Posted on 09/30/2010 5:50:53 PM PDT by Tribemike1
PISCATAWAY, N.J. The shocking suicide of a college student whose sex life was broadcast over the Web illustrates yet again the Internet's alarming potential as a means of tormenting others and raises questions whether young people in the age of Twitter and Facebook can even distinguish public from private.
Cruel gossip and vengeful acts once confined to the schoolyard or the dorm can now make their way around the world instantly via the Internet, along with photos and live video.
"It's just a matter of when the next suicide's going to hit, when the next attack's going to hit," said Parry Aftab, a New Jersey lawyer who runs the website WiredSafety.
Last week, Tyler Clementi, a shy, 18-year-old Rutgers University freshman and gifted violist, jumped to his death from the George Washington Bridge after his roommate and another classmate allegedly used a webcam to secretly broadcast his dorm-room sexual encounters with another man. The two classmates have been charged with invasion of privacy, with the most serious charges carrying up to five years in prison.
The suicide shocked and disturbed gay rights activists and others on campus....
(Excerpt) Read more at news.yahoo.com ...
I take it that you aren’t really surprised. It’s mostly liberals that use FB and My Space. They think it’s real life with “real” friends. I have a FB account with 4 friends. One is my best friend in life and the others are relatives. lol
Oh, DJ. I know what you mean. The word “friend” is rendered meaningless on facebook. I joined at my brother’s urging. In some ways, it is fun and there are some encouraging brothers and sisters in the Lord. The best part is I have actually met people via facebook - people that I feel have blessed me.
Where I have run into trouble is by friending or allowing to be friended by people I knew in high school - people I really didn’t know back when and am beginning to find out that I was probably luckier for that. ha ha.
Meanwhile, because I am also in school and have to interact with the kids sometimes, I find it much easier to email them via facebook than the college email system (they never read their university email but they are on facebook constantly).
Who commits suicide? -the primary victim...
What about the responsibility for this tragedy that you imply? What about the leftists who paint a rosy rainbow picture of homosexual sex and suggest the pursuit of homosexual sex is normal?
By analogy you seem to solely blame the people incidental who mock the drug user or prostitute but ignore the responsibilities of the drug user, the prostitute, drug pusher or the pimp...
--consequences to wrong choices do happen -government can not save us from them all EVEN if it creates bullying laws in tandem with thought crime laws and hate crime laws...
Be careful what you ask for by implication --you just may get it AND be prosecuted under it...
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