CMST 490

I dont know if anyone has still been on this site, but I thought this article was really interesting and pertained to class. A man got sentenced to 500 lashes and a year in prison for blasphemy, which is also punishable by life in prison under strict Muslim law. Here is the link

http://www.kxly.com/news/29940190/detail.html

In Florida al the Polk Schools are taking action towards bullying by having a day in where they all make posters and tribute a day for bullying. In classes they act out different scenes in where they role play. They are also encouraged to tell personal stories in a safe environment.

I have heard of things like this before with a tv show that i watched a while ago, but it was more about social groups in school. I feel as if more schools should do things like this to encourage and show kids that people do listen and care if they want to share, they shouldnt hide their feelings and anger and let it boil up until its too late and another student has passed because of bullying.

A Boston first grader has been accused of sexual assault for kicking the bully in the groin after he choked him and stole his gloves. Later Lynch, the first graders mother,  received a letter saying her son could be suspended or transferred because he’s been accused of “violating codes of discipline related to sexual harassment and endangering the physical safety of another student.”

This is absurd, a bully can choke someone in where they could take someones life away because they aren’t able to breathe, yet the bully gets kicked in the groin and its sexual assault!

What do you all think about this? Do you think its right to basically to not take inconsideration the actual bully?

HERE IS THE ARTICLE

http://jezebel.com/5864948/first-grader-kicks-bully-in-the-balls-sparks-sexual-harassment-investigation

I was reading a news article from Canada where it stated that hundreds were being gathered for a bullying march. This all happened after the death of a fifteen year old who had committed suicide because of bullying. The march called for the end of teen bullying. The march was organized by a thirteen year old girl who herself is also victim of bullying.

I hope to one day have something like this be done here in the states or to even hear  about it. This can be so changing and inspiring. It was inspiring just reading that it was organized by a thirteen year old.

here is the website if you guys are interested.

http://www.montrealgazette.com/More+marches+against+bullying+planned/5810893/story.html

http://www.youtube.com/user/BlahBlahBlah2145?feature=watch

I think everyone should watch this video, its quite powerful. This last week for me has been lots of interesting finds when it comes to bullying articles and videos. I think it is something has caught my eye because I have been bullied and harassed for a huge part of my life and seeing that kids are still going through that, and that the internet is getting way worse with it makes me more connected. This applies hugely to the class and what we have learned about hate speech, and I guess it has changed my perspective on the way things get interpreted in my head about this stuff.

http://www.aclu.org/police-brutality-and-suppression-first-amendment-rights-puerto-rico

When you watch the video of the violence, many things stand out as violations of these people’s rights… I know I was shouting at my screen, “hey! they can’t do that! Where’s the first Amendment?” One that stood out to me was the lady siting with her arm locked around another persons in protest. It looked to be a peaceful protest. What wasn’t peaceful about it were the police. The surrounding police were bumping and pushing her. I don’t understand how they (the police) could touch her when she was obviously siting down eyes closed, head down even, in protest. Another that made me extra mad was a lady on the floor already in police custody, couldn’t possibly be immediate harm to anyone, and they taser her anyway. Lets not get into the pepper spray…what is it with police and the pepper spray lately anyway? Seems to be favored tactic with the Occupy protest as well. I just wanted to post this. It was crazy to read the article and watch the video and now be able to identify the violations of free speech.

Today I read an article titled, “Freedom of expression needs to be free for all”. I completely agree with this statement, especially when it comes to the issue that is raised in this article. It is all about a man that was born in Vietnam and  moved with his wife and 10 children to St.Paul. He and his family made their way by living above a grocery store that they ran, and finally saved up enough money to buy a house along the Mississippi river in 2007. The story say that recently he erected a 17-foot marble statue of Jesus in his backyard along the bluffs, overlooking downtown St. Paul. As a fifth-generation Catholic, he made the statue to serve as a replica of a larger version of a monument in his native country (“I miss it, so that I want to bring it here,” Pham said). However, a passerby happened to see the statue one day and anonymously brought it to the attention of the St. Paul City Council, prompting an inspection from the Zoning Board. One person didn’t like this statue for whatever reason it might be, and wanted it down. The neighbors had no problem with it, but this one person did. I think that people should be able to put in their yard what they please. No one needs to get in their business about it. Because one person raising a huge fuss, this wonderful family might have to take down something that means so much to them.

