Amanda Todd

[nilagin]

This is a very sad tragic tale, this poor young girl at the age of 14 was duped by someone to flash her breasts on her webcam. After that, this same person threatened to post her "flash" all over the internet as well as her friends etc. Amanda ignored this threat and the inevitable happened, sadly on reciept of the photo her "freinds" turned against her and she was forced to change schools and make new friends, again this person tracked her down and sent the same photo to her new friends and she was forced to move again. This lowlife hounding the poor girl. She was beaten and left in a ditch because she had slept with a boy and his girlfriend found out. She took to self harming. Last week she posted a video on youtube to warn other young vulnerable people of the dangers of chat rooms etc. on the internet, then at the weekend she took her own life. The bullying still continued on the internet even posting up the same photo on memorial sites for the girl.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/newsbeat/19960162

The latest is that Anonymous the Hacktivist group, claim to have tracked down the low life scum who duped the girl in the first place and continued to hound and bully her. They've named a 32 year old man in a youtube video of their own. I hope they haven't got the wrong man and hope justice prevails.

 

[PaulJC]

What a sad story, i've got a daughter who is 11 going on 21 and these things are a worry of every parent, i hope they find the person responsible

 

[Russ77]

Was talking about stuff in the same vein with my bro-in-law, my niece is only 4 but he says he's dreading the time when she reaches 10/11 as this seems to be when most kids want to go on facebook, have mobile phones etc.

Now in an ideal World this wouldn't happen until they are 13/14+ BUT because others have access to such formats at that age they get bullied if they're not on Facebook and/or don't have a mobile phone but giving them access to both could also open them up to bullying.

Really don't know what the answer is although by reinforcing from an early age that bullying is wrong and to always tell someone if you're being bullied might help, as well as keeping a very close eye on any online accounts/mobiles. There are just so many more ways kids can be bullied now

 

[rpsmith79]

The latest is that Anonymous the Hacktivist group, claim to have tracked down the low life scum who duped the girl in the first place and continued to hound and bully her. They've named a 32 year old man in a youtube video of their own. I hope they haven't got the wrong man and hope justice prevails.

A sad story indeed, but should this not be a job for the Police, not a vigilante mob, how long before this other guy turns up dead

I'm not saying that the real guy who did this shouldn't have his balls chopped off, but posting a guys name on youtube, naming him as the main man is a very dangerous thing in my book

 

[Russ77]

A sad story indeed, but should this not be a job for the Police, not a vigilante mob, how long before this other guy turns up dead

I'm not saying that the real guy who did this shouldn't have his balls chopped off, but posting a guys name on youtube, naming him as the main man is a very dangerous thing in my book

Not that I'm a great believer in vigilante action, I very much doubt Anonymous would release the details if they weren't 100% sure.

Whether they should have done it is another matter

 

[rpsmith79]

Not that I'm a great believer in vigilante action, I very much doubt Anonymous would release the details if they weren't 100% sure.

Whether they should have done it is another matter

But where is the judge and the jury in this process :shrug:

 

[Iris]

We have to be vigilant when we allow our children online, monitor them and keep our relationships open in the hope that they will come to us when they have a problem. My son is 12. He has a mobile phone, he has a laptop and we are online. My conditions when he was allowed these things were that I, as the bill payer, reserve the right to look into his activities should I see fit. His laptop cannot be used between 9pm and 8am. I have his facebook password. The truth is our children will want to access these things, and we should let them, but we should not give them free reign. Children can be so cruel to each other let alone the adults that prey on them over the internet.

My son was bullied at school. He tried to deal with all on his own for months. He felt ashamed, like there was something wrong with him, like he deserved it. we have since moved, he's at a different school and settling in so well but he's still upset by it.

It's tragic when a young person takes their own life. It's tragic that she had no-one to turn to, that her own family and friends couldn't support her through this.

One thing I don't understand is why she was vilified so much by everyone for flashing once??? Many teenagers do so much worse

 

[nilagin]

The frightening thing is, the internet is the way younger people seem to strike up relationships now. My son, now 21 has been seeing his girlfriend for over 4 years now, they "met" on the internet, and she lives around 40 miles away (so glad he has his own car now) but he had a few girlfriends before that from the age of 15 all of whom he "met" through facebook, MSN or whatever. It's quite scary really, I'm fortunate in that I have two son's, I pitty anyone with daughters and they worry of what may be lurking ahead.
I've watched poor Amanda's video on youtube and she said she had a knock on the door and it was the police informing them that the photo had appeared all over the internet. Shame the lowlife couldn't have been discovered and caught then. As I said this all started when she was 14, she would have been 16 soon, that's way too long to have to deal with this. I've seen another Canadian news report saying the girl had mental health issues and that is why she commited suicide, not because of the bullying. Is it any wonder she had mental health issues.
Seems to me the lowlife who started all this and all those who jumped on the cyber bullying bandwagon are the ones with mental health issues, hopefully they will be tracked down and caught and prosecuted too.

 

[Russ77]

But where is the judge and the jury in this process :shrug:

Who knows but they certainly didn't help save this girl's life.......

 

[nilagin]

We have to be vigilant when we allow our children online, monitor them and keep our relationships open in the hope that they will come to us when they have a problem. My son is 12. He has a mobile phone, he has a laptop and we are online. My conditions when he was allowed these things were that I, as the bill payer, reserve the right to look into his activities should I see fit. His laptop cannot be used between 9pm and 8am. I have his facebook password. The truth is our children will want to access these things, and we should let them, but we should not give them free reign. Children can be so cruel to each other let alone the adults that prey on them over the internet.

