Join the #StopBullying Movement!

While bullying has always been around and is sometimes even looked at as a rite of passage in our teen years, it has been tragically amplified in recent years with cyberbullying. The internet, texting and IMing allows people to act behind a mask, many posting hate messages anonymously with no sense of responsibility or care for the individual being attacked.

On my show, What's Trending, we are always passionate about internet culture and what it means to be digitally connected. I have been sickened and saddened by the number of stories of online abuse and, more specifically, youth suicide we have been reporting on recently. We began having discussions on the show -- what responsibility should these social networks have to monitor this activity? Could there be community managers to help with issue? What about schools? Should we be implementing a cyber ethics class? None of us necessarily had the answer, but there are individuals in the trenches and leading the way to help communities and today's youth around this issue.

With October being National Bullying Prevention Month, we decided to put together a live stream town hall involving the online community and many of the organizations who deal with this every day, making a difference and bringing hope to many -- The Trevor Project, Kind Campaign, Do Something, GLSEN, Love is Louder, Stop Bullying and MTV's A Thin Line -- as well as other well known faces including Brittany Snow, Jai Rodriguez, Michael Ziegfeld, Perez Hilton, Disney Channel's Adam Irigoyen, One Life to Live's Freddie Smith. More importantly, we were also fortunate enough to bring together two parents of bullycide victims who have become advocates for the movement -- Wendy Walsh and Timothy Rodemeyer, whose son Jamey committed suicide in early September.

Our hope is to create a forum to share stories, answer questions and come up with real world actions that can help to stop bullying.

We can make a difference, but it will take many voices. Please add your voice to this conversation by joining the live stream today, Thursday October 27 at 3pm PT and spread the word online to #stopbullying.

 

Follow Shira Lazar on Twitter: www.twitter.com/shiralazar

Comments

[ParentingExtra]

06:31 PM on 10/28/2011

Great (and important) work guys, keep it up!

[Dontbeabully]

09:37 AM on 10/28/2011

The problem with internet bullying is it is far more cowardly and far more reaching. If someone got bullied at school it was usually only by a select few and at least you had refuge when you got home. Now with technology it is 24/7 and can completely destroy one's reputation. It also makes it more difficult because sometimes you don't know who the coward is. In many cases the things that are said are complete lies which is libel and not protected speech. It is out of control and even if you or your kids stay off of those sites, other people are reading it. It is a disaster that has forced people to move or led people to suicide. I especially am concerned about the websites that don't do anything about the problem. The one that concerns me the most is a site called Topix. They constantly justify the actions of their users, don't moderate their mosts and users don't even have to register for an account. That is irresponsible on their part and I saw a report about them on the Today Show recently, yet they still won't do a thing. I also have heard they have drug forums which often promote the sales of drugs. Do we really need that kind of site?

[Sonmirega]

06:34 AM on 10/28/2011

This is a forwarding initiative once started so the bible tells me by Jesus. Bulliying is the second step up after disliking another beiing. Every human has this primal emotion and only our own awareness about it can lead to changes. It starts with the way how we as parents behave in our daily live. People rather choose to judge others as themselves. Most of our society supports the media in their bulliying famous people and it seems they feel better about theirselves afterwards . So if we want to do something about bullying we must start by becoming a soft pebble in a hostile ocean taking control over our own primal emotions .