people drive person to suicide for not drawing characters right.

[KyuubiNoKitsune-Hime]

No, it sounds like "If something is driving you insane, stay away from it".

That would be fantastic, if social media wasn't the only way some people have to stay incontact with family and friends, especially friends overseas. Still if the reason such things are driving you insane are because other people are intentionally targeting you, things get a bit murky. What if I told you "if people are wrecking up your house, stay away from it", you'd probably think that was more than a little unfair.

No, you don't need Facebook and Twitter to find a job, you need an internet connection.
Those are 2 different things.
Also, blocking is an option.
Also, making your account private is an option.
If they start doxxing you, there are already legal options available.

I'll address the points here as you put them.
Many work places anymore won't consider an applicant without an active Facebook page, or Twitter, or both. You don't need internet to apply for most jobs though, as most can still be applied for in person. Again this is about applying. You don't even need the internet to find a job to apply for. Still places are getting picky about people's status in social media.
Those two different things might not be entirely necessary, but they sure improve one's chances, and in a bad jobs market, you need all the help you can get.
The lengths that the harassers pursue to get at their target makes blocking impossible.
Making one's account private just lets the harassers claim victory, while still trashing the target, things that tend to get back to the target even if they isolate them selves.
Most police departments will tell you there's nothing they can do if you're being doxxed. You might have a chance in civil court to sue the perpetrators, but that takes a lot of time, money, and knowing the identity of your harassers.

I think it actually does.
A mentally sane person who has a proper grip on reality and their emotional state won't end their life because of internet comments.
I think that, and you might disagree with this, everyone who tries to commit suicide for whatever reason is not fully mentally sane.
Unless you become diagnosed with a terminal illness, seriously crippled, lose a family member or something like that, you don't get these thoughts without some sort of mental illness.

Let me put it this way, this sort of mistreatment can break an otherwise mentally stable individual, which in turn can suicidal thoughts and actions. This is especially true of introverts who live their lives online, people with Asperger's autism, people with low self esteem, and/or etc... Meaning those sort of people are far easier to emotionally break. Not everyone separates their online interactions from personal emotional connection, or their day to day lives. That doesn't mean we shouldn't just shrug at them, or anyone else, being abused online. Especially when the cases of abuse are concerted efforts enacted by large groups of people to gang up on a single individual.

I think you're very emotional about these things, too emotional for your own good.
What you should do is detach yourself and your personal experiences from this and think about it when you're calm and collected.
Otherwise, the solutions you will come up with will be extreme (such as charging people who comment on the internet with murder).
Also, in the internet age, what's the difference between stalking and just being a fan, especially when the person you're following is putting themselves and their work out there for others to view and judge?
Unless you're actually following the person in real life or hacking their accounts in order to get personal info, you're not a stalker.

I'll grant that I've got some emotional baggage on this one, I did have a friend attempt suicide after a case of cyber bullying. Still an even larger portion of me gets zealous on the subject because I really dislike seeing people be hurt by others, especially when a group gangs up on a single person. Of course charging people who comment on the internet with murder is extreme, but that's not what we're talking about here. What we are talking about are people who intentionally harass someone to the point where the victim attempts suicide. Now a murder charge might be extreme, but such actions are still criminal in nature, as they do require extreme harassment. Now the difference between a fan and an internet harasser/stalker/doxxer is pretty easy to separate. A fan would follow someone's work and their public social media, a fan might they hate something the person they're following did. On the hand, a harasser would make a concerted effort to spew vitriol at every turn at the person they're going after, going way out of their way to do such things. A coxxer would find things like the persons real name, address, and phone number, then publish them to get the person harassed in real life over the phone and in person. A stalker would find the person's most intimate details and follow them while trying to insert themselves into the target's life in a harassing, or/and threatening manner. You don't need to hack to get someone's personal information, it's generally not very difficult to back track things like IP addresses and find out where the came from, thus who pays for the internet, who that person is, where they live, and what their phone number is. That's all essentially public information.

 

[Queen Michael]

Big surprise. We all knew that to tons of people, social justice is an excuse to bully people and to feel smugly superior. It's like how, on some level, many religious fundamentalist parents like the thought that rock music is a satanic threat, and that avoiding it shows how very pious they are.

Social justice is great. But these people, who are intent on turning it into a hate movement, are horrible.

CLARIFICATION: My criticism is directed only at social justice-supporting online bullies. Not at social justice supporters in general.

 

[happyninja42]

Well you have that on the one hand, on the other hand there are people who are provably innocent who have died in prison, or been executed for crimes they did not commit. Hell there have been people executed and who have served life sentences for crimes that never actually occurred. So... Yeah. Besides that you'd only have to throw the book at a few people for a large majority of others to realize that such a thing could happen to them.

Yeah, you would ONLY have to destroy the lives of a few people in order to scare the rest into submission.
Sounds great, where do I sign up?

How about this:
If a person had depression and/or other mental issues, maybe a psychologist or whoever should strongly advise that person to stay off of social media when they're in their "down period" (or just stay off in general).
Seems like a better solution than throwing people in prison for writing mean sentences online.

