I recently did a post, https://armyliving13.wordpress.com/2012/03/25/drama-among-military-wives/, that deals with a particular Facebook page called Overly Sensitive Military Wives. This page (along with its owner, admins and members) is a perfect example of cyber-bullying at its worst. These people choose to take photos of women and children and bash them online for all to see. They, of course, claim that most of these pictures are pulled off internet…that is a COMPLETE LIE! These photos they post are even labeled with the particular military base they were taken at. They each travel on post and visit the PX and Commissary to take pictures of people just to post and take turns making derogatory comments. I am so sick of the idiots associated with this page saying I have missed the whole point of this page and try to say that they are only trying to point out bad parenting and the wearing of ACU’s. Four words for ya….SHUT THE HELL UP! Bad parenting is one thing but posting pictures of a woman and choosing to make remarks about her weight has nothing to do with being a good or bad parent. Posting pictures of children, yes they do this even though they try to lie about it, and choosing to call them names is so pathetic. This page has been reported numerous time and ABSOLUTELY NOTHING has been done about it! What is it gonna take for the authorities and admins of Facebook to realize the problem here???
Cyber bullying is a major issue. There have been documented cases in recent years that address the seriousness of this problem. Too many people have been targeted and resorted to suicide. And to the idiots that participate in bullying on the OSMW page…don’t use the line “Stay off the damn page.” to anyone! I’m sure there are lots of people who have received phone calls letting them know that their picture has been posted, of course without their permission, on this page and horrible remarks being made. How bout you take down the damn page and stop being assholes?
How about a few examples of what happens when people like this are allowed to continue bullying anyone they choose???
A current case involving a girl making a malicious site, much like our little OSMW bashers, and targeting certain girls that she doesn’t like is facing a heavy fine and a possible one year jail sentence.
Megan Meirer was repeatedly bullied online by Lori Drew. Now, Lori Drew is an “adult”…if you want to call her that… who pretended to be a boy around Megan’s age. She then decided to make Megan’s life miserable by bashing her online and choosing to tell her that the world would be better off without her. Megan, 13 years old, hung herself on October 17, 2006 as a result of the cyber bullying.
Tyler Clementi went through a terrible ordeal as well. His roommate was posting his homosexual experiences on the Internet. Clementi took action and complained to get this taken off-line and the situation handled…he was ignored. Not long after, he jumped to his death.
Ryan Halligan spent the summer of 2003 being bullied online. Hoping the new school year would hold great things, he began that school year with his head held high. The vicious bullying continued until being teased and called names got so bad Ryan took his own life one afternoon.
It is such a shame that the authorities and social networking sites are very aware of these problems and the outcomes they can cause, yet choose to do nothing about them. No one should have to live their life in the shadows worrying about being harassed on the computer. People shouldn’t have to worry about having their picture taken or being picked on at a school, a store, a post office, in traffic, etc.
Everyone needs to rally together to stop this. Sometimes it takes a huge group or several small groups all over to make a huge enough impact for the right amount of light to be projected on a particular problem.