of my life at New Paltz and made a lot of good friends. There were just a few people who unfortunately really didn't like me - that's life, however, the people who defended me did it for 2 reasons 1) cyberbullying is wrong no matter what and under NO circumstances is it socially acceptable and 2) they like me and consider me a good close friend.
The best way to put an end to it in my opinion is to prevent it from happening in the first place. By these pages having tighter regulations and the moderators ONLY approving posts that are appropriate- these things cannot happen in the first place even so that very brave individuals do not need to put an end to it!
Please feel free to connect with me when you get a chance I would love to hear from you. The best way to do this is to send me an email: bradsacks2@hotmail.com.
Kind Regards,
Bradley