Is internet shaming of online jerks okay or not?

@ehBeth,

to take that a step further, the longer they are allowed to get away with these horrible behaviors, the harder it is to fix as they become adult abusers...

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@boomerang,

boomerang wrote:

I don't think things like these comments should get a pass though. If I were to catch Mo sending out such texts the **** would hit the fan, totally and absolutely -- but mostly towards myself as I'd be forced to realize that I had done a terrible job of raising him.

I wish more parents considered the consequences of how they interact with their children. I'd love it if they thought like you do about your responsibility as a parent.

What I tend to hear is: it's his friends, it's his school, it's the neighbours, it's television, it's the internet ... It is unusual that I hear parents take responsibility for their children's response to what they take in from friends/school/neighbours/television/internet ...

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@ehBeth,

ehBeth wrote:

Most 10+ kids I've known since I was 10+ knew/know what rules and laws apply to them and which ones don't and they took/take advantage of that knowledge.

I agree. And judging by my experience at highschool reunions, people's characters and social behaviors don't change all that much between their teenage years and their forties. The sharp distinction our culture draws between adolescents and adults seems exaggerated to me.

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@Thomas,

Thomas wrote:

This point will not escape the grownups at the HR departments that will, in the not-so-distant future, receive those teenagers' job applications. Just because anything you say on the web can be used against you, that doesn't mean it will.

Actually that's being done already: my brother-in-law, who's a executive manager in a global insurance company (with more than 58.000 employees) told me that at least in their (German) head office this is done on a regular basis. (When our niece, his daughter, made a teaching practice there, she wondered that some told her to use a better grammar and orthography as on her facebook-site Wink

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@ehBeth,

This article interested me yesterday - an opinion piece re free speech on campus, over time.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887323894704578115440209134854.html?mod=hp_opinion

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@boomerang,

Quote:

Shaming someone will not make them change their mind. They might pretend to change their mind, though, and I think driving racism underground makes it much more dangerous.

My opinion is the danger is when they are free to ban together and openly form like minded communities that reinforce their racism.

Taking off the white hoods no matter the age of the wearers of the hoods seems to be a damn good idea.

Of course my concern is more for the young people with black skin or brown skin then the young people who are self IDing as racists.

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@ehBeth,

I don't think kids are stupid or innocent. I think they're kids. The executive function in their brains is not fully developed. They don't understand consequences the way an adult does. The don't project consequences of their behavior onto their futures. It has nothing to do with knowing right and wrong.

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@Thomas,

They already do that. The future is now. There are classes that teach teens how to clean up their online footprint in preparation for college applications and job hunts.

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@ehBeth,

I wish more parents considered it, too. I'm always amazed at how much of a kid's behavior a parent is willing to rationalize away. Sure there are outside influences but a parent has to at least try to mitigate those influences.

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@BillRM,

My point is -- it's is easier to guard against the danger you can see.

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@boomerang,

boomerang wrote:

I don't think kids are stupid or innocent. I think they're kids. The executive function in their brains is not fully developed.

I think that's the core of my disgreement with you. The way I see it, good decisions come from experience, and experience comes from bad decisions. The sooner humans feel the consequences of their bad decisions, the sooner they learn to make good ones. I don't think teenagers are that different from adults in terms of developmental biology. The main attribute in which they differ is that they haven't yet made the amount of bad decision that they need to make good ones. I say go name and shame them!

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@boomerang,

boomerang wrote:

They don't understand consequences the way an adult does. The don't project consequences of their behavior onto their futures.

I think quite a few of them do and the rest of them should at least have the opportunity to learn about consequences.

If infants can be taught not to put their hand on the stove, I think it's reasonable to expect tweens+ to understand there are, and will be, consequences to bullying others.

1 Reply

@boomerang,

Quote:

The executive function in their brains is not fully developed

In south florida a 15 years old just was showing a gun on a school bus and manage to cause the death of a 13 years old girl in front of her 7 years old sister.

He is being charge as an adult with manslaughter and I see nothing wrong with him being so charge as even a 15 years old brain should know not to wave a gun around on a damn school bus.

Similar such a person should be old enough to take the results of being an open bigot on the internet.

1 Reply

@Thomas,

Thomas wrote:

The sooner humans feel the consequences of their bad decisions, the sooner they learn to make good ones. I don't think teenagers are that different from adults in terms of developmental biology.

As someone who has worked some decades with 'teenagers' and adults who had made "bad decisions", I disagree. Young offenders are humans still in development; they try find their ... life, without knowing where the borders are.
Though I agree that they should know,crossing those borders means getting trouble and maybe hard consequences, the trouble and these consequences shouldn't be a life-long punishment or destroying their future adult life.

And I think that youth/teenagers have different motives in what they do (wrong) to adults.

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@Walter Hinteler,

I'll back up Walter with my opinion here.

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@Walter Hinteler,

You know most kids grow up without making bigots comments on the internet or take a firearm to school or do arm robberies, rapes etc even those their brains that are not fully developed.

So please explain why we should give young people a pass on bad behaviors due to the state of their brain developments.

1 Reply

@BillRM,

BillRM wrote:

So please explain why we should give young people a pass on bad behaviors due to the state of their brain developments.

I don't think that "we should give young people a pass on bad behaviours due to the state of their brain developments". Nor did I say resp. intend to write something like that.

I wrote:

Though I agree that they should know, crossing those borders means getting trouble and maybe hard consequences, the trouble and these consequences shouldn't be a life-long punishment or destroying their future adult life.

1 Reply

@Walter Hinteler,

Walter Hinteler wrote:

As someone who has worked some decades with 'teenagers' and adults who had made "bad decisions", I disagree. Young offenders are humans still in development; they try find their ... life, without knowing where the borders are.

And what's wrong with naming and shaming as a way of teaching them about those boundaries?

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@Walter Hinteler,

Quote:

shouldn't be a life-long punishment or destroying their future adult life.

An the young man of 15 years in Miami who just killed the 13 years old on the school bus in front of her 7 years old sister should not have life changing level of punishments for doing so?

The young people who had posted grossly racism comments should not have a question mark over whether they had change their viewpoints before being allow to gain positions of power over people with brown or black skins in the work places of this nation?

1 Reply

@BillRM,

We have different opinions here. That certainly is due to the fact that I grew up in country with a long tradition of youth criminal law (actually already since the Constitutio Criminalis Carolina of 1532) . And that I've worked professionally in this system.

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Is internet shaming of online jerks okay or not?

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