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Tag: Cyber-Bullying

  • Monica Lewinsky Stepping Up to TED Talk

    Monica Lewinsky Stepping Up to TED Talk

    Monica Lewinsky has a novel approach to living down her past life. For years she has run from the specter of that blue dress, tried to distance herself from the shadow of her affair with President Bill Clinton, tried to move on.

    But the world just won’t let her. President Clinton himself seems to have recovered quite nicely from his impeachment for lying about his affair with Lewinsky. Only in certain circles — the same circles that refuse to remove old campaign bumper stickers — does the “Lewinsky Scandal” get brought up every time Bill Clinton’s name is mentioned. In fact, it’s pretty telling that the whole thing is always called “The Lewinsky Scandal” with no mention of Clinton.

    Monica Lewinsky seems doomed to forever remain a punchline. But she is not going quietly anymore.

    Monica Lewinsky has taken a new tack in recent months. It all started with her Vanity Fair piece, in which she spoke out about cyber bullying. She said that she was inspired by the Tyler Clementi case in 2010. Clementi was a freshman at Rutgers who committed suicide after his roommate used a webcam to surreptitiously view Clementi’s intimate encounter with another man, then offer to stream another encounter days later.

    “Cyber bullying” is a well-used phrase nowadays. The idea of hiding behind Internet anonymity or using social media to spread bullying to exponentially more people than would have been party to it in the past is well-covered ground for educators and parents now.

    But Monica Lewinsky can claim that she was one of the first victims of online bullying. Unlike her partner in that affair back in The White House, she has been pilloried online every time her name gets mentioned.

    So Monica Lewinsky has decided to stop running. If being made fun of online is what her name has become useful for, she is owning it. She said in Vanity Fair:

    “Perhaps by sharing my story, I reasoned, I might be able to help others in their darkest moments of humiliation. The question became: How do I find and give a purpose to my past?”

    Since her announcement in Vanity Fair, Monica Lewinsky has made good on her plans.

    In October, she told the audience at Forbes’ 30 Under 30 summit:

    “Having survived myself, what I want to do now is help other victims of the shame game survive, too. I want to put my suffering to good use and give purpose to my past.”

    She noted in her speech that many people in attendance only know of her from stories, since they were too young to know much of what was going on when she was embroiled in the scandal with Clinton.

    Now Monica Lewinsky is hitting that most-revered of all intelligentsia forums, TED. Lewinsky will present a TED talk during the TED 2015 Truth and Dare meeting in Vancouver, Canada on March 19.

    On the TED event website, Monica Lewinsky is called a “social activist” whose presentation will focus on “a safer and more compassionate social media environment, drawing from her unique experiences at the epicenter of a media maelstrom in 1998.”

  • Monica Lewinsky To Help Victims of Cyber-Bullying

    Monica Lewinsky has taken on a new role in society. The former disgraced White House intern has emerged from the shadows and will now be an advocate for bullied kids.

    Monica Lewinsky was one of the first people to be bullied on the internet.

    “I fell in love with my boss in a 22-year-old sort of a way,” Lewinsky said at the Forbes Under 30 Summit.

    She added, “I was patient zero, the first person to have their reputation completely destroyed worldwide via the internet.”

    Back in 1998 when the story broke and Monica Lewinsky‘s world, and the Clintons’ world, came crashing down, internet bullying was not near the problem that it is today. However, Lewinsky likens her situation to that of Tyler Clementi, the Rutgers student who committed suicide in 2010 after his intimate encounter with another man was caught on camera and put online.

    Lewinsky says that she, too, could have been bullied to death and did contemplate suicide as a result of the harassment.

    “I would go online, read in a paper or see on TV, people referring to me as: tramp, slut, whore. Frankly, I came close to disintegrating,” she admitted.

    Monica Lewinsky says her mother took the Tyler Clementi news really hard.

    “My mother was unusually upset by the story and I wondered why,” Lewinsky said.

    She added, “Eventually it dawned on me: she was back in 1998, when I, too, might have been humiliated to death.”

    So, what issue does Monica Lewinsky hope to tackle by speaking out for cyber-bullying victims?

