9 ms·

Online 'Shaming' A New Level Of Cyberbullying For Girls

58 points by justhw 14y ago

jordanb 14y ago
Teenage boys boast about their sexual exploits (with photos, on the internet, because it's 2012). Teenage girls are incredibly cruel to one another. Media reports it because it fits an existing narrative about "technology and culture." Back when I was in high school, it didn't take pictures on the internet to ruin a girl's reputation. All it took was some boasting followed by a lot of gossip. It sounds like the "technology" aspect of this is that the standards of evidence have gone up for a boy to defend his boast.
- rayiner 14y ago
  A thousand years ago, angry aggressive teenagers beat each other up with sticks. Today, they join gangs and shoot each other. But that doesn't mean the increased destructive power yielded technology doesn't make the problem more worrisome than it was before.
- tptacek 14y ago
  I suspect it takes a degree of willfulness not to see the distinction between a rumor campaign and an explicit photography.
  - jordanb 14y ago
    I'm not sure what you mean by 'willfullness,' Thomas. My point is that this is the modern incarnation of an extremely old set of teenage behaviors. The teenage girl who becomes subject of a rumor campaign has always been devastated by it.
    - lotso 14y ago
      Sure, but I think the results of the modern incarnation are much worse and perhaps, longer lasting.
    - dailyrorschach 14y ago
      This is true, it's the modern form of these old behaviors. But that doesn't mean that their amplification effect isn't worse. Now videos and photos are actually seen by people, without your permission, by your friends, teachers, principals, parents, etc. It would seem to me to only increase the level of trauma. It's one thing to tell your parents that the kids at school said X, it's another to have your parents called and shown a photo or told a video exists. My girlfriend and I were video tapped in high school, this was around 2003 I want to say, so luckily it wasn't super easily broadcast, but still made the rounds in her high school. Thankfully the acts committed weren't completely revelatory for either of us, but it definitely hurt her greatly. I can only imagine what would have happened had the video shown more, or the audience distribution wider. What ended up happening was the video destroyed, the student reprimanded. In our case it was friends playing a prank too far, but in many others its done with malicious intent and broadcasted to the greatest number of people to enhance that harm.
    - tptacek 14y ago
      Strong disagree that worldwide publication of a revealing photograph is comparable to a whispering campaign.
      - ryusage 14y ago
        I think his point is more that the phenomenon we're seeing here is something that's happened forever, and we've really never "solved". The cause is exactly the same, and the effects are similar in nature. They're just dramatically amplified now by technology.
        jordanb 14y ago
        Thank you, that was my point. I admit that I wasn't thinking about the potential for the photos to live forever but also feel that 1) in all probability they won't live forever, at least not on the public, searchable internet given that they're illegal 2) If the article's purpose was to highlight that aspect then it did a poor job. My reaction to this article is that it comes across as a continuation of a lazy, facile media narrative about technology and culture and kids that began with Geraldo Rivera, BBSes and Dungeons and Dragons.
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- cschmidt 14y ago
  Photos on the internet tend to have a long life. I think it is the permanence of these photos and videos that make it worse. In the old days you could just go to college and leave your high school life behind. Now Google is forever.
  - tluyben2 14y ago
    This is the problem I think; you simply don't want your new employer to find pics of you passed out naked or worse. One of my friends from highschool was very promiscuis then; she slept with just about everyone and was always drunk / naked at parties. She had sex in public places. She would've been on the internet these days in pics/vids. Now she is a very highly paid manager and has a family; I don't think that would work that way if her boss found pics and videos of her smeared all over the web, not to mention her boy friend whom she met years after this when she cleaned up her act. Sure everyone knew who she was and what she did, but taking picture? You needed some kind of big machine for that and, worse, you needed to find some photographer outlet to develop it who did NOT know her, her parents, you, your parents. That was not that simple in my town. And polaroid? We never heard of that until much later; I never saw one unless it was in US tv shows.
  - jordanb 14y ago
    This is a good point and one I hadn't considered in my first post. The difference between now and then, being that now this stuff doesn't go away. OTOH I think if there are any photos on the internet that will go away it's these, if for no other reason, because they're illegal.
    - steferson 14y ago
      Unfortunately, something being illegal doesn't make it stop being shared around the internet, specially photos.
      - ryusage 14y ago
        True, they may not disappear completely, but they definitely get filtered out over time. And imagine you're 25 years old and someone wants to bring up old, explicit photos of you at age 15...they would immediately open themselves up to some very serious criminal charges. So I would agree that these are likely to more or less fade away into the recesses of the internet.
- pdonis 14y ago
  Teenage boys boast about their sexual exploits (with photos, on the internet, because it's 2012). Teenage girls are incredibly cruel to one another. Exactly; and this is not news, it's been going on for as long as there have been people. The article doesn't even talk about the real lesson here: be careful who you trust. If you can't trust someone not to secretly record you having sex and then posting the video on Facebook, then you shouldn't be having sex with them. The lesson has always been the same, and there have always been people who don't learn it until it's too late. Edit: I should make clear that I am not trying to exonerate the teenage boys; quite the contrary. To allow someone to make an explicit video of you without your knowledge and post it on Facebook is naive; but to make and post the video is malicious and cruel. The girls need to be reminded of the lesson; but the boys need to be shamed and punished.
  - pavel_lishin 14y ago
    > If you can't trust someone not to secretly record you having sex and then posting the video on Facebook, then you shouldn't be having sex with them. People are awful at assessing risk; why the assumption that teenagers will be any better? Your advice is sound, but it's also along the lines of "Don't have sex, and you'll be safe!" It's not practical.
    - pdonis 14y ago
