Is Facebook too Pervasive and Important?

[Mrs. Charming]

It's interesting to me that the people with the strongest opinions about the evils of Facebook don't have accounts.

I did, and I deleted it! (which was a PITA)

 

[FireDancer]

Not saying mean, hurtful things or making someone feel afraid is NOT tip toeing around them.

Actually I think people should be free to say mean hurtful things. If person B thinks person A is ugly, fat, unkempt, lazy, or anything else they should be able to say so, even on Facebook, and person A should be able to say the same thing about person B if that is what they feel.

That above example would by some be considered bullying, I don't think it is. People are entitled to their opinion of others and are allowed to share that opinion, even if it is a negative one. You (general you) can choose to allow that to hurt you or shrug it off as merely one (or even many) people's opinion. Only you can make the choice as to which you will do, not me, but I know what I would do. There is no reason that should make anyone feel afraid. If that same person said "I am going to kill person A because they are ugly/fat/stupid/whatever" it goes beyond mere opinion and at that point can and should be dealt with. I do agree with you that someone shouldn't be made to be afraid and if someone is fearful of harm they should be protected.

I do not believe that anyone has a right to not have their feelings hurt though. Having them hurt is just a part of life. An unpleasant part but a part.

I fully agree this isn't nice or a good thing to do but it should be allowed in the same way that that crackpot church should be allowed to protest funerals. I always want to err on the side of more freedom, especially in speech. And before anyone says hate speech is illegal the legal definition of hate speech is quite different then mean or hurtful opinions of someone, especially when that opinion is not based on a protected classification like race.

Anyway, this is what I feel and believe.

 

[bicker]

There are many things that people can become addicted to, from gambling or alcohol to shopping or Facebook.

Great point. I find a lot of criticism of online community, such as Facebook or DISboards, tend to come from folks (including some family and friends) who arguably have "addiction" to what are ostensibly Luddite (anti-online) pursuits. In reality, probably none of what's being addressed by either perspective is addiction. What we're seeing, instead, is just people trying to make something (that they don't personally like) sound bad.

 

[OceanAnnie]

New dimensions aren't unexpected. Dimensions (as it were) come and go. There have always been ways that some in society intimidate others. Cavemen apparently carried around clubs that they used to clobber those that they wished to intimidate... I'm glad that mechanism is no longer in style. Every generation we lose a few and gain a couple, but the net result has been very consistently a downward trend in the long-run as society has become more compassionate.

Indeed. That was my point.

The part about society becoming more compassionate seemed to negate your point, to me. Maybe society is less violent but compassion doesn't factor into bullying of any sort.

 

[LuvCuteBoys]

I haven't read all the posts yet, but when I was in high school I was bullied frequently via phone calls. It was miserable, but it never occured to me to actually blame the phone itself.

If people want to be jerks, they will find a way to do it.

Instead of blaming facebook, I think we need to work harder at teaching the jerks to stop being jerks and to teach those being tormented that it WILL get better.

I wonder if these conversations popped up every time a new form of communication was invented. I wonder how many people disliked Alexander Graham Bell for creating something that changed conversation and communication.

Or that darn Tsai Lun for inventing paper

 

[NotUrsula]

It's interesting to me that the people with the strongest opinions about the evils of Facebook don't have accounts.

Do you mean "have never had accounts" -- because (think about it) if you think a web service is evil, why would you still be using it?

FTR, I don't have a personal FB account at present, and neither does my teen. (DS chose to close his account. I have one that I manage for work, and that's hassle enough.)

 

[NotUrsula]

I haven't read all the posts yet, but when I was in high school I was bullied frequently via phone calls. It was miserable, but it never occured to me to actually blame the phone itself.

If people want to be jerks, they will find a way to do it.

Instead of blaming facebook, I think we need to work harder at teaching the jerks to stop being jerks and to teach those being tormented that it WILL get better.

I wonder if these conversations popped up every time a new form of communication was invented. I wonder how many people disliked Alexander Graham Bell for creating something that changed conversation and communication.

Or that darn Tsai Lun for inventing paper

I think what makes FB and its ilk different is that it is an unmoderated broadcast mechanism. If your tormenters had tried to call a radio station and get the DJ to call you names, they would have been told to go fly a kite -- an adult was there to realize that it was a bad idea to publicly libel someone, and thus refused to enable them to do so. In the past, when a newspaper publisher accepted libelous advertisements or stories and ran them, the paper was held responsible for publishing the libel.

No one is blaming Tim Berners-Lee; they are blaming Mark Zuckerberg. If some twit bought some bandwidth and just published a website called LUVCUTEBOYSisaslut.net, then we would have no Zuckerberg-like character to chastise. However, by creating a site that must be JOINED, giving members-only a toolset to use to publish on that platform, and by accepting advertising on the platform for profit, Facebook is acting as a publisher.

 

[OceanAnnie]

I thought this was interesting, in light of the thread's title:

Philadelphia football coach issues Facebook curfew for players

http://rivals.yahoo.com/highschool/...ch-issues-Facebook-curf?urn=highschool-277229

" Imhotep Charter (Penn.) High coach Marc Wilson was fed up with all his players' "extracurricular" activity the night before big football games, so he issued a curfew. Uniquely, the Imhotep curfew doesn't require the players to be in bed, or even in their own house, at 11, they just can't be on Facebook.