    Monica Lewinsky explains, “Online, we’ve got a compassion deficit, an empathy crisis, and something tells me that matters a lot more to most of us.”

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kaTFqttOpjE

    Fighting cyber-bullying is really a great cause to lend her name to! Good luck to Monica Lewinsky.

    What do you think of Monica Lewinsky’s involvement in the fight against cyber-bullies?

  • Monica Lewinsky Talks Falling in Love With Bill Clinton

    Monica Lewinsky has a new goal in life–ending cyber bullying. But in the meantime she has managed to rehash–a.k.a. justify–her actions while serving as an intern under former President Bill Clinton. Lewinsky spoke Monday at the Forbes Under 30 Summit in Philadelphia, labeling herself the first genuine target of cyber bullying.

    “Overnight, I went from being a completely private figure, to a publicly humiliated one. I was patient zero–the first person to have their reputation completely destroyed worldwide via the Internet,” she said of the discovery that the president of the United States had cheated on the first lady with a 22-year-old intern.

    “There was no Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram back then,” she added. “But there were gossip, news and entertainment websites replete with comment sections and emails which could be forwarded. Of course, it was all done on the excruciatingly slow dial up. Yet around the world this story went. A viral phenomenon that, you could argue, was the first moment of truly ‘social media.’”

    And she’s right. The Monica Lewinsky scandal was probably the biggest to hit the U.S. in the age when most everyone had at least one computer in their home, along with internet connection. Regardless of the fact that it was no doubt dial-up back then, word of that beret and that cigar and Bill Clinton and Monica Lewinsky spread faster than wildfire and burned that young intern–as well as the reputation of a U.S. president–practically to ashes.

    And while Monica Lewinsky sort of hovers between justifying her actions and downright making excuses for them, it’s always important to remember that it takes (and took, back then) two to tango.

    Lewinsky told the Forbes Under 30 crowd that she “deeply regret(s the affair) for many reasons, not the least of which because people were hurt, and that’s never okay.”

    Lewinsky also cut her young self some slack, describing herself at the time as “more than averagely romantic.”

    “I fell in love with my boss. In a 22-year-old sort of way, it happens. But my boss was the president of the United States. That probably happens less often,” she said.

    Monica Lewinsky was among the less fortunate ones–and probably the only one since the computer age–to have her sexual activities with the president played out in everyone’s living rooms, home offices, and at their dining room tables. So yes, she knows full well the impact cyber bullying can have on a person’s life.

    Of course there is that little issue of timing, however, that those in the political arena are no doubt questioning. Why now? How convenient that the time is drawing near for Hillary Clinton to throw her hat in the proverbial presidential campaign ring.

    Whether you’re a Republican or a Democrat, you must admit that Hillary didn’t deserve what Bill Clinton and Monica Lewinsky did.

    The Christian Science Monitor says this new evolvement of Monica Lewinsky rates “somewhere above nuisance and below Anthony Weiner on the ‘Political-Death-Meter.’”

    (Yes, Monica–Anthony Weiner is this era’s Monica Lewinsky.)

    When Hillary was asked to comment about Lewinsky’s recent Vanity Fair article, she very simply said, “I’ve moved on.”

    But you see, Monica Lewinsky has joined Twitter in an effort to squelch cyber bullying. And that means she can say whatever she wants, whenever she wants–for all the Twitterverse (a.k.a. the world) to see.

    It seems Hillary’s people are on point, however.

    “Her team recently reviewed Clinton library documents labelled “Monica Lewinsky” last week and no new bombshells where revealed–a relief for the potential 2016 candidate,” the Christian Science Monitor reports.

    What’s your take on Monica Lewinsky dubbing herself the first cyber bullying victim? And do you think the timing of this reinvention of Monica has anything to do with Hillary’s possible run for president?

  • Amanda Todd’s Cyber-Bully Arrested in the Netherlands

    After almost two years, a breakthrough in the case of Amanda Todd, the Canadian teen who was bullied to death over the internet, has been made. The Dutch police have made an arrest and filed charges against the man who they believe who targeted her until her suicide in 2012.