      I've seen this argument before, and I don't buy it. First of all, you're mis-stating the rule: the rule is not "don't have sex", it's "don't have sex until you know enough about the other person's character to be reasonably sure you can trust them with something that intimate". Second, if people are that bad at assessing risk, that's all the more reason to err on the side of safety. But most importantly, choices have consequences, including the choice to have sex with someone who isn't worth that kind of trust; you can say it's not practical to avoid that (I don't agree, but that's another argument), but saying that doesn't change the consequences of the choice. If you trust someone who doesn't deserve it, you're going to get hurt: that's a fact of life. No amount of social engineering is going to "fix" this fact of life.
  - mnicole 14y ago
- enoch_r 14y ago
  Do you think it's implausible that having nude photographs distributed to one's entire school is far more traumatizing than gossip?
  - jordanb 14y ago
    Bit like asking if it's more traumatizing to loose a foot or the whole leg isn't it?
    - jwoah12 14y ago
      Maybe, but both questions are easily answered in my opinion.
rayiner 14y ago
Facebook needs to get involved in policing this sort of thing. They're not a neutral medium here--they make a lot of money selling 13-18 year old eyeballs to advertisers, and given the unique nature of the demographic (below the age of majority) I think they bear a certain responsibility in how these kids abuse their service.
- yid 14y ago
  There is a lot of stuff going on at Facebook to deal with this sort of thing [1]. They definitely don't have a passive approach to bullying, but you have to realize that the scale of use makes it a difficult problem to approach. [1] https://www.facebook.com/safety https://www.facebook.com/safety
  - dfxm12 14y ago
    In the news piece, the journalist flags a photo twice as inappropriate. Both times, Facebook responded that the photo was within guidelines. This is a photo that was drawing hundreds of likes and "shaming" comments. Looking at the link you provide, the journalist took the Facebook suggested course of action, and Facebook actively failed to stop the abuse.
    - wmf 14y ago
      Is this case the rule or the exception? How would we know?
- mitchty 14y ago
  What exactly should facebook police? Morality? Ethics? What if some group of friends always ragged on each other and got tripped up in this policing? I don't necessarily agree that Facebook should be the responsible party. That really should fall under society and parents/children. A company isn't going to be able to enforce politeness or dissuade bullies from bullying. This is another aspect of the human condition. And if it is one we as a society of humans want to change, we need to do that. Facebook isn't the responsible party here in my humble opinion.
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anonymouz 14y ago
At school, she was hoping that it wouldn't be too big of a deal, but even the principal knew about the video. He brought her to his office and called her mom. "I couldn't even look at my mother because I felt hurt and I also felt that I disrespected her," she says. "I didn't want kids in the school to look at my mother and be like, 'Wow, she raised nothing.' " A big amplifying factor in these examples seems to be a society and an upbringing that cannot to deal with sexuality in a pragmatic manner, and instead prefers a "everybody's doing it, but nobody is talking about it publicly" approach. If someone posts intimate pictures or videos of somebody else without their knowledge, it should be the poster that is shamed and that people disrespect for it -- after all he has violated an expectation of privacy and intimacy. Instead it is the victim that is made to feel bad for "being promiscuous".
- harryf 14y ago
  > A big amplifying factor in these examples seems to be a society and an upbringing that cannot to deal with sexuality in a pragmatic manner Interesting to see if society can adapt
  - epochwolf 14y ago
    I have my doubts. A lot of the southern parts of the US have a lot of religious conservatives. I don't see that changing very quickly.
    - cobrausn 14y ago
      And yet this kind of 'shaming' seems to happen in non-southern, non-religious places as well. Stop looking for an easy scapegoat.
    - menacingly 14y ago
      Most of this story takes place in the deep, deep... Ohio. Heart of slavery.
    - afterburner 14y ago
      Remember the Puritans settled in the North. In any case wherever this originates, the US's puritanical tendencies (compared to continental Europe) don't seem to be exclusively a southern thing.
zwieback 14y ago
Anyone who heard the audio of this piece found out that the boy interviewed toward the end is a special kind of bad. Technology amplifies but this kid definitely has a problem.
- brown9-2 14y ago
  For anyone who doesn't have the time to listen - the author interviews a boy in her school who had emailed a half-naked picture of his girlfriend to his friends, and the photo had then spread around the entire school. The author asks the boy "Did she transfer out of the school after this?" and he responds "No, she stayed and continued to be the same smut/smitty/skipscapscalleywag/whore she was". The author then asks "Did you intend it to be malicious?" and he responds with no hint of remorse "I guess I thought it would be cool or something".
tolos 14y ago
Is this just a united statues problem, or in other countries of the world is it not ok for women to have sex? I want to blame religion, but I doubt that's the entire reason ...
- shadowfox 14y ago
  You are looking for trivial answers. I doubt if there is one.
  - tolos 14y ago
    hmm, I suppose the people that think I have no value to add to this discussion are focusing on that jab at religion. But to clarify, I'm not looking for "the answer" and my question still stands unanswered: what is the socially accepted view of women's sexuality in other cultures? My only experience is with the US where there is a huge demarcation, generally based on the gender of the belief holder, and generally advertisements etc are weighted towards a masculine point of view for women's role. Perhaps it would help to explain I've never taken any "gender studies" classes or similar, so this is a question of mere curiosity.
tankbot 14y ago
Heard this on NPR last night on the commute home. The piece is a powerful and very coherent analogy relating modern "slut shaming" to the classic The Scarlet Letter. It's heartbreaking to hear about kids making bad decisions in an effort to fit in, but it's even worse to think that these mistakes can follow them forever due to the nature of digital content. I couldn't believe how cruel even the girls were to young women that were victimized. Some of them were quoted as saying it wasn't even the guys' fault, that we can't help it. That's so offensive to me on so many levels.
- pdonis 14y ago
  The piece is a powerful and very coherent analogy relating modern "slut shaming" to the classic The Scarlet Letter. I'm not sure this comparison holds. AFAIK the girl in question in this case was not cheating on anyone; she simply made a bad choice of which boy to have sex with. Hester Prynne committed adultery (and with a minister to boot), and it was the adultery that got her the scarlet letter. Not at all the same thing.
  - tankbot 14y ago
    Wow, I really want to ad hom here because you obviously didn't read the article or listen to the original (and excellent) WNYC Radio Rookie piece, but I'll resist. This isn't about a girl or a case. It's about many girls (and boys) and how public "slut shaming" in the modern age affects their lives. Yes, Hester was forced to wear a scarlet "A" as her public shaming. But in today's world the scarlet letter is a digital record that follows you, potentially for the rest of your life because of a bad choice as a teenager. Can you now understand Temitayo Fagbenle's allusion?
