Sunday, December 12, 2010

The Faces Behind Online Bullying


A website commonly known among college students, collegeacb.com, is a place where students can go and post anonymously about anything they want.  Supposedly meant for students to be able to engage in "deep conversation" and say whats on their mind without exposing their identity, this website is actually encouraging people to partake in hateful conversations about their peers. People are posting horrible things about others they don't like, starting false rumors and ruining peoples reputations.  Hiding behind the computer, these people are the epitome of online bullies.  
Online bullying has been an issue for a long time, especially becoming known when a mother went online and bullied a girl in her daughters class, which in turn made her commit suicide.  There are many ways of which online bullying can occur, however, this website seems to have been created solely for that purpose.  There is not one college board on which people are having deep intellectual conversations. The only things being talked about on this website are mean things and crap about fraternities and sororities. Having unfortunately been the subject of many conversations on this website,  I can personally say that there is nothing worse than people having conversations about how much they hate you or how ugly they think you are.  Of course knowing that people think this way about you is devastating and the fact that its anonymous makes it even worse.  But the thing that makes me the most angry is that a website like this even exists.  
The owners of collegeacb know the things that people are writing, however, they continue to keep their website up.  They are enabling these people to tear other people down verbally and it is because of them that online bullying still exists.  They need to be held responsible for all of the pain that they are causing these helpless people, and somehow they need to be made aware of how hurtful their website really is. What is it going to take before they realize this? 
We as a society are supposed to be lifting each other up, not tearing each other down.  The owners of collegeacb are singlehandedly responsible for the pain many people are feeling because of the numerous anonymous and hateful posts on their website. They have the power to change this and without a doubt should take down their website and help fight the war against online bullying.  

1 comment:

  1. I agree collegeacb and sites like it are very damaging to students. Unfortunately, it is an inevitable problem because free speech is founding civil right in our country. So on the internet where everyone can speak there mind anonymously it is only a matter of time before negative talk is initiated. I feel like a better solution would be a filter for these sites, giving users thread options depending on their topic. Some threads could have language blocks or be more closely monitored.

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