Anyone who uses the Internet on a regular basis is aware of the bullying that can occur within its realms. From harassing Formspring questions, to privacy-violating videos, the information superhighway can be a haven for multiple forms of harassment.
That was proven all too true last week, when a video of seven kids attacking a 13-year-old boy was posted on YouTube. The boy, Nadin Khoury, was beaten brutally, and if a woman hadn't seen what was going on and stopped it, it is possible that he would've died.
Obviously, the beating the boy took is already an extreme form of bullying, but the video appearing on the Internet made his problem worse.
Essentially, he was bullied twice. First, he suffered the beating, and then he suffered the humiliation of the public being able to view it. It contributed an extra dimension to the bullying experience.
Of course, videotaped beatdowns aren't the only way the Internet can compound the problem of bullying. Websites like Formspring make it possible to harass people anonymously.
If someone wants to viciously insult someone else, but doesn't want to be held responsible for it, he can ask all the harassing Formspring questions he wants. There are no repercussions.
The most tragic example of the Internet being used for bullying is the Tyler Clementi incident, in which two of Clementi's roommates filmed him in an intimate encounter with a male partner, and posted the video on the Internet.
After being humiliated thoroughly, Clementi committed suicide shortly thereafter. At this point, the problem of people using the Internet to attack others was abundantly clear.
Granted, it's not as though the Internet has somehow made people more evil. There have been bullies since the dawn of time. What it has done, however, is make it easier for bullying to occur.
As with many things, the responsibility lies with the parents. While the Internet may facilitate bullying, parents are the ones who have the responsibility to not raise kids who become bullies.
While parents can't control everything their children do, they can, at the very least, keep a watchful eye on them and teach them to not be the sort of people who engage in these harmful acts.
Quite simply, while the Internet may make bullying easier, it doesn't make bullies. We realize that some kids turn bad no matter how much good parenting they receive, but we believe it's wrong to blame the Internet for the things that occur within its realms.
That responsibility lies with the people putting it there. The kids who posted the video of the beating should receive the majority of the blame, but the parents who were unable to prevent it should put at least part of the blame on themselves. If they had looked more into what their kids were doing, they may have been able to stop this.