    - pdonis 14y ago
      Ok, s/girl/girls/ and s/case/cases/ in my post. How does that change the point? AFAIK, all of the girls involved did not cheat on anyone. Hester Prynne did. My point is that the "scarlet letter" analogy is unfair to the girls, because it implies that they have done something worse than just make a bad choice of who to trust.
justhw 14y ago
From the comments on npr: Where is the "and then the boys were arrested for illegal wiretapping and dissemination of child pornography" part of the story? "After their convictions, their friends didn't think it was so funny, and the boys didn't hold their heads up when they had to register as a sex offender" would stop this from happening quick. Could you see some measures being enforced to minors?
- asmithmd1 14y ago
  Exactly, why is the principal of the school calling the girls mother? He should be cooperating with the DA in bringing a host of felonies against the boys; and then letting everyone know how a felony will affect their lives.
  - tjic 14y ago
    Why should the principal be involved in an action that didn't take place on school grounds?
    - asmithmd1 14y ago
      It sounds like the possession and distribution of child pornography took place on school grounds. I would call the boys parents after I called the police.
  - maskedinvader 14y ago
    I was thinking the same thing ! why the hell would the principal have to make things all that much worse for the girl ? If I was the principal, id call the boys mother and punish him badly so he never ever dares to attempt this sort of thing again !
  - betterunix 14y ago
    ...and then the boy will be forced to live under a bridge: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Julia_Tuttle_Causeway_sex_offender_colony https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Julia_Tuttle_Causeway_sex_offe... Then again, this sort of treatment of children is not really a new practice: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Child_sacrifice https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Child_sacrifice
king_jester 14y ago
I've seen a few other comments to the effect that if US society weren't so prudish about sex, incidents like this wouldn't be so bad. I do not agree. These situations are not about sexual imagery, its about people using that imagery and media to engage in harassment campaigns against others. This harassment is highly misogynist and often is focused on the girl in the photo/video rather than the person who is maliciously spreading that media, even if person doing the spreading appears in said media itself. Fixing this situation requires many things, but at a minimum school administrators needs clear anti-harassment policies that are enforced against people who are spreading this media as a form of harassment. Sex education that focuses on consent and explores issues of patriarchy and rape culture in the US in addition to basic biology and mechanics of sex is also needed. Of course, this is a long running issue in US society, so nothing will happen overnight, but we must demand that institutions we trust with the education and oversight of young folks be a force for defeating harassment and sexism.
- asmithmd1 14y ago
  If the girl is under age the photo and video are child pormography and evidence of statutory rape. Many states also require consent of both parties for a recording or it is illegal wire tapping. Why aren't these criminal acts being prosecuted?
  - bilbo0s 14y ago
    Because ALL of the people in these videos are normally underage. Who exactly do you propose we prosecute? And for what? This is a hard problem with no easy solutions. Principals all across the nation have been struggling with it, its just not as simple as people like to make it out to be.
    - asmithmd1 14y ago
      I would prosecute the people who posses and distribute the child pornography - not the victims who are in exploitive pictures and videos.
btipling 14y ago
The proper solution is to involve the police when someone posts such pictures of underage children on the internet.
- eric_the_read 14y ago
  What if that someone is the underage child themselves? There are several instances of children being arrested and charged with CP for sending their own pictures to each other. IMO, the proper solution is to involve both sets of parents.
  - nmcfarl 14y ago
    Well that makes it harder on the cops and the DA - and in the end your elected officials. But it's not society's job to make things easy for the Cops/DA/Lawmakers (It's really sorta vice versa.) When serious crimes are committed they should be prosecuted not swept under the rug. (In other words: do I think throwing kids in Juvie for publishing child porn on the internet is the right call? Yes. )
littlegiantcap 14y ago
This has been going on for as long as high school has existed. Hell even way before that. The only difference is social media has amplified it. When I was in highschool it wasn't naked pictures being posted or anything like that, but more just gossip by a guy saying he had sex with some girl or a girl saying a dude has a small dick. etc. People are shitty to one another. Social media helps their shitiness get broadcast in new and exciting ways.
BadDesign 14y ago
Some teenagers these days are complete idiots, especially boys, in how they treat their fellow female colleagues/partners. They think they look cool by hurting the girl's reputation and her feelings in this horrible way, but in fact they bring to light their real character/intentions and this should give a BIG WARNING to anyone who interacts with such fools to depart from them and distrust them. On the same par, another tragedy in the story is that there are other retarded cretins like this that support such disrespectful acts, which makes me really angry and sad about the character of some of the young people of today's society.
guylhem 14y ago
Extracts from messages below: "The author asks the boy "Did she transfer out of the school after this?" and he responds "No, she stayed and continued to be the same smut/smitty/skipscapscalleywag/whore she was". The author then asks "Did you intend it to be malicious?" and he responds with no hint of remorse "I guess I thought it would be cool or something". From the comments on npr: Where is the "and then the boys were arrested for illegal wiretapping and dissemination of child pornography" part of the story? "After their convictions, their friends didn't think it was so funny, and the boys didn't hold their heads up when they had to register as a sex offender" would stop this from happening quick. To sum that up : What will be the consequences for the guy who leaked the video? None. So why exactly do you expect a different behaviour ?? Make sure the consequence will be harsh and horrible and maybe the video won't be leaked but protected and well guarded, ie incentivize TDLR: if you want to fix a problem, expose people to the consequences of their acts.
- betterunix 14y ago
  "TDLR: if you want to fix a problem, expose people to the consequences of their acts." I think you missed the past century: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drug_prohibition https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drug_prohibition
  - guylhem 14y ago
