Media Ethics - Cyberbullying

When considering the story about this poor girl who committed suicide because of cyberbullying there are multiple points of ethics that could make it right or wrong to release the name of the bully.

The issue of this blog is not the horribleness of the girls death but rather the ethics of each papers decision on weather or not to print the names of the bullies. Steve Pokin of the Suburban Journal of St. Charles County decided not to print the names because there was no charges filed nor a civil suit. And the daughter was a juvenile suspect and it was not clear who actually sent the message. This decision caused an uproar in the community. Many people sent angry messages to the Journal, calling them cowards for not releasing the names. This issue to me is a battle between the public's right to know, need to know, and want to know. Pokin felt that it was better to withhold the names because of the fact that there were no charges being filed. He may have felt that because it has not clearly been deemed the fault of the daughter that it could be dangerous to reveal her name since there would be clear outrage and attacks towards her once the public finds out. This ethical decision could also be connected to the Mills Utility principle which bases ethical decisions on the outcome of the decision. Pokin felt that the outcome would be worse if the names were released. He may not have anticipated such an outraged outcome from the public but he may feel that it is more important to keep the names of the alleged bullies private out of fairness since there were no clear evidence of who actually sent the messages.

As for the St Louis Post Dispatch's decision to match the story and release the names; that decision falls under the ethical perspective of communitarianism. Communitarianism believes that "A credible ethics or privacy needs to be rooted in the common good rather than individual rights." It is the right of the community to know or not know about certain things in order to have a healthy community. The St Louis Post may have felt that it's the right of the community to know the names of the people who would do such a harmful thing.

I find the Posts ethical justification more compelling because I do think it is the right of the community to know the names of the people involved, even if no charges are filed. The fact is these messages were put on the girls Myspace and the culprits used a fake name to clearly bully the girl. Even if it can not be proven that they caused the girl to commit suicide I think that the names should be put out there to expose to the community who would do such a harmful thing. I think it is horrible not only to bully someone but to not be transparent about it and use a false name is cowardly. If you are going to attack someone at least have the decency to put your name to it rather than hide behind some cyber alter ego.

As for social media and cyberbullying, I think it should be something that is taken into real consideration. I think these sites need to think of ways to block people from harmful posts. I think that will need to be a fine line to dance around because friends do tend to say things to each other in a joking manner that could be seen as bullying but is really just friends ragging on each other. That being said, I think that the best solution would be to monitor harmful posts and either block post with harsh language or send warnings to people who post things that are seen as attempts at bullying. As Katie Couric expresses in the video below, it's important for parents to explain to their kids the dangers of the internet and to let them know that cyberbullies are weak people who hide behind the internet. It is important to let kids know that if they encounter a cyberbully not to let it bring them down because it's the bully who is the one that has the problems, not you. A cyberbully has low self esteem and has to try to make other people feel bad so the bullies can feel better about themselves.