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UK Teachers Union Demands YouTube And RateMyTeacher Be Shut Down
from the censorship-to-beat-cyberbullying? dept
Back in May, we wrote about teachers in the UK demanding that "something must be done" about cyberbullying of teachers. It appears that teachers have had enough of the various online pranks and tricks that kids pull on teachers. However, as we pointed out at the time, the "something must be done" cry seems pretty pointless. Kids are always going to find ways to bully each other and teachers, and there's no magic bullet solution. Apparently, the teachers missed that lesson, because they're back with actual suggestions on what can be done. Dave writes in to let us know that a teacher's union in the UK (apparently one of many) has adopted a resolution asking for a ban on sites used for cyberbullying. Reading the details of the resolution shows the only two sites they name are YouTube and RateMyTeacher.com -- both of which have many perfectly legitimate uses and where cyberbullying takes up a tiny fraction of their usage. More importantly, however, shutting down these sites will have absolutely no impact on bullying -- except perhaps encouraging the kids to turn it up a notch, knowing that their tactics have had the desired impact. There are nearly infinite outlets for the cyberbullying to take place, and shutting down one will simply encourage kids to use a different method of cyberbullying. It seems highly unlikely that the teachers will get their way, but it's nice (ok, more like troublesome) to know that a bunch of teachers seem to think that the best way to deal with problems between people is censorship and blaming the tool involved.
