by Jack Taggerty
(Melbourne)
Here is a comment that I made:
Hi,
This is not only a serious national issue, but an international issue as shown by Facebook articles and videos on http://cyber-bullying-prevention.com/ . It is good to see that more action is being taken to protect victims.
I am aware that cyber bullies rely on fear to intimidate their victims who generally won’t fight back. At the same time, I know that mobile phones, laptops, and computers can have monitoring by their third parties installed, by invitation or without (e.g. employers and parents).
There would be a good case to have a robust public debate about whether victims of cyber bulling wanting protection should be able to ask for monitoring to be installed which would generate a message that this was the case at the instigation of the victim.
An example of this would be schools and pupils where cyber bullying is common. It does of course raise the possibility in the Android Market for applications (and similar platforms) developing the message whether the monitoring service existed or not. I believe that this would change the culture of intimidation considerably by giving some power to the victim.
This right for a victim could be legislated.
What are your thoughts on this?
Regards
Jack Taggerty
http://cyber-bullying-prevention.com/
