Cyberbulling in Real Life - Amanda Todd
Youtube Converastion
Youtube Identity - Veronica Riley
Youtube is a vital part of technological society, making it the perfect place for a user to have a hidden identity, making it the perfect place for controversy, verbal altercations, or just share general opinions. Youtube has hundreds of millions of users from all over the world which means there are way more comments and conversations going on twenty-four seven. In many instances, since everyone has their own opinion, and most people like to share it, cases of cyberbulling can occur. Cyberbullying as defined in the Merriam-Webster dictionary is "the electronic posting of mean-spirited messages about a person, often done anonymously." Users have the freedom to create their own identity and post comments without repercussions, besides the occasional deletion of an overly offensive comment. Just like the comments below from a thread of thousands of comments from the Amanda Todd video that went viral in early October.
In the comment above, I played an advocate for Amanda Todd as an anonymous user "Veronica Riley." I supported her in the sense where I was against anyone who was saying mean things to her or cyberbullying her. It was very hard to
I had a lot of trouble with this assignment. I am usually a very quiet person when it comes to my opinions. Obviously I knew that I had to play the part for an assignment and attempt to get feedback from other individuals but I think that playing an advocate many people already agree with you. I tried to pick comments to comment on that were recent and showed some negative attitude towards Amanda Todd, that way I was talking to people that could be considered "instigators." However, I guess I hit two "breakdowns" within this project. I found it hard to voice my own opinion and I also found it hard to find individuals who cared enough about their own opinions and my responses to comment back. I understand that many people just might not care enough, but I thought I did a decent job at saying what I wanted to say. I could have maybe wrote longer comments or included some specific examples from the writing that I thought was negative, but I wanted to still seem genuine and not fake. This factor played a big part in this conversation. My group believed that making a "fake" username would be best for this assignment since we were all taking on different roles. However, since I was putting in my personal opinions as an advocate is it bad that I was pretending to be someone I wasn't? This comes to play with remaining anonymous. Many individuals like being anonymous because they can say what they want and not worry about the effects coming back to them, especially in the cyberbullying world. I wanted that air of anonymity just because for this specific project it was possible for people to have a role, like the person in my group who played the instigator, he took on views that weren't his own, so he did not want what he said to shine a light on his real opinion. Either way, having a fake username can lead to trouble, especially when dabbling with cyberbullying.