    Just try to picture what the situation would be without it. And the sentences doesn't seem quite harsh. OTOH, look at what Singapore did - it seems to have fixed their problem. The "mixed message" in the west about not prosecuting casual users in some place is certainly also not helping. (and I'm saying that as someone who believe there is no point in restricting what someone may or may not inject in its own body, but if one was seriously against drugs, the current situation would seem like a feeble response to a real threat)
    - betterunix 14y ago
      "Just try to picture what the situation would be without it" It is not hard to picture, because drug prohibition began a century ago in the USA. Back when drugs were legal here, things like the Industrial Revolution happened. Society was not some kind of pit of despair when drugs were legal; we had problems, sure, but we still have problems today and the drug war has not solved any of the problems we had previously (but it did introduce many of the current ones). "the sentences doesn't seem quite harsh" Jail time is a harsh sentence. America is so far to the right these days that we tend to think that putting someone in prison for "only" five years is not harsh. It is not just about the sentencing. Right now, we have tens of thousands of paramilitary raids on civilian homes each year; property is damaged, dogs are shot, and people are killed. These raids are not reserved for the most dangerous criminals; they are routinely used to serve search and arrest warrants against people who are either unarmed or only lightly armed. Many thousands of innocent bystanders have been killed by the paramilitary teams that carry out these raids, as have many thousands of innocent people whose homes were incorrectly targeted. Worse still, the very paramilitary forces that carry out these raids are allowed to keep the proceeds from the sales of property seized in the course of their duties for their own department budget. Some police forces have become "self funded" as a result. It is a case-study in slippery slopes. This has not helped to solve our drug problems. Not only are people still using drugs, but the drugs they are using are causing unnecessary harm. Methamphetamine is not necessarily a destructive drug; it actually has medical uses (as a treatment for narcolepsy, ADHD, and for appetite control), and is sold by the pharmaceutical industry under the name Desoxyn. Yet people who want to use this drug recreationally cannot buy it legally (it is a felony to transfer it to someone who lacks a prescription and a felony to prescribe it unnecessarily) and wind up buying it from black-market sources, receiving a product that was produced under poorly controlled circumstances and which is frequently adulterated with the byproducts and waste from the production process (these cause far more harm than the drug itself; it is these adulterants that give methamphetamine abusers their "sickly" look). Likewise with opiates: heroine is often "cut" in ways that are poorly controlled, and on at least one occasion a black-market opiate dealer sold MPTP, a drug that permanently induces Parkinson's disease, after failing to properly manufacture the opiate MPPP. So if someone were not on some moral crusade and actually wanted to address the problems society has with drugs -- someone like me -- they would support a complete repeal of the war on drugs and an entirely different approach. We manage to produce and distribute alcohol in a regulated manner. We don't need to throw people in prison, we just need to ensure that people don't kill themselves or anyone else and that if a person needs help, they can get it.
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nicholassmith 14y ago
There's still often a culture where guys can sleep around, brag it out and the female party gets the stick for it, it's just become accelerated by technology and the fact it's always going to be there, pretty much as long as its ever referenced anywhere. There's no technology solution that's easy, and no solution in tackling social motivations either. It's one of those seemingly intractable problems.
menacingly 14y ago
This is an extremely difficult problem, and it goes a lot deeper than "prosecute teh boys!!". They're able to shame sluts because _we_ shame sluts, as a culture. The roots of it are way social and way deep. The actual thing that's happening, though, is frightening and damned-near unfightable. It's classic and shitty adolescent behavior through a nation-wide megaphone. We have to prevent kids from using hard drugs because it's literally not possible for them to adequately weigh the trade-offs and make an informed decision. I'd say that posing in a picture smiling next to a penis (like a girl did in this story) is a similar problem. They are not equipped to make that decision. As a parent of a daughter, it's terrifying to think that this decision might ever be one that's hers to make. I'd like to think she'd never do it, but it's not even a decision that will be made like you or I would make it. Children don't think like adults. That's why we protect them. Apples go in and stupid square oranges come out. As much as possible, they should avoid the position, and as much as possible, we should avoid the consequences having to follow them for a lifetime.
- king_jester 14y ago
  I agree with you about a culture of slut shaming in the US, but I don't agree with the idea of protecting young folks for their own sexuality. The issue here isn't that young people have or enjoy sex, but rather about a culture that promotes harassment against women for being sexual and uses that as a way to keep those women invisible.
  - menacingly 14y ago
    consciously posing in a photo next to a penis for posterity (which is, after all, what a photo is) has consequences that extend _far_ beyond your sexuality. This isn't about getting sheepish about teen sex, it's about long-term destructive decisions that aren't even necessary for pleasure.
KaoruAoiShiho 14y ago
At school, she was hoping that it wouldn't be too big of a deal, but even the principal knew about the video. He brought her to his office and called her mom. So the principal was involved in the slut shaming? Some activist group needs to sue this principal to show the world that this isn't the correct approach to handle this type of situation. Her mother should not have been brought in. The correct thing to do is to arrest the boy for creating and distributing child pornography and leaving the girl hell alone.
antihero 14y ago
I think one issue is that if in these situations, the guy is high-fived, and the girl is shamed. Why can't they both be high-fived? Sex-negative culture SUCKS.
nextw33k 14y ago
To call it Cyberbullying is to weaken it. Its the production of pornography by a minor, which is probably illegal. Its using Facebook against its terms of use which should result in a ban. Plus anybody liking or commenting on something which is banned should also receive a temporary ban from Facebook. Not really a problem is the rules are enforced.
markmiller77e 14y ago
Racist comments, comments about skin, color, weight as well as nationality amounts to bullying and these bullies are nothing but psychos who need medical help. At home, I use a free app called Qustodio to monitor who my girl talks to on facebook as the app allows me to watch the profile pictures of accounts she interacts with. My way of ensuring that she stays safe. Just Google for it.

