On the front page of the New Zealand Herald the national newspaper is an article about by students in New Zealand. They are putting up “OMG Confessions” pages on Facebook or “memes” and they are becoming increasingly popular.
People are anonymously allowed to put whatever they want there, make accusations, be abusive, tell of sexual encounters with whoever and its all very dangerous because it can be faked and the more people craving for foolish excitement jump on the roller-coaster and add more faked stories and such and the person who is being spoken about could be abused in the streets, or even more seriously beaten by thugs or fools thinking that they are dealing with someone who is bad but in reality is innocently accused.
All a person needs is a small gripe against someone who in the case of females a guy may “turn her down” and then for him all hell breaks loose while she makes false claims against him which don’t need to go to court because fools will go out and smash him over over her false tears and false accusations. All sorts of foolish accusations can be made and all sorts of foolish people chasing them and fueling them to make them bigger and bigger until someone gets hurt.
These pages are power to people wanting revenge and who are fueled by hatreds and it is scary to consider how how many people can be hurt from them.
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Social media expert Simon Young said much of the attraction for students sharing on such sites was the guaranteed anonymity and the idea that they could say anything they liked and not be caught.
“It’s human nature. Sometimes when we’re in a position of power and we’re not very mature, we’ll try to show that.
“It’s power. That’s the amazing thing about social media. It gives everybody with a computer a voice … anyone can be a media person.”
Mr Young said cyber-bullying had taken on a whole new level because of the confessions pages.
And the bullying had expanded on to the playground.
“People have always told stories about each other, and there’s always been a dark side, but it’s now much more public.”
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“It was predominantly harassment – mocking other people anonymously (and) sexual connotations … it was disgusting,” Mr Dykes said.
With this type of negative anonymous attacks on people anyone can be a coward prancing around as a hero destroying peoples lives without ever have to go near then face to face. Very cowardly and very foolish because in due season it will come back on them.
We must do all that we can to make Facebook a more positive place and be positive especially for the younger people who need good guidance. We have to face facts that social media type sites are here for good and that immature people are going to post foolish things. The best that the public can do is use their own common sense and realise that if people make accusations it means nothing without evidence and that is what the law is for.
All the best from James M Sandbrook.
24th of November, 2012.
24th of November, 2012.