The trash-talking between teams and players has become a major problem.

"We've seen it happen before where individuals start an exchange on Facebook, and it leads to something that becomes more physical and realistic," Wilson told the Philadelphia Inquirer. "They have friended someone, who's a friend of someone we are friends with. So the word gets back eventually. It truly is an impressive network of people."

According to the Inquirer, Wilson decided to shut down his players' social networking access after issues earlier this season led to internal discipline against eight of his players.

"We just don't want that associated with our program," Wilson said. "We don't want to be guys that talk a lot of mess. We want to be guys that play well."

The Imhotep head man isn't the only Philadelphia-area coach worried about Facebook trash talk, either. The coach of Del-Valle Charter, whose team was the subject of some Imhotep players' Facebook scorn, said the website could be an intermediary to a much more serious -- perhaps even violent -- encounter.

"The football players, we all know, when you talk trash on Facebook, it's basically because of the game," Imhotep senior player Maurice Howard told the Inquirer. "But the students, the people who don't play the game, they really wouldn't understand too much, so that's why they'll take that the wrong way."

Early indications are that Wilson's restrictions are having their intended effect. Howard, who was disciplined for his Facebook use earlier this year, said he now realizes he wasn't thinking about what could happen before he posted comments on the site.

One of Howard's classmates added that he now recognizes teams are using the site for more than just idle banter.

"It's not just in the Public League. I believe it's everywhere," said Damean Riley, a senior at Imhotep. "[Teams] just use it as motivation to get in their heads like a psychological warfare that's going on, on Facebook."

For his part, Wilson doesn't care how other programs are using Facebook, so long as his players aren't among them late at night, particularly the night before a game.

 

[LuvCuteBoys]

I think what makes FB and its ilk different is that it is an unmoderated broadcast mechanism. If your tormenters had tried to call a radio station and get the DJ to call you names, they would have been told to go fly a kite -- an adult was there to realize that it was a bad idea to publicly libel someone, and thus refused to enable them to do so. In the past, when a newspaper publisher accepted libelous advertisements or stories and ran them, the paper was held responsible for publishing the libel.

No one is blaming Tim Berners-Lee; they are blaming Mark Zuckerberg. If some twit bought some bandwidth and just published a website called LUVCUTEBOYSisaslut.net, then we would have no Zuckerberg-like character to chastise. However, by creating a site that must be JOINED, giving members-only a toolset to use to publish on that platform, and by accepting advertising on the platform for profit, Facebook is acting as a publisher.

As the person who was tormented, I can say that the medium didn't matter. What mattered was the action.

 

[LuvCuteBoys]

I thought this was interesting, in light of the thread's title:

Philadelphia football coach issues Facebook curfew for players

http://rivals.yahoo.com/highschool/...ch-issues-Facebook-curf?urn=highschool-277229

" Imhotep Charter (Penn.) High coach Marc Wilson was fed up with all his players' "extracurricular" activity the night before big football games, so he issued a curfew. Uniquely, the Imhotep curfew doesn't require the players to be in bed, or even in their own house, at 11, they just can't be on Facebook.



The trash-talking between teams and players has become a major problem.

"We've seen it happen before where individuals start an exchange on Facebook, and it leads to something that becomes more physical and realistic," Wilson told the Philadelphia Inquirer. "They have friended someone, who's a friend of someone we are friends with. So the word gets back eventually. It truly is an impressive network of people."

According to the Inquirer, Wilson decided to shut down his players' social networking access after issues earlier this season led to internal discipline against eight of his players.

"We just don't want that associated with our program," Wilson said. "We don't want to be guys that talk a lot of mess. We want to be guys that play well."

The Imhotep head man isn't the only Philadelphia-area coach worried about Facebook trash talk, either. The coach of Del-Valle Charter, whose team was the subject of some Imhotep players' Facebook scorn, said the website could be an intermediary to a much more serious -- perhaps even violent -- encounter.

"The football players, we all know, when you talk trash on Facebook, it's basically because of the game," Imhotep senior player Maurice Howard told the Inquirer. "But the students, the people who don't play the game, they really wouldn't understand too much, so that's why they'll take that the wrong way."

Early indications are that Wilson's restrictions are having their intended effect. Howard, who was disciplined for his Facebook use earlier this year, said he now realizes he wasn't thinking about what could happen before he posted comments on the site.

One of Howard's classmates added that he now recognizes teams are using the site for more than just idle banter.

"It's not just in the Public League. I believe it's everywhere," said Damean Riley, a senior at Imhotep. "[Teams] just use it as motivation to get in their heads like a psychological warfare that's going on, on Facebook."

For his part, Wilson doesn't care how other programs are using Facebook, so long as his players aren't among them late at night, particularly the night before a game.