    CTV News posted a timeline of events concerning Todd’s suicide. Since the Royal Canadian Mounted Police opened the investigation in October of 2012, both federal and provincial governments of Canada have introduced and passed anti-cyber-bulling legislation. No updates on the case had been made until two days ago. On Thursday, the RCMP confirmed a Dutch man was facing charges of extortion and child pornography in regards to her case. Mother Carol Todd said it was what “we’ve been waiting for.”

    The suspect has been only identified as Aydin C. due to Dutch privacy laws. The Associated Press reported that he has dual nationality between Turkey and the Netherlands and was arrested in January at his vacation home in the town of Oisterwijk. Prosecutors stated that “the suspicions against the man are that he approached underage girls via the Internet and then seduced them into performing sexual acts in front of a webcam He is suspected of subsequently pressurizing them to participate in making new material.” They also suspected Aydin C. of blackmailing men in a similar way by posing as an underage boy.

    Defense Attorney Van Dijk said the prosecution lacks evidence for a conviction. The Canadian Press quoted him as saying “prosecutors seem to think they have a big fish here, but if I see the evidence, it’s not much. Lots of references to IP addresses and such.”

    Amanda Todd’s mother, Carol Todd, told CBC that she hopes this arrest will lead to others who were involved in the bullying: “There were multiple people in those chat rooms. So this would hopefully be the first layer of many layers that they could uncover.”

    Image via Current News Offical Channel, YouTube

  • Arizona’s Cyber-Bullying Law May Be Revised

    Arizona’s cyber-bullying law has passed both the state House and Senate. House Bill 2549 law will become official once Governor Jan Brewer approves the piece of legislation.

    But lawmakers are concerned that the law could result in over censoring and lead to an increase in arrests for minor offenses like sending a mean tweet.

    We reported to you earlier that this has caused some to worry that “If someone wanted to be creative they could use this bill as ammunition for anything they didn’t like being said.”

    According to Fox news, “The state House and Senate lawmakers will meet within about a week to attempt to improve the bill, following the storm of criticism from First Amendment advocates and other free-speech supporters.”

    Is the bill just another way for the government to generate revenue? As the bill currently stands, violators who send a message in an effort to “terrify, intimidate, threaten, harass, annoy or offend” could face misdemeanor charges, a $2,500 fine, and six months in jail.

    These types of laws come at a time when bullying has resulted in suicide and withdrawal from society for countless teens.

    15-year-old Phoebe Prince was from Ireland and was trying to adapt to her new home in America. One of her close friends said that she was called an Irish slut and a whore by her classmates because she was pretty. Investigators believed this may have been a leading factor in her decision to kill herself.

    Meline Kevorkian, author of 1010 Facts About Bullying says that “Bullying can be so dangerous because it can lead to cyber-mobbing where kids can get together and attack a child 24 hours a day, seven days a week.”

  • Demi Lovato Urges Fans To “Stay Strong” Against Cyber Bullying

    Demi Lovato Urges Fans To “Stay Strong” Against Cyber Bullying

    Disney star Demi Lovato wants to make it known that cyber-bullying should not be tolerated by anyone.

    The 20 year-old, whose new album Unbroken is now available, says she was a victim of bullying and turned to cutting herself to ease the pain caused by others. She also suffered from an eating disorder after being called fat by online commenters. Lovato has used Twitter as a means to expose cyber-bullying and to spread awareness of the problem, saying that people who bully others over the internet must have been “born without a heart”.

    @ddlovato
    demetria lovato    It really surprises me the hateful things people say on the internet.. After all the awareness of cyber-bullying… I mean wow. So sad. 1 day ago via Twitter for iPhone ·  Reply ·  Retweet ·  Favorite · powered by @socialditto

    Lovato is currently working with Ellen Degeneres, Drew Brees, and a host of other celebrities to repeal the “R” rating of the movie “Bully” and get it changed to PG-13, making it appropriate to show in schools. The star, who often uses social media to promote her latest projects, is outspoken on the effects of bullying and isn’t afraid to talk about her own issues with it. In fact, she partnered with Seventeen Magazine to make a documentary on her own struggles called “Demi Lovato: Stay Strong” which aired on MTV last week.