back to article Balls: Schools should police the net

Guidance released by education ministers today has called on schools to do more to stop bullies using the internet and mobile phones to target fellow pupils. The last set of government intructions on the issue was published in July last year. Launching the latest crackdown, schools secretary Ed Balls said: "Cyber bullying is a …

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  1. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    lol

    lol

    fail

    How about parents bring up their children like humans and don't give them fancy toys?

    Less we'll be seeing a few nice boats on UK TV

  2. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Lulz

    N00bz!!!111111

  3. Terence McCarthy

    ‘Balls: Schools should police the net’

    The last five letters of your title are redundant.

  4. Terence McCarthy

    Schools should police the net’

    Arrghhh....

    Should have read:

    "The last five words of your title are redundant"!

  5. Chris Collins

    Not really the same impact?

    I fail to see how BrItNeY4EvA calling me a "fat ginger twat!!! LOL!" is really as effective a bullying technique as a swift punch to the face. Go outside and play in the fresh air, kids.

  6. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    balls...

    Just ban mobiles in schools.. why do they need them anyway? we never did.. (old geezer talking now... ) bah! humbug!

  7. Keith Turner

    Where's Arnie?

    What with teachers searching for knives and checking for cyber bullies and taking parents to court for not dragging reluctant Johnny to school in manacles we need someone who can show the way - call in Kindergarten Cop. He can kick some ass/arse and bring these scallywags back in to line.

    In my day we only had toilet walls for text messaging.

    And we had group 'happy slapping' - we just called in British Bulldog instead.

  8. Phill

    schools should police net?

    When I read the title I was like "what? That's impossible", then I read the article which said that teachers should request data is take n down after the incident is reported.

    The word police in our society has changed it seems, to be like "monitor or log" instead of "prevent and help"

    Anyway, I think the whole subject of cyber-bullying is blown out of proportion. I mean a threatening email from someone isn't anywhere near as bad as a kick in the head on the football pitch, which was what my childhood was like.

  9. Anthony

    Hmm

    I work at a school and there isn't the level of competency amongst staff to do this, nor is it fair to suggest that teachers are responsible for students to this extent. If it was a more physical form of bullying like Charlie kicks a ball at Fred, should the PE teacher write to the football manufacturer or close the public playing fields where it happened? Something this important cannot be left to local policy or even Government guidelines, it needs a law and the staff to manage that law. Maybe this could be passed upwards to the Internet Police as it's presumably cybercrime.

    And how can anyone demand to see emails? Or text messages? The Data Protection Act would suggest otherwise.

    Particularly laughable is that the Governments response (fobbing off imho) has been done in conjunction with YouTube, Bebo and MySpace. Smacks of buckpassing. The only way to prevent bullying on the Internet is to block the Internet and use a local cache or selected, relevant material that users can view but not post to. Bullying via mobile phones can be prevented using phone signal absorbing paint on all the school walls. As a bonus this also prevents using your phone to cheat in exams.

    Or maybe, just maybe, responsibility for site content and email content and text content could remain with the user and action against users could remain with the relevant police departments.

  10. Chewy

    RE: schools should police net?

    I think you'll find that the bullying via technology happens as well as the more traditional methods. It's allowing the bullies to taunt them even in their own home.

    As far as myspace is concerned perhaps the people on the receiving end shouldn't let the comments be placed without them accepting. In the case of YouTube why don't the teachers take legal action against the parents of the little brats in the form of slander.

  11. Gavin

    Laugh at it and you are a part of it

    I am sorry but a granny losing control of her wheel chair and crashing into a headge, I'm sorry but it IS FUNNY.

    Happy Slapping i'm sorry to say IS FUNNY

    I was bullied heavily at school, I'm ginger for christ sake, accusing people of being a part of it it cus they laugh is stupid, shoot everyone now.

    Parents need to bring up there kids properly and irrisponisble parents need dealing with, as a lot of parents round my area are worse than the kids.