I fail to see how that can be enforced, unless the coach forces them all to sleep in the same room together

 

[OceanAnnie]

I fail to see how that can be enforced, unless the coach forces them all to sleep in the same room together

I guess the coach can see who has posted, and would mete out disciplinary actions. I don't know.

 

[bicker]

The part about society becoming more compassionate seemed to negate your point, to me. Maybe society is less violent but compassion doesn't factor into bullying of any sort.

You're relying on an implication without proving that one exists. As we've already mentioned, bullying isn't new. The continued existence of bullying and other forms of intimidation does not reverse the fact that society is, in general, becoming more compassionate, over the long-term. Compare living in the 2000s to the 1900s to the 1800s to the 1700s and so forth.

 

[luvsJack]

Actually I think people should be free to say mean hurtful things. If person B thinks person A is ugly, fat, unkempt, lazy, or anything else they should be able to say so, even on Facebook, and person A should be able to say the same thing about person B if that is what they feel.That above example would by some be considered bullying, I don't think it is. People are entitled to their opinion of others and are allowed to share that opinion, even if it is a negative one. You (general you) can choose to allow that to hurt you or shrug it off as merely one (or even many) people's opinion. Only you can make the choice as to which you will do, not me, but I know what I would do. There is no reason that should make anyone feel afraid. If that same person said "I am going to kill person A because they are ugly/fat/stupid/whatever" it goes beyond mere opinion and at that point can and should be dealt with. I do agree with you that someone shouldn't be made to be afraid and if someone is fearful of harm they should be protected.

I do not believe that anyone has a right to not have their feelings hurt though. Having them hurt is just a part of life. An unpleasant part but a part.

I fully agree this isn't nice or a good thing to do but it should be allowed in the same way that that crackpot church should be allowed to protest funerals. I always want to err on the side of more freedom, especially in speech. And before anyone says hate speech is illegal the legal definition of hate speech is quite different then mean or hurtful opinions of someone, especially when that opinion is not based on a protected classification like race.

Anyway, this is what I feel and believe.

Really? You seriously believe that one person should be able to say mean and spiteful things to another because its what they FEEL?


What you are not getting is that for some (especially young teens) saying things like that go way beyond "hurting their feelings. To a child that is overweight, or too short or too tall or whose face is covered with acne or whatever makes them different can cause much more than hurt feelings. It can be devastating. It can make them feel like they are worthless and hopeless. If the other person said it one time, then no that is not bullying but when its said every day to the same kid, its bullying.

Bullying is not always physical just as abuse is not always physicall.

 

[NotUrsula]

As the person who was tormented, I can say that the medium didn't matter. What mattered was the action.

I was a victim, too, and I could ignore the phone calls well enough, and they ended once school was out and people found other things to talk about. Once the phone receiver went down, each incident was over. However, the graffiti on the side of a building stayed there for decades. That was just in my home-town, which I left after hs and never looked back at except for a one-day Christmas visit, so for the most part it didn't affect me once I was gone. There wasn't any published index that let someone search my name and be told the address of the building so that they could go look at it.

On Facebook or the like, hundreds of thousands of people can see it, even years later, and that includes prospective employers six states away. It's a whole different order of magnitude.

 

[OceanAnnie]

You're relying on an implication without proving that one exists. As we've already mentioned, bullying isn't new. The continued existence of bullying and other forms of intimidation does not reverse the fact that society is, in general, becoming more compassionate, over the long-term. Compare living in the 2000s to the 1900s to the 1800s to the 1700s and so forth.

Likewise, "compassion" is a term that is not easily quantifiable.

I will agree to disagree with you.

 

[OceanAnnie]

I was a victim, too, and I could ignore the phone calls well enough, and they ended once school was out and people found other things to talk about. Once the phone receiver went down, each incident was over. However, the graffiti on the side of a building stayed there for decades. That was just in my home-town, which I left after hs and never looked back at except for a one-day Christmas visit, so for the most part it didn't affect me once I was gone. There wasn't any published index that let someone search my name and be told the address of the building so that they could go look at it.

On Facebook or the like, hundreds of thousands of people can see it, even years later, and that includes prospective employers six states away. It's a whole different order of magnitude.

Excellent point.

 

[bicker]

Likewise, "compassion" is a term that is not easily quantifiable.

I will agree to disagree with you.

While compassion is indeed not easily quantifiable, the trend in compassion over the centuries is very clear.

And I suppose we can disagree about that, if you really feel that you need to, though it seems silly to me that someone would feel as you seem to be claiming you do about that.

 

[shortbun]

You don't think the trade-off of in-person intimidation, with its risk of both emotional and physical harm, for remote intimidation, with its risk of the same emotional harm but without the risk of physical harm, is a positive one?

What? Positive for which party exactly. Never mind, no.

 

[OceanAnnie]

While compassion is indeed not easily quantifiable, the trend in compassions over the centuries is very clear.

And I suppose we can disagree about that, though it seems silly to me that someone would feel as you seem to be claiming you do about that.

I too see some silliness, but I'm sure we'd disagree on that as well.

 

[bicker]

So in essence there is no significant foundation for some of the things people have been claiming. That really disturbs me, since some folks were actually considering this issue seriously.