My son was bullied at school. He tried to deal with all on his own for months. He felt ashamed, like there was something wrong with him, like he deserved it. we have since moved, he's at a different school and settling in so well but he's still upset by it.

It's tragic when a young person takes their own life. It's tragic that she had no-one to turn to, that her own family and friends couldn't support her through this.

One thing I don't understand is why she was vilified so much by everyone for flashing once??? Many teenagers do so much worse

From the original story I read, I think her parents are seperated or divorced, she was originally living with her father when this all started and living with her mother in another town later. Perhaps they were struggling to deal with it as single parents.

As for why she was vilified for just one flash, who knows? Kids can be cruel, jealous, there's multiple reasons. Know idea what message if any the lowlife sent along with the photo, but send it to the right (wrong ) person and they start spreading poison, it soon can spiral out of control and even those that she would have thought were friends could turn against her. I believe she was young and naive, and if someone said the right words she would be suckered in. The boy sleeping with her and then getting beaten up by the girlfriend, who knows what he said to have his way, but apparently he was there when his girlfriend confronted her and beat her up in front of everyone. She said she decided not to press charges as she felt guilty for what she had done and she probably deserved it.:shrug:

 

[nilagin]

A sad story indeed, but should this not be a job for the Police, not a vigilante mob, how long before this other guy turns up dead

I'm not saying that the real guy who did this shouldn't have his balls chopped off, but posting a guys name on youtube, naming him as the main man is a very dangerous thing in my book

True, but then this is a group of people who are probably on a wanted list for hacking who knows what, even though the police won't know them from Adam, how do they approach the police and say "Oh by the way, we've hacked a few computer sites and tracked down the paedophile who made this poor girls life a misery and ended in her suicide".:shrug:

 

[rpsmith79]

Who knows but they certainly didn't help save this girl's life.......

To be fair, neither have this hacking group

All i'm saying is that this hacking group have taken it upon themselves to be be Judge and Jury, like our fantastic press in this country, they sometimes make mistakes and out the wrong person

 

[ACW]

But where is the judge and the jury in this process :shrug:

If there were a judge he would probably be deciding whether the boy responsible deserves a tiny suspended sentence or a little bit of community service.

Lets me honest, when does this kind of case ever result in proper justice? She died solely due to one persons actions.

I think Anonymous naming and shaming is the right thing to do if he is guilty and only if its definitely him.

 

[rpsmith79]

If there were a judge he would probably be deciding whether the boy responsible deserves a tiny suspended sentence or a little bit of community service.

Lets me honest, when does this kind of case ever result in proper justice? She died solely due to one persons actions.

I think Anonymous naming and shaming is the right thing to do if he is guilty and only if its definitely him.

And that is my point entirely, how does anyone know if they have named the right person without any investigation or trial :bang:

As i say, i'm not defending the guy, just saying what this hacking group have done is no better than our trashy press who publish ill informed/incorrect articles on a daily basis, but this could end in serious harm for the accused if they have made a mistake

 

[HMansfield]

I saw her last video a couple of days before anonymous named him, and considering I can be quite a heartless *******, this case absolutely sickened me.

What we have here is a not uncommon situation where a young girl has massive self esteem issues, and they're exploited for others amusement. It's not the first time this has happened, and it won't be the last, but what happened afterwards goes way beyond that.
Despite earlier suicide attempts, school peers didn't accept that they'd gone too far, and instead used this as another angle from which to attack her. Images of her and bottles of bleach were made into memes.

Alongside this, the original guy that pressurised her into flashing her breasts (because it's perfectly normal to want to see topless 14 year olds), spent a year tracking her down to start harassing her again.

At this point she would have been in a vicious circle. Vunerable and desperate for acceptance, she was the perfect target for further exploitation, which came in the form of the guy with the secret girlfriend.

I made the mistake of Googling her name on that day and - alongside the memegenerator site actually having the topless image of her for you to put your "hilarious" caption across - I found out that there is a second sorry stage to this story.

After hanging herself, some mortuary worker thought he'd get in on all this fun by taking a photo of her naked corpse and posting it on various message boards. Because nothing makes you look cooler than sexually abusing the dead body of a 15 year old girl.

The guy that Anonymous have named was found out after his username was on a forum where members post photo's of "jailbait" girls that they've covertly followed. He has other incidents of blackmailing underage girls for sexually explicit pictures to his name, and was in court this week on the charges of sexual assault and sexual interferance with a minor.

As they put it, "At the most this is the person who did this to Amanda Todd, and at the least it's another paedophile that enjoys taking advantage of children". If he's so worried about vigilante action, then he can always go hand himself in to the police, let them go through his computer and they'll either clear him or charge him.

 

[nickscunny]

I have a Step Daughter who is 13... Its Facebook every minute of the day with her. From the moment she gets up to the moment she goes to bed its like she cant live without it. She has even started "Liking" comments and stuff from her mobile whilst at school. The mrs says its the way kids are nowadays. They grow up too quick. She knows a hell of alot more than we knew at her age. Even my 10 year old lad knows what mums and dads do, they were told at school!

Oh and dont get me started on boyfriends....