Stand up to social media bullying to it’s face!

Sounds wonderful, some kind of righteous fight against injustice except how do you stand up to social media bullying to it’s face when much social media especially bullying is anonymous.

As stated by thousands of articles, people and just what you read, social media bullying is a real problem. And what could it even mean standing up to it’s face?

Social media bullying at a basic level has people telling you how wrong you are, you know nothing, you belong to the wrong side, your side is evil, comments about your appearance, etc.

And do not get me wrong, if you wanted to give me constructive criticism of my writing I welcome it. Yet nowadays you cannot receive constructive criticism. It is all negative to true hate of you just because you expressed an opinion. Opinions of opinions can be good if well thought out, or even based on some underlying principles. Today though speak your mind and the flood gates of hades will open. And worse too many responses are just hate. Very few people even try to address your point or make a counter point.

“X” what use to be Twitter is a cesspool some of the time or it is people only posting to their followers to get more likes. You can say anything no matter the facts because if you are popular enough people will still click that little heart.

And then there is the real bullying. Where for some reason someone is attacked by a few people to a multitude. And this goes beyond the political realm where certain politicians are denigrated by the other side to the point of stupidity and madness. No one says anything except how _______ is that person. I am talking about where someone takes their own live or tries.

If we could find a way to stand up to that type of bullying it would be wonderful. Yet how? Again it is mostly anonymous. And with teenagers can we even track it down and worse if you have any knowledge of who it ends up being after the fact most of the time. And this is especially true since most social media bullying is around something embarrassing or perceived to be embarrassing so people don’t want to report it

Could you legislate something? Maybe but what? Hold people accountable if their bullying leads to harm, maybe manslaughter, but again how and what. And since many legislators are more interested in being popular than legislating or holding onto to their self perceived power a person cannot expect anything anytime soon.

And I don’t want to create a police state on social media either. Yet this problem shows deeper rooted issues with our society since it happens enough to make the news. So how do you balance privacy and certain privileges with the need to protect people and identify people harming others with their attacks on social media. A libertarian’s nightmare to say the least, even though I am not that much of one.

How does our society empower victims to alleviate this problem? By the fact that this is a much written topic and keeps happening shows we have a long way to go.

I might offer some way for people that receive social media posts directly or about them be able to find out who is behind the posts. It would be a more enhanced version of being able to have caller ID. Which by the way is a joke. Go back and put some teeth in that people who are the receiver of a call have every right to know who is calling. Telemarketers and others shouldn’t be allowed to call indiscriminately. Whatever technology to toughen that legislation up could be used to help with the social media problem. Or at least that is a start. And maybe a way to report offending posts anonymously to authorities if desired. This way someone can address the poster without any embarrassment to the bullied individual. This might help teenagers obtain the help they need in combatting an attack for some perceived slight or whatever.

Anyway just a thought, but something needs to be done. It is so scary to read about someone taking their life just because someone can take advantage of them anonymously or through some scam. How many times must we read stories about people being scammed for money over something embarrassing or not thinking and then a threat of a picture being posted online? Sure common sense would help prevent some of these problems, but a person shouldn’t be put into such distress that you harm yourself over these matters.

I cannot fathom what type of world my grandchildren are living in that I would have to worry about this for them, yet as a parent or grandparent it is a real concern. I just hope we, as the elders, communicate with them well enough that they can come to us when needed. Unfortunately you may never know until it is too late.