58 points by justhw 14y ago

Teenage boys boast about their sexual exploits (with photos, on the internet, because it's 2012). Teenage girls are incredibly cruel to one another. Media reports it because it fits an existing narrative about "technology and culture." Back when I was in high school, it didn't take pictures on the internet to ruin a girl's reputation. All it took was some boasting followed by a lot of gossip. It sounds like the "technology" aspect of this is that the standards of evidence have gone up for a boy to defend his boast.

rayiner 14y ago
A thousand years ago, angry aggressive teenagers beat each other up with sticks. Today, they join gangs and shoot each other. But that doesn't mean the increased destructive power yielded technology doesn't make the problem more worrisome than it was before.
tptacek 14y ago
I suspect it takes a degree of willfulness not to see the distinction between a rumor campaign and an explicit photography.
- jordanb 14y ago
  I'm not sure what you mean by 'willfullness,' Thomas. My point is that this is the modern incarnation of an extremely old set of teenage behaviors. The teenage girl who becomes subject of a rumor campaign has always been devastated by it.
  - lotso 14y ago
    Sure, but I think the results of the modern incarnation are much worse and perhaps, longer lasting.
  - dailyrorschach 14y ago
    This is true, it's the modern form of these old behaviors. But that doesn't mean that their amplification effect isn't worse. Now videos and photos are actually seen by people, without your permission, by your friends, teachers, principals, parents, etc. It would seem to me to only increase the level of trauma. It's one thing to tell your parents that the kids at school said X, it's another to have your parents called and shown a photo or told a video exists. My girlfriend and I were video tapped in high school, this was around 2003 I want to say, so luckily it wasn't super easily broadcast, but still made the rounds in her high school. Thankfully the acts committed weren't completely revelatory for either of us, but it definitely hurt her greatly. I can only imagine what would have happened had the video shown more, or the audience distribution wider. What ended up happening was the video destroyed, the student reprimanded. In our case it was friends playing a prank too far, but in many others its done with malicious intent and broadcasted to the greatest number of people to enhance that harm.
  - tptacek 14y ago
    Strong disagree that worldwide publication of a revealing photograph is comparable to a whispering campaign.
    - ryusage 14y ago
      I think his point is more that the phenomenon we're seeing here is something that's happened forever, and we've really never "solved". The cause is exactly the same, and the effects are similar in nature. They're just dramatically amplified now by technology.
      - jordanb 14y ago
        Thank you, that was my point. I admit that I wasn't thinking about the potential for the photos to live forever but also feel that 1) in all probability they won't live forever, at least not on the public, searchable internet given that they're illegal 2) If the article's purpose was to highlight that aspect then it did a poor job. My reaction to this article is that it comes across as a continuation of a lazy, facile media narrative about technology and culture and kids that began with Geraldo Rivera, BBSes and Dungeons and Dragons.
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cschmidt 14y ago
Photos on the internet tend to have a long life. I think it is the permanence of these photos and videos that make it worse. In the old days you could just go to college and leave your high school life behind. Now Google is forever.
- tluyben2 14y ago
  This is the problem I think; you simply don't want your new employer to find pics of you passed out naked or worse. One of my friends from highschool was very promiscuis then; she slept with just about everyone and was always drunk / naked at parties. She had sex in public places. She would've been on the internet these days in pics/vids. Now she is a very highly paid manager and has a family; I don't think that would work that way if her boss found pics and videos of her smeared all over the web, not to mention her boy friend whom she met years after this when she cleaned up her act. Sure everyone knew who she was and what she did, but taking picture? You needed some kind of big machine for that and, worse, you needed to find some photographer outlet to develop it who did NOT know her, her parents, you, your parents. That was not that simple in my town. And polaroid? We never heard of that until much later; I never saw one unless it was in US tv shows.
- jordanb 14y ago
  This is a good point and one I hadn't considered in my first post. The difference between now and then, being that now this stuff doesn't go away. OTOH I think if there are any photos on the internet that will go away it's these, if for no other reason, because they're illegal.
  - steferson 14y ago
    Unfortunately, something being illegal doesn't make it stop being shared around the internet, specially photos.
    - ryusage 14y ago
      True, they may not disappear completely, but they definitely get filtered out over time. And imagine you're 25 years old and someone wants to bring up old, explicit photos of you at age 15...they would immediately open themselves up to some very serious criminal charges. So I would agree that these are likely to more or less fade away into the recesses of the internet.
pdonis 14y ago
Teenage boys boast about their sexual exploits (with photos, on the internet, because it's 2012). Teenage girls are incredibly cruel to one another. Exactly; and this is not news, it's been going on for as long as there have been people. The article doesn't even talk about the real lesson here: be careful who you trust. If you can't trust someone not to secretly record you having sex and then posting the video on Facebook, then you shouldn't be having sex with them. The lesson has always been the same, and there have always been people who don't learn it until it's too late. Edit: I should make clear that I am not trying to exonerate the teenage boys; quite the contrary. To allow someone to make an explicit video of you without your knowledge and post it on Facebook is naive; but to make and post the video is malicious and cruel. The girls need to be reminded of the lesson; but the boys need to be shamed and punished.
- pavel_lishin 14y ago
  > If you can't trust someone not to secretly record you having sex and then posting the video on Facebook, then you shouldn't be having sex with them. People are awful at assessing risk; why the assumption that teenagers will be any better? Your advice is sound, but it's also along the lines of "Don't have sex, and you'll be safe!" It's not practical.
  - pdonis 14y ago
    I've seen this argument before, and I don't buy it. First of all, you're mis-stating the rule: the rule is not "don't have sex", it's "don't have sex until you know enough about the other person's character to be reasonably sure you can trust them with something that intimate". Second, if people are that bad at assessing risk, that's all the more reason to err on the side of safety. But most importantly, choices have consequences, including the choice to have sex with someone who isn't worth that kind of trust; you can say it's not practical to avoid that (I don't agree, but that's another argument), but saying that doesn't change the consequences of the choice. If you trust someone who doesn't deserve it, you're going to get hurt: that's a fact of life. No amount of social engineering is going to "fix" this fact of life.
- mnicole 14y ago
enoch_r 14y ago
Do you think it's implausible that having nude photographs distributed to one's entire school is far more traumatizing than gossip?
- jordanb 14y ago
  Bit like asking if it's more traumatizing to loose a foot or the whole leg isn't it?
  - jwoah12 14y ago
    Maybe, but both questions are easily answered in my opinion.

