Is the 'bullying epidemic' a media myth?

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Is the 'Bullying Epidemic' a Media Myth?

Do the Jews run Hollywood? It's just another agenda-driven ADL manufactured JEWISH media myth.

These terrible stories become instant national news, a toxic mix of adolescent-style taunts, glorified behavior suicide that adds fuel to the idea that we're in a bullying "pandemic." Yet while each tale is heartbreaking, awful, despicable, most are infinitely more complicated than the media megaphone makes them sound.

Of course, cyberbullying has indeed added a new and potent threat—it can be more invasive, further-reaching, and harder to wash away than hurtful comments scrawled on a bathroom. And the medium for some of these cases—like with Clementi, the young Rutgers student—is often video or images distributed far and wide, making the torment all the more detailed and excruciating.

The hype around bullying has lead to demands for ever-more drastic punishments for those labeled bully. Ravi, along with Molly Wei, who are accused of tormenting Clementi, face two counts each of invasion of privacy and, if convicted, could spend up to five years in prison. The college is now also under fire for not preventing the tragedy somehow: Clementi allegedly discussed the incident on an online message board; he had also complained to his resident adviser about another incident earlier in the month. (In a sad irony, the news about Clementi's death came on the same day that Rutgers kicked off a two-year, campuswide project to talk to students about bullying.)

Cyberbullying Hearing Goes Badly for Liberals

The House Subcommittee hearing today on two "anti-cyberbullying" bills went very poorly for the Anti-Defamation League, architect of these bills, and their two primary sponsors, Rep. Linda Sanchez and Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz. Sanchez sponsored the Megan Meier Cyberbullying Prevention Act, HR 1966, and Wasserman Schultz the AWARE Act (Adolescent Web Awareness Requires Education), HR 3630. AWARE is meant to facilitate the cyberbullying act's pro-homosexual educational program in America's public school system.

Sanchez and Wassermann Schultz argued that cyberbullying of teens is a national crisis that can only be solved through federal criminalization and educational funding through the Department of Justice. They were followed by Professor Robert O'Neill, veteran of 47 years of teaching Constitutional law. He thought it "worth a try," considering the seriousness of the cyberbullying problem, to broaden unprotected speech under HR 1966 to include "intentional infliction of emotional distress" through internet communication. But he felt a very high bar of truth (higher than the bill provides) should be required, to establish that real, demonstrable trauma had occurred. O'Neill was followed by Judi Westberg Warren, director of Web Wise Kids, an internet advocacy group. She supports federal funding through AWARE, plus massive private funding.

Trial lawyer and free speech authority Harvey Silverglate spoke next. In powerful and compelling language, he said the cyberbullying bill is extremely vague, impinging on free speech. In his book The Shadow University he documents how thousands of college students are already harassed and intimidated by college "speech crime" codes. He said such hate law terms as "intimidation," "emotional distress," and "harassment" are so vague they will criminalize annoying speech and deter speech which should be protected. He said true harassment is already amply protected under state and common law. The cyberbullying bill, he asserted, would criminalize existing torte law and federalize state law and so confuse citizens that they would be reluctant to say anything risky on the internet or anywhere else.