Et Tu, Ellen?

Ellen has been a longtime role model of mine so I was disappointed when I saw this segment reported by Yahoo! TV:

Titi Pierce and Ellen DeGeneres. Pierce's first name is pronounced
"Tee-Tee" in her native Nigeria & means "Flower".

The comments section under the video are, per usual on social media, appallingly ignorant and judgmental. Unless you have ever been made the butt of a national joke it's difficult to judge how Pierce "should have" reacted. Private citizens have expectations of privacy and a right to it. Airing Pierce's telephone number twice is not acceptable. Continuing to humiliate the victim by leaving the clip online is not acceptable. 

Frankly, I'm disappointed in Ellen. And I hope Warner Brothers has to pay Ms. Pierce a LOT of money.

Because Social Media Abusers Have No Boundaries...

Just when you think the internet can't sink any lower articles like this one prove otherwise. Body-shaming pregnant women? I'd say I've now seen it all, but I'm sure someone else will pop up and lower the ante.

- Tina

Carrie Underwood Defends Her Trainer Against Cyber Bully

Carrie Underwood's trainer, Erin Oprea, was recently shamed online by a soccer dad for what he labeled attention-seeking behavior. Oprea's big offense? Multitasking. The trainer got in her daily cardio by jumping rope (nowhere near the field!) while watching her son's soccer game. Get the whole story at ABC news...

Online Harassment of Women Becoming "Established Norm"

Australian researchers have published a new study on cyber abuse—and the results are decidedly grim. 

• 

  Women under age 30 are most vulnerable to attack.
• Women believe online abuse is a growing problem, but feel powerless to act against it.
• 70% of women said online harassment is a serious problem in 2016 and a full 60% said that it's getting worse.
• More than half the women surveyed felt the police needed to start taking victims seriously.

Read the entire article at The Guardian...

Molak Family Seeks to Pass "David's Law" in Texas

On January 4, 2016, sixteen-year-old David Molak committed suicide after enduring years of online abuse, harassment & bullying. "David's Law is not made to get people in trouble for calling someone stupid," [his brother Cliff] Molak said. "There's a group of people who chronically and relentlessly bullied my brother and they need to be held accountable."

You can read the full story on Today...

Stephen Leather accused of cyberbullying

Hachette author Stephen Leather has been accused by two fellow thriller writers of cyber-abuse and bullying. One of the alleged victims, Jeremy Duns, has been dealing with anonymous sites and accounts set up to attack him. He wrote that the purpose of the sites are “to simply sling as much mud my way as possible and hope that something sticks, and to make it so that if anyone Googles me – readers, potential readers, publishers, producers, etc – they might be influenced by the fact that apparently lots of people hate me and I am a Terrible Person Who Has Done Lots of Terrible Things... The fact that the accusations are false and in most cases fairly obviously so doesn’t matter much."

Sounds like history repeating itself, though this time outside of the romance genre. One of NMCA founder Tina Engler's most blatant stalkers went so far as to brag online that she has google glutted with negative information about her (Engler). In other words, what Duns has described is fairly typical behavior of an abuser who needs their right to be online revoked for life. JK Rowling had this to say...

Teen Combats Cyber Bullies

Seventeen-year-old Lauren Brocious of Virginia came up with a pro-active way to combat cyberbullying. Read the story in People...

New Hampshire Parents Say More Needs Done to Combat Cyberbullying

More than 60 people attended a public forum on bullying at a Sunapee School Board meeting last month to discuss what they say is the district’s poor response to previous complaints. 

Read the full article here...

Wisconsin Introduces Cyberbullying Bill

State Rep. Robb Kahl (D-Monona) and state Sen. Janis Ringhand (D-Evansville) have introduced legislation that better defines cyberbullying in Wisconsin's existing anti-bullying laws. Kahl and Ringhand were careful to keep their bill's provisions specific in order to waylay First Amendment concerns regarding previous legislation. The bill addresses cyberbullying as it relates to minors or adults aged 18+ still attending high school. Get the full story here.

Informal Internet Study: Twitterverse is Populated by Sheeple

When software CMO Rurik Bradbury saw tweets suggesting the lights of the Eiffel Tower had been turned off in Paris at 1 am because of the terrorist attacks, Bradbury decided to perform a little social experiment. The lights to the Eiffel Tower are always shut off at 1 am, you see, but that didn't stop tens of thousands of people from retweeting misinformation he purposely put out there. Get the story here!