Date: Monday, August 6, 2007

YouTube closure demanded by teachers

Following a spate of online bullying both of children and staff, teachers at the annual Professional Association of Teachers (PAT) conference asked for video-sharing websites to be closed down.

Results from a survey which has charted bullying behaviour over the last five years have shown that over a fifth of the 15 000 pupils questioned had suffered from cyber-bullying in one form or another. One of the most shocking incidents was one in which a picture of a teacher headless was posted online with the caption ‘you’re dead’. Speakers at the PAT conference said that teachers had the right to work without fear and intimidation. The rise of websites such as RateMyTeachers has also lead to an increase in online bullying of teachers as well. Teachers have also cited reports of an increase from 14.5% to 20.6% since 2002 of children suffering from email and text bullying. The main culprit in this cyber bullying appears to be YouTube with thousands of videos of teachers and children being humiliated and bullied having appeared online. However the site has hit back saying the majority of their users are perfectly legitimate, but that as is with everything, some people will always bend the rules. Indeed, some anti-bullying organisations have also said that shutting down YouTube is not the way to go about handling the situation. One such organisation Beatbullying, eqauted shutting down YouTube with shutting down schools to deal with the problem of bullying.

However those at the heart of such attacks have been shown to suffer even more than those who encounter face-to-face bullying as this onslaught can be 24hrs a day, with no escape once they are at home. Experts have also said that it appears bullies find it easier to say something to someone in written format than they would in speech, meaning that the harassment is even worse. The debate still continues as to whether YouTube should be shut down, but people are divided as to whether it would actually stop the increase in cyber bullying or whether the bullies would just find other ways to attack their victims online.

Sources: BBC News, Times Online