My child has a facebook account. Someone who dislikes him that we know in person has started a group meant to defame him. Can facebook do anything about this? Can we legally?
How old is your kid?
I guess that you report the facebook page to the administrator.
You could possibly get a lawyer and have them send a letter to Facebook.
Or you could just let kids be kids. I personally don’t think kids under 14 should have facebook accounts. What you have described is just the electronic version of playground bullying. Did you go to your kids playground while he was growing up and fend off the other kids that might be picking on him? Not much you can do. Let your son deal with it.
He is 17 years old. The person who created it is legally an adult at age 19
I agree with this, but Facebook specifies 13 in their TOS.
http://www.facebook.com/terms.php
And creating such a group is bullying, so I would report it to Facebook as such. It is also a violation of the TOS, so I imagine they would at least shut it down.
Well I guess there’s always a few folks that never grow up.
Does your son really give a rat’s ass what some doofus is putting out there in cyberspace about him? Hopefully his friends aren’t that immature.
Report the page to Facebook admin and let it go.
Unfortunately, not only does bullying not stop at preteen, but the bullying is considerably more damaging as one gets older. I’m sure there are many people around here that will tell you they have been bullied at work. The same way right wing talking points enter the public consciousness by mere repetition, a bully constantly emphasizing minor faults or flaws make someone seem genuinely inferior. This gives others the impetus to get in on the action and take action themselves even when they have no idea who the victim is. With a networking site like Facebook, it is easy to coordinate and even create ambiguous situations to inflate the defamation. Pretty soon, the victim can’t trust anyone he meets, and it appears that it is the victims fault for not being able to get along.
In high school and college it can suck socially, but when it becomes grad school or the workplace, jobs and salaries are at stake, and unfortunately, many people take the attitude that the victim should quit being a wuss and get on with his life. And of course, already in that thinking, it’s the victim that is at fault.
Nice way to politicize this discussion. :rolleyes: Trust me, it rolls both ways.
The best way to deal with bullies is to not give them what they want…a reaction. Bullies are like internet trolls, they seek the reaction. The OP’s son’s best lesson he could learn is to “not feed the trolls”.
Sorry, that’s just wrong. Not reacting to a bully has never dissuaded a bully. This is just another way of putting blame on the victim. “If only you didn’t give a reaction they would leave you alone.” It’s not true, and never has been.
Sorry, but you’re wrong. I think you are confusing bullies with psychopathic abusers. While in life, there are no absolutes. Most bullies will go away when they don’t get the attention they crave.
I guess for some it’s easier going through life as a victim.
Unfortunately, he IS getting the attention he craves – from everybody who believes him. Attention (or lack thereof) from a victim is nothing compared to the power he’s wielding over his peers.
The OP has not indicated that this new facebook page has hundreds of members that are also friends of her son. So you are assuming this to be fact. And even if it is true, SO WHAT? These other people probably aren’t friends to begin with.
I guess to carry out an extreme response, the OP’s son could get a lawyer and sue the bully for libel…but what are his damages? Loss of friendship?..gotta hire an expert witness to quantify that.
Just better to report the page to Facebook admin. and let it go.
Hey OP!!! What is the characterization of the defamation? We’re all working off of assumptions here.
Speaking as someone who’s been teased and bullied since 3rd grade (run the gamut from being called names all the way to physical violence), I can unequivocally state that ignoring a bully does NOT work.
It just makes them try all that much harder to get whatever reaction they’re looking for.
Report the page to the Facebook Admins and have them shut the page down.
Something my 8th grade teacher said really stuck with me, “If you have a problem with someone, it’s your problem. Don’t make it theirs.” Words of wisdom, to be sure.
Piling on with the notify Facebook crowd. A faceless email notification that their site has been shut down to TOS violation has to be the least satisfying resolution for the person who created the site.
He has reported it numerous times, as have I and a friend of his. They won’t do anything. When you report, it doesn’t let you repeat report it til they check it out. if they dismiss it, then you can report it again.
Sage advice. I would interpret your teacher’s advice as, “don’t be the victim”. You should own your own course of action. Don’t rely on your parents to save you. Sure go to them for advice, but don’t expect them to swoop in and make it better.
BigBertha -
i’m very curious to know the details of this, if you don’t mind sharing. it sounds pretty serious but i just can’t imagine how facebook could be taken too seriously. spreading rumors? from a 19 year old on a 17 year old? i have to know.
Does everything you have to say about bullying involve blaming the victim. Seriously, “Don’t be a victim?” As if the victim set out one day and decided he was going to be a victim.
Once again you are wrong. Please show me where I blame a victim. All I have done is to encourage people that are victims of bullying, to not act like victims. Stand up for themselves and ignore petty immature behavior.
You can’t control if someone likes you or not, but you can control how you respond.
Can you demonstrate any evidence whatsoever that how you respond has anything to do with how a bully acts towards you? You better damned well believe that a bully will quit if they ever see any negative consequences of their actions, but instead the age old advice is to get the victim to somehow change and ignore the bully. Every bit of that is complete and utter bullshit. The correct action is to respond to the bully with the backing of authority. Unfortunately, too often the authority gives the same old nudge and a wink to the bully as you are. That needs to change.