Boy, it’s hard to irradiate damage like being bullied, especially online. It matters to a degree how well you deal with it in your personal life. Of course it is better to take the high road, not retaliate, ‘two wrongs don’t make a right,’ and all. It is better if you can handle being bullied by exploiting the situation with the truth, but not everyone is so lucky. It’s hard. In high school, I experienced online harassment over MySpace blogs and messages, when that was still a cool social media. I dealt with the harassers with avoidance, a few tears and deleting and blocking them as friends. Looking back as an adult, and after taking this class, I didn’t know my rights then, but now I do. I would tell high school me to use all of my free speech rights, because I could have felt safe back then.

Just like the presentation we heard last Tuesday, this article from Los Angeles drew my attention.

One afternoon a group of middle school kids were dismissed from school and met at a restaurant close by. They were laughing and chatting and gossiping about friends and the conversation came around to the Prom, limos, but soon seemed to focus on an unflattering assessment of a girl who was called a spoiled brat and a slut.

What might have been just another typical middle school happening became a serious headache for school officials when one of the students uploaded the conversation as a video on YouTube. Because of the Internet posting, Beverly Vista School officials found themselves grappling with their responsibility to ensure a student’s well-being and the ambiguous limits of their authority on the Internet.

The school’s board was, of course, concerned about cyber-bullying. They suspended the uploader, but did nothing to the other students. The uploader sued the school district saying her free speech rights were violated. Her attorney said this was not student speech and could not be controlled by the defendents.

“School districts are between a rock and a hard place on this issue,” Kaatz said.

In an Idaho case, for example, parents sued a school district over its failure to intervene in their daughter’s harassment, which included, among other things, spreading photos and rumors on the Internet about the girl’s sexual orientation.

The court sided with the school, saying officials did not have “substantial control” over the dissemination of the photos.

As computer, video, and cellphone use among students has
increased in recent years, so have allegations of cyber-bullying.

It seems to me the schools are damned if they do and damned if they don’t. I can’t wait to see where more of the court cases go in the future.

Wow, The Facebook medium can really be used for extremely offensive types of things. It can also be used for good though, and we cannot punish everyone because of a few wackos. I understand when hearing things like prisoners stocking their victims outside of prison via facebook, we want to protect the victims in the most extreme way possible, take it all down! Never let this happen again. But a state side little grandma can still see their daughter’s new baby in Germany even after she married a military man, because of the ease of facebook communication (also a true story). It is mostly used for the good things So! it may be hard to live with when it does us wrong, but we won’t live without it.

From the EFF comes this interesting article.

Many people don’t want the
things they say online to be connected with their offline identities. They may
be concerned about political or economic retribution harassment or even threats
to their lives. Instead of using their true names to communicate these people
choose to speak using pseudonyms (assumed names) or anonymously (no name at
all). For these individuals and the organizations that support them secure
anonymity is critical. It may literally save lives. Such as in cases of
Domestic Violence or Whistleblowing.

The EFF states

“The Electronic Frontier Foundation has been involved in the fight to protect the rights of anonymous speakers online.” As one court observed in a case handled by EFF along with the ACLU of Washington “[T]he free exchange of ideas on the Internet is driven in large part by the ability of Internet users to communicate anonymously.”

We’ve challenged many efforts to impede anonymous communication both in the courts or the legislatures. We also previously provided financial support to the developers of Tor an anonymous Internet communications system. By combining legal and policy work with technical tools we hope to maintain the Internet’s ability to serve as a vehicle for free expression.

I like the idea of anonymity on the internet. It allows people to do something counselors call hot penning. That is where a person lets their mind run wild and writes as much as they can in 5 minutes. Most times a person will write what is bothering them that they have a hard time speaking. People do this at parties or instead of a board game. It can be fun , but it can also be dangerous in fragile relationships.

Emma Sullivan was participating in a Youth in Government program that took place in Topeka, Kansas. She sent a tweet out from her phone saying, “Just made mean comments at gov. brownback and told him he sucked, in person (hash)heblowsalot.”

The tweet showed up on a feed that monitors social media posting with the governor’s name.Sullivan was told to write a letter of apology to the governor.

Sullivan’s twitter followers went form 61 to 9,000 after the incident. The article pointed out that that is 3 times more than governor Brownback’s account.

She decided not to write the letter of apology and the school district will not take any further action on the matter because Sullivan was speech is protected by the First Amendment.

She had this to say about the tweet, that it “has turned into a good starting point to open up dialogue about this … free speech and the power of social media and the power that people my age could potentially have, that people will listen to us.”

The governor apologized for the way his staff reacted.

http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Latest-News-Wires/2011/1128/Free-speech-covers-tweets-Gov.-Sam-Brownback-apologizes-to-Kansas-teen