    If you want to try anything at school try encouraging comedy, staged happy slapping in drama classes or something to detract from tis value.

  12. Phil Cooke

    meh

    After reading this, I'm glad the school I was working for decided to outsource and lay me off - I had enough headaches without them dumping this on me!

  13. Chris Miller

    Bullying?

    For heaven's sake let's try to preserve some degree of meaning in our use of language. Punching smaller kids in the nose and stealing their dinner money - that's bullying. Sending offensive text/IM messages is unpleasant and should be discouraged, but if nothing worse than receiving such things happens to you in life, count yourself pretty damned lucky.

    At least by using technology they're leaving an audit trail behind, unless they've heard of Tor ...

  14. Dave Bell

    When will they ever learn?

    How long is it since all those BBC Micros appeared in schools?

    How much longer do we have to wait for teachers and politicians to know a bit about computers, and not say such silly things.

    I'm told I might live long enough to see it.

  15. Iain Gilbert

    Teachers?

    Has anyone ever wondered why this should be a teachers job? Policing this out of schools is the police's responsibility. As for in schools, simple enough to filter out such sites on school's internet.

    Thank god I stay in Scotland where this rubbish isn't relavent (most of the crap spouted by new labour is only inforce in England, Wales and NI).

  16. James Condron

    damn

    You mean its no longer acceptable to laugh at the fat kid getting pushed into a hedge? or the ginger girl getting beaten up? Great, now they've taken our Humour and our Music Downloading... all thats left of the net is porn; how long until they take that away?

    What'll be left? a whole network of material for research and education? Ed Balls is truly talking Balls.

    Do you think this stance on bullying is because with a name like that, he may have faced the same? This is just a thinly veiled plot to get back at his own tormentors... I think someone should happy slap him

  17. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    His name is BALLS ffs.

    Is it any wonder he's so damned sensitive about bullying?

  18. HonourableTyr

    Erm, some sense at all?

    There is this thing called a filter that blocks unwanted SPAM. It works very well for blocking anyone who is not in your contacts list. I am also reliably informed that you can moderate and manage who can contact and see your profile on 'social networking' sites (which I won't touch with a bargepole).

    MSN Messenger (sorry, 'Windows Live Messenger') has a block button as do all other IM programs.

    I only had and have people I know on my personal IM contacts list. For those I don't know there is X-Fire and they are only interested in whether I want to play Counter Strike or some other game.

    Text messages can be more difficult as you can't control it as much. It may be a direct threat saying you're going to be knifed tomorrow on your way home from school or something similar. Then it is a bit more worrying but, if someone is just sating you are a 'f*cking w*anker' why give a damn?

  19. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    yeah erm

    There is nothing worse than reading posts from people who have never experienced proper, PERSISTENT bullying and abuse. They always downplay and belittle the true suffering of genuine victims.

    I believe this article was more about the victims of happy slapping having their attack caught on a mobile and posted up on the internet for everyone to laugh at. Anyone finding that funny is in serious need of psychiatric help IMO. In many cases "cyber bullying" is on top of the physical beatings which makes it worse than back in our day when at least the bullying was restricted to being in the physical presence of the bully/ies.

    As an adult, being bombarded with internet messages and phone calls would be considered harrassment and is a offense. Much as I dislike most teenagers today, I do believe they are entitled to the same protection as us adults in this case. As for teachers policing it..h ah aha ha ah ah ah ha they are the worst bullies of them all. Perhaps every school should employ an officer to deal with bullying, whether online or in the playground.

    Non victims..if you can't take a humane standpoint on this, at least consider this: less bullying could lead to less victims going on to become politicians with clout.

  20. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    You have 25 new messages

    Now let's be a little more imaginative, shall we?

    U fat slug, we're waitn 4 u! My butha has an machete an we're coming for you after skul to make a girl of U U fagggg!!!

    Yeah, 'harmless'

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