rayiner 14y ago

Facebook needs to get involved in policing this sort of thing. They're not a neutral medium here--they make a lot of money selling 13-18 year old eyeballs to advertisers, and given the unique nature of the demographic (below the age of majority) I think they bear a certain responsibility in how these kids abuse their service.

yid 14y ago
There is a lot of stuff going on at Facebook to deal with this sort of thing [1]. They definitely don't have a passive approach to bullying, but you have to realize that the scale of use makes it a difficult problem to approach. [1] https://www.facebook.com/safety https://www.facebook.com/safety
- dfxm12 14y ago
  In the news piece, the journalist flags a photo twice as inappropriate. Both times, Facebook responded that the photo was within guidelines. This is a photo that was drawing hundreds of likes and "shaming" comments. Looking at the link you provide, the journalist took the Facebook suggested course of action, and Facebook actively failed to stop the abuse.
  - wmf 14y ago
    Is this case the rule or the exception? How would we know?
mitchty 14y ago
What exactly should facebook police? Morality? Ethics? What if some group of friends always ragged on each other and got tripped up in this policing? I don't necessarily agree that Facebook should be the responsible party. That really should fall under society and parents/children. A company isn't going to be able to enforce politeness or dissuade bullies from bullying. This is another aspect of the human condition. And if it is one we as a society of humans want to change, we need to do that. Facebook isn't the responsible party here in my humble opinion.

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anonymouz 14y ago

At school, she was hoping that it wouldn't be too big of a deal, but even the principal knew about the video. He brought her to his office and called her mom. "I couldn't even look at my mother because I felt hurt and I also felt that I disrespected her," she says. "I didn't want kids in the school to look at my mother and be like, 'Wow, she raised nothing.' " A big amplifying factor in these examples seems to be a society and an upbringing that cannot to deal with sexuality in a pragmatic manner, and instead prefers a "everybody's doing it, but nobody is talking about it publicly" approach. If someone posts intimate pictures or videos of somebody else without their knowledge, it should be the poster that is shamed and that people disrespect for it -- after all he has violated an expectation of privacy and intimacy. Instead it is the victim that is made to feel bad for "being promiscuous".

harryf 14y ago
> A big amplifying factor in these examples seems to be a society and an upbringing that cannot to deal with sexuality in a pragmatic manner Interesting to see if society can adapt
- epochwolf 14y ago
  I have my doubts. A lot of the southern parts of the US have a lot of religious conservatives. I don't see that changing very quickly.
  - cobrausn 14y ago
    And yet this kind of 'shaming' seems to happen in non-southern, non-religious places as well. Stop looking for an easy scapegoat.
  - menacingly 14y ago
    Most of this story takes place in the deep, deep... Ohio. Heart of slavery.
  - afterburner 14y ago
    Remember the Puritans settled in the North. In any case wherever this originates, the US's puritanical tendencies (compared to continental Europe) don't seem to be exclusively a southern thing.

zwieback 14y ago

Anyone who heard the audio of this piece found out that the boy interviewed toward the end is a special kind of bad. Technology amplifies but this kid definitely has a problem.

brown9-2 14y ago
For anyone who doesn't have the time to listen - the author interviews a boy in her school who had emailed a half-naked picture of his girlfriend to his friends, and the photo had then spread around the entire school. The author asks the boy "Did she transfer out of the school after this?" and he responds "No, she stayed and continued to be the same smut/smitty/skipscapscalleywag/whore she was". The author then asks "Did you intend it to be malicious?" and he responds with no hint of remorse "I guess I thought it would be cool or something".

tolos 14y ago

Is this just a united statues problem, or in other countries of the world is it not ok for women to have sex? I want to blame religion, but I doubt that's the entire reason ...

shadowfox 14y ago
You are looking for trivial answers. I doubt if there is one.
- tolos 14y ago
  hmm, I suppose the people that think I have no value to add to this discussion are focusing on that jab at religion. But to clarify, I'm not looking for "the answer" and my question still stands unanswered: what is the socially accepted view of women's sexuality in other cultures? My only experience is with the US where there is a huge demarcation, generally based on the gender of the belief holder, and generally advertisements etc are weighted towards a masculine point of view for women's role. Perhaps it would help to explain I've never taken any "gender studies" classes or similar, so this is a question of mere curiosity.

tankbot 14y ago

Heard this on NPR last night on the commute home. The piece is a powerful and very coherent analogy relating modern "slut shaming" to the classic The Scarlet Letter. It's heartbreaking to hear about kids making bad decisions in an effort to fit in, but it's even worse to think that these mistakes can follow them forever due to the nature of digital content. I couldn't believe how cruel even the girls were to young women that were victimized. Some of them were quoted as saying it wasn't even the guys' fault, that we can't help it. That's so offensive to me on so many levels.

