Writer Emily Bazelon, of the online magazine Slate, asks readers to share their stories about cyberbullying. In a quest to learn more about the problem — and how to solve it — Bazelon has turned to the general public in the hope that their stories and suggestions can help shape public understanding and eventually, perhaps, improve online behavior.
Here’s Bazelon’s request, from a January 26 piece in Slate:
So I need your help. Slate readers were a fabulous source of stories last spring when I wrote a series about how the recession was affecting Americans. Now I want to hear from you about your experience, or someone else’s you know, of the many forms of cruelty in the online world. How big a problem is cyberbullying, really, and how is it a problem? In middle school, high school, college, and the workplace, what stories about meanness online, big or small, can you tell me: a gossipy YouTube video that ended in a suspension; a Facebook parody that caused tears or worse; a sext that damaged someone’s reputation; a stalker who tracked his obsession via social media? And what are schools and parents and the authorities doing about it?
Please send your stories and tips to cyberbullying.slate@gmail.com or to the new Facebook page for this project: E-mail will be treated as anonymous unless you say otherwise. I may write you back to ask questions. You can also write in with a question related to cyberbullying that you’d like advice about, and I’ll do my best to answer in consultation with Sameer Hinduja. And I’ll be traveling to schools, workplaces, whoever will have me to report out these stories, and writing up stories based on my reporting in a series on Slate. I’ll post news updates and other thoughts on the Facebook page and on my Twitter feed. Write to me, join in and post, help me dig deep into this toxic feature of our beloved Internet—and, I hope, into the solutions.
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