A new reporting tool will let Facebook users, including teens and younger users, to privately report troubling content not just to the site itself but to parents, teachers and others in their support system.
Facebook said the “social reporting” feature is intended to get reports of bullying to the people with the best chance of stopping it.
Under the new system, a user could identify a photo, status update or other item as bullying them, then privately send a message to someone in their friend network about it. ~ CNN
Well this is great .. That Facebook has decided to give tattletails and whiners a place to hang out online .. Kudos to Facebook. (I’m not impressed)
Now before you go all off on my presumed insensitivities, I’d like to say that. “Yes”, I was bullied a bit in high school. Everybody gets to meet a bully every so often .. whether it be in school, on Wall Street, or even in the halls of Congress, bullies exist.
How did I handle my bully? .. I kicked his ass .. and dared anyone else who wanted a piece of me to bring it. End of problem.
Back in the 60′s and 70′s, we didn’t have the luxury of the internet, lazy parents, or Facebook .. all of which are excuses really, for not standing up to the tyrant. It’s too easy to whine and piss and moan about all of those mean people out there in the great big world.
Bullies have been around a long, long time, and there isn’t a law, school, President, or scripted internet social program that’s going to solve the problem.
You can complain about the other guy till the cows come home .. but at the end of the day, no one is going to fight your battles for you .. only you can do that. Until you can fight your own battles, win or lose, people won’t have any respect for you .. and without respect, the bullies will always be there to torment you.
What’s this you say? .. My opinion on the matter of bullying seems a bit harsh? .. Well, it’s intended to be .. You treat the situation as you would treat any bully .. Harshly. There are absolutely no excuses when it comes to dealing with these lowlifes.
You can go here to find a better worded opinion if you like, but you’ll discover, the action and the end result has got to be the same .. The bullying has to stop, and you are the only one that can get it done.
As an aside:
Jolie O’Dell .. over on Mashable, seems to think that Facebook is creating a “stronger sense of community in the social network, and “[is creating] create a culture of respect” among Facebook users.”
Here we go again with this respect thing .. No one is going to respect the whiner or the tattletale .. it’s a fact of life .. a very real concept, that O’Dell has seemingly failed to grasp.