pdonis 14y ago
The piece is a powerful and very coherent analogy relating modern "slut shaming" to the classic The Scarlet Letter. I'm not sure this comparison holds. AFAIK the girl in question in this case was not cheating on anyone; she simply made a bad choice of which boy to have sex with. Hester Prynne committed adultery (and with a minister to boot), and it was the adultery that got her the scarlet letter. Not at all the same thing.
- tankbot 14y ago
  Wow, I really want to ad hom here because you obviously didn't read the article or listen to the original (and excellent) WNYC Radio Rookie piece, but I'll resist. This isn't about a girl or a case. It's about many girls (and boys) and how public "slut shaming" in the modern age affects their lives. Yes, Hester was forced to wear a scarlet "A" as her public shaming. But in today's world the scarlet letter is a digital record that follows you, potentially for the rest of your life because of a bad choice as a teenager. Can you now understand Temitayo Fagbenle's allusion?
  - pdonis 14y ago
    Ok, s/girl/girls/ and s/case/cases/ in my post. How does that change the point? AFAIK, all of the girls involved did not cheat on anyone. Hester Prynne did. My point is that the "scarlet letter" analogy is unfair to the girls, because it implies that they have done something worse than just make a bad choice of who to trust.

justhw 14y ago

From the comments on npr: Where is the "and then the boys were arrested for illegal wiretapping and dissemination of child pornography" part of the story? "After their convictions, their friends didn't think it was so funny, and the boys didn't hold their heads up when they had to register as a sex offender" would stop this from happening quick. Could you see some measures being enforced to minors?

asmithmd1 14y ago
Exactly, why is the principal of the school calling the girls mother? He should be cooperating with the DA in bringing a host of felonies against the boys; and then letting everyone know how a felony will affect their lives.
- tjic 14y ago
  Why should the principal be involved in an action that didn't take place on school grounds?
  - asmithmd1 14y ago
    It sounds like the possession and distribution of child pornography took place on school grounds. I would call the boys parents after I called the police.
- maskedinvader 14y ago
  I was thinking the same thing ! why the hell would the principal have to make things all that much worse for the girl ? If I was the principal, id call the boys mother and punish him badly so he never ever dares to attempt this sort of thing again !
- betterunix 14y ago
  ...and then the boy will be forced to live under a bridge: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Julia_Tuttle_Causeway_sex_offender_colony https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Julia_Tuttle_Causeway_sex_offe... Then again, this sort of treatment of children is not really a new practice: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Child_sacrifice https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Child_sacrifice

king_jester 14y ago

I've seen a few other comments to the effect that if US society weren't so prudish about sex, incidents like this wouldn't be so bad. I do not agree. These situations are not about sexual imagery, its about people using that imagery and media to engage in harassment campaigns against others. This harassment is highly misogynist and often is focused on the girl in the photo/video rather than the person who is maliciously spreading that media, even if person doing the spreading appears in said media itself. Fixing this situation requires many things, but at a minimum school administrators needs clear anti-harassment policies that are enforced against people who are spreading this media as a form of harassment. Sex education that focuses on consent and explores issues of patriarchy and rape culture in the US in addition to basic biology and mechanics of sex is also needed. Of course, this is a long running issue in US society, so nothing will happen overnight, but we must demand that institutions we trust with the education and oversight of young folks be a force for defeating harassment and sexism.

asmithmd1 14y ago
If the girl is under age the photo and video are child pormography and evidence of statutory rape. Many states also require consent of both parties for a recording or it is illegal wire tapping. Why aren't these criminal acts being prosecuted?
- bilbo0s 14y ago
  Because ALL of the people in these videos are normally underage. Who exactly do you propose we prosecute? And for what? This is a hard problem with no easy solutions. Principals all across the nation have been struggling with it, its just not as simple as people like to make it out to be.
  - asmithmd1 14y ago
    I would prosecute the people who posses and distribute the child pornography - not the victims who are in exploitive pictures and videos.

btipling 14y ago

The proper solution is to involve the police when someone posts such pictures of underage children on the internet.

eric_the_read 14y ago
What if that someone is the underage child themselves? There are several instances of children being arrested and charged with CP for sending their own pictures to each other. IMO, the proper solution is to involve both sets of parents.
- nmcfarl 14y ago
  Well that makes it harder on the cops and the DA - and in the end your elected officials. But it's not society's job to make things easy for the Cops/DA/Lawmakers (It's really sorta vice versa.) When serious crimes are committed they should be prosecuted not swept under the rug. (In other words: do I think throwing kids in Juvie for publishing child porn on the internet is the right call? Yes. )

littlegiantcap 14y ago

This has been going on for as long as high school has existed. Hell even way before that. The only difference is social media has amplified it. When I was in highschool it wasn't naked pictures being posted or anything like that, but more just gossip by a guy saying he had sex with some girl or a girl saying a dude has a small dick. etc. People are shitty to one another. Social media helps their shitiness get broadcast in new and exciting ways.

BadDesign 14y ago

Some teenagers these days are complete idiots, especially boys, in how they treat their fellow female colleagues/partners. They think they look cool by hurting the girl's reputation and her feelings in this horrible way, but in fact they bring to light their real character/intentions and this should give a BIG WARNING to anyone who interacts with such fools to depart from them and distrust them. On the same par, another tragedy in the story is that there are other retarded cretins like this that support such disrespectful acts, which makes me really angry and sad about the character of some of the young people of today's society.

guylhem 14y ago

Extracts from messages below: "The author asks the boy "Did she transfer out of the school after this?" and he responds "No, she stayed and continued to be the same smut/smitty/skipscapscalleywag/whore she was". The author then asks "Did you intend it to be malicious?" and he responds with no hint of remorse "I guess I thought it would be cool or something". From the comments on npr: Where is the "and then the boys were arrested for illegal wiretapping and dissemination of child pornography" part of the story? "After their convictions, their friends didn't think it was so funny, and the boys didn't hold their heads up when they had to register as a sex offender" would stop this from happening quick. To sum that up : What will be the consequences for the guy who leaked the video? None. So why exactly do you expect a different behaviour ?? Make sure the consequence will be harsh and horrible and maybe the video won't be leaked but protected and well guarded, ie incentivize TDLR: if you want to fix a problem, expose people to the consequences of their acts.

betterunix 14y ago
"TDLR: if you want to fix a problem, expose people to the consequences of their acts." I think you missed the past century: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drug_prohibition https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drug_prohibition
- guylhem 14y ago
  Just try to picture what the situation would be without it. And the sentences doesn't seem quite harsh. OTOH, look at what Singapore did - it seems to have fixed their problem. The "mixed message" in the west about not prosecuting casual users in some place is certainly also not helping. (and I'm saying that as someone who believe there is no point in restricting what someone may or may not inject in its own body, but if one was seriously against drugs, the current situation would seem like a feeble response to a real threat)
  - betterunix 14y ago
    "Just try to picture what the situation would be without it" It is not hard to picture, because drug prohibition began a century ago in the USA. Back when drugs were legal here, things like the Industrial Revolution happened. Society was not some kind of pit of despair when drugs were legal; we had problems, sure, but we still have problems today and the drug war has not solved any of the problems we had previously (but it did introduce many of the current ones). "the sentences doesn't seem quite harsh" Jail time is a harsh sentence. America is so far to the right these days that we tend to think that putting someone in prison for "only" five years is not harsh. It is not just about the sentencing. Right now, we have tens of thousands of paramilitary raids on civilian homes each year; property is damaged, dogs are shot, and people are killed. These raids are not reserved for the most dangerous criminals; they are routinely used to serve search and arrest warrants against people who are either unarmed or only lightly armed. Many thousands of innocent bystanders have been killed by the paramilitary teams that carry out these raids, as have many thousands of innocent people whose homes were incorrectly targeted. Worse still, the very paramilitary forces that carry out these raids are allowed to keep the proceeds from the sales of property seized in the course of their duties for their own department budget. Some police forces have become "self funded" as a result. It is a case-study in slippery slopes. This has not helped to solve our drug problems. Not only are people still using drugs, but the drugs they are using are causing unnecessary harm. Methamphetamine is not necessarily a destructive drug; it actually has medical uses (as a treatment for narcolepsy, ADHD, and for appetite control), and is sold by the pharmaceutical industry under the name Desoxyn. Yet people who want to use this drug recreationally cannot buy it legally (it is a felony to transfer it to someone who lacks a prescription and a felony to prescribe it unnecessarily) and wind up buying it from black-market sources, receiving a product that was produced under poorly controlled circumstances and which is frequently adulterated with the byproducts and waste from the production process (these cause far more harm than the drug itself; it is these adulterants that give methamphetamine abusers their "sickly" look). Likewise with opiates: heroine is often "cut" in ways that are poorly controlled, and on at least one occasion a black-market opiate dealer sold MPTP, a drug that permanently induces Parkinson's disease, after failing to properly manufacture the opiate MPPP. So if someone were not on some moral crusade and actually wanted to address the problems society has with drugs -- someone like me -- they would support a complete repeal of the war on drugs and an entirely different approach. We manage to produce and distribute alcohol in a regulated manner. We don't need to throw people in prison, we just need to ensure that people don't kill themselves or anyone else and that if a person needs help, they can get it.

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nicholassmith 14y ago

There's still often a culture where guys can sleep around, brag it out and the female party gets the stick for it, it's just become accelerated by technology and the fact it's always going to be there, pretty much as long as its ever referenced anywhere. There's no technology solution that's easy, and no solution in tackling social motivations either. It's one of those seemingly intractable problems.

menacingly 14y ago

This is an extremely difficult problem, and it goes a lot deeper than "prosecute teh boys!!". They're able to shame sluts because _we_ shame sluts, as a culture. The roots of it are way social and way deep. The actual thing that's happening, though, is frightening and damned-near unfightable. It's classic and shitty adolescent behavior through a nation-wide megaphone. We have to prevent kids from using hard drugs because it's literally not possible for them to adequately weigh the trade-offs and make an informed decision. I'd say that posing in a picture smiling next to a penis (like a girl did in this story) is a similar problem. They are not equipped to make that decision. As a parent of a daughter, it's terrifying to think that this decision might ever be one that's hers to make. I'd like to think she'd never do it, but it's not even a decision that will be made like you or I would make it. Children don't think like adults. That's why we protect them. Apples go in and stupid square oranges come out. As much as possible, they should avoid the position, and as much as possible, we should avoid the consequences having to follow them for a lifetime.

king_jester 14y ago
I agree with you about a culture of slut shaming in the US, but I don't agree with the idea of protecting young folks for their own sexuality. The issue here isn't that young people have or enjoy sex, but rather about a culture that promotes harassment against women for being sexual and uses that as a way to keep those women invisible.
- menacingly 14y ago
  consciously posing in a photo next to a penis for posterity (which is, after all, what a photo is) has consequences that extend _far_ beyond your sexuality. This isn't about getting sheepish about teen sex, it's about long-term destructive decisions that aren't even necessary for pleasure.

KaoruAoiShiho 14y ago

At school, she was hoping that it wouldn't be too big of a deal, but even the principal knew about the video. He brought her to his office and called her mom. So the principal was involved in the slut shaming? Some activist group needs to sue this principal to show the world that this isn't the correct approach to handle this type of situation. Her mother should not have been brought in. The correct thing to do is to arrest the boy for creating and distributing child pornography and leaving the girl hell alone.

antihero 14y ago

I think one issue is that if in these situations, the guy is high-fived, and the girl is shamed. Why can't they both be high-fived? Sex-negative culture SUCKS.

nextw33k 14y ago

To call it Cyberbullying is to weaken it. Its the production of pornography by a minor, which is probably illegal. Its using Facebook against its terms of use which should result in a ban. Plus anybody liking or commenting on something which is banned should also receive a temporary ban from Facebook. Not really a problem is the rules are enforced.

markmiller77e 14y ago

Racist comments, comments about skin, color, weight as well as nationality amounts to bullying and these bullies are nothing but psychos who need medical help. At home, I use a free app called Qustodio to monitor who my girl talks to on facebook as the app allows me to watch the profile pictures of accounts she interacts with. My way of ensuring that she stays safe. Just Google for it.