Because there is no law requiring anyone to go to a psychiatrist. Plenty of people don't get any treatment for mental issues for a multitude of reasons, and there's nothing anyone can do about it. It can range from simply not thinking there is anything wrong with them, to feeling shame about their illness, seeing it as some kind of weakness, and if they just "work it out" they'll be fine. And any number of other reasons in between. Your statement assumes the person with the mental/emotional issues actually has "a psychologist or whatever", and very often they don't. Family members might not notice it, as they might live alone, or simply not act in any way that displays their problems, because they are hiding them out of shame or whatever. So putting all the responsibility on the psychiatrist or whatever isn't realistic. They can only help the people they interact with, and there aren't enough of them to constantly monitor the entire human population for problem signs, and then advise them to stay off the internet.

Besides, how would they enforce that? They can't shut off your cable services, you do have rights to live your life how you want, which includes living it in a way that is harmful to yourself in a lot of ways. Aside from instituting mandatory, regular psychiatric evaluations for every human being on a regular basis, and giving those people the authority to mandate what liberties you have based on those findings, your plan cannot work.

 

[KyuubiNoKitsune-Hime]

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Snip

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First degree murder? No way. Negligent homicide? I can see that being something we apply to this eventually. It's not an easy standard to prove though.

That's probably more reasonable, I was being rather unreasonable because the potential of someone committing suicide really upset me. I think criminal harassment is probably the reasonable course of action here.

I think that, and you might disagree with this, everyone who tries to commit suicide for whatever reason is not fully mentally sane.

So today I learned from the internet that having depression is considered being insane. Cool.

Somehow I don't think you're an actually qualified psychologist though. Because you don't seem to have a clue what you're talking about.



With regards to the OP: I'm actually very saddened by the fact that it doesn't surprise me in the slightest that a group would throw a tantrum over something not being 'politically correct' and to drive the person responsible to attempt suicide. This is apparently the world we live in now... -_-

Obviously depression doesn't equal "insane", but it's worth mentioning that you can have depression which leads to psychosis. It's not common, and it's more uncommon without comorbidities, but it happens. I don't think that's what the person you were responding to meant though, so I'm not trying to correct you, I'm just adding something for information's sake.

Well saying it's uncommon doesn't equate to it not happening either, someone with chronic depression is far easier to push to the breaking point where they have a psychotic episode. Also suicidal depression wouldn't necessarily require someone to have a psychotic episode, it would just take getting them to the point where they give up on life. At which point to get away from the pain, suicide starts to look like a valid option.

 

[Bat Vader]

While I don't believe the bullies caused the suicide I do believe the bullies are scum sucking assholes whose parents did a shitty job in raising them. I think we can all agree on that.

 

[Dizchu]

I love how people assume that Tumblr as a website is "a problem" yet when people shit on 4chan the response is "omg it's only /b/ and /pol/ that are bad!" Please.

I'm skeptical of the whole situation but if it's true, then this is truly sad. Whether people will admit it or not, the "social justice" mob (yeah okay) is just as bad as any mob of trolls from 4chan or Something Awful. It doesn't matter if your motivation is anti-semitism, racism, sexism or a self-indulgent sense of righteousness. Anyone who behaves like this should be ashamed of themselves. Someone draws a fat character thin? Complain about it on your own shitty blog, don't drag someone through the dirt.

This is not a "Tumblr" problem, this is a problem of entitlement. Elliot Rodger felt entitled to women, Anders Breivik felt entitled to a racially and religiously homogeneous homeland, and these miserable sods tearing into people feel entitled to have any fanart appeal directly to them.

If what happened really did happen it wouldn't be the first time, nor the last.

 

[1981]

There is a difference between criticizing a work because you think it could be genuinely improved vs being an asshole because you personally don't like/agree with it.

You're right. About the asshole part. Someone's personal artwork shouldn't be criticized without explicit permission.

I'm actually very saddened by the fact that it doesn't surprise me in the slightest that a group would throw a tantrum over something not being 'politically correct' and to drive the person responsible to attempt suicide.

Big surprise. We all knew that to tons of people, social justice is an excuse to bully people and to feel smugly superior.

Again, nothing points to a group. If there was any bullying going on, it looks like the work of one person, or a few people, who had something against this person.

 

[HardkorSB]

So today I learned from the internet that having depression is considered being insane. Cool.

Having depression and attempting to commit suicide are 2 different things.

That would be fantastic, if social media wasn't the only way some people have to stay incontact with family and friends, especially friends overseas.

E-mail.
Skype.

What if I told you "if people are wrecking up your house, stay away from it", you'd probably think that was more than a little unfair.

I can't turn off my house.

Making one's account private just lets the harassers claim victory

Let them win, who cares.
Mental sanity is more important than winning internet fights.

Let me put it this way, this sort of mistreatment can break an otherwise mentally stable individual, which in turn can suicidal thoughts and actions. This is especially true of introverts who live their lives online, people with Asperger's autism, people with low self esteem, and/or etc... Meaning those sort of people are far easier to emotionally break. Not everyone separates their online interactions from personal emotional connection, or their day to day lives. That doesn't mean we shouldn't just shrug at them, or anyone else, being abused online. Especially when the cases of abuse are concerted efforts enacted by large groups of people to gang up on a single individual.

You can always go with the Sarkeesian route and make everything public.
The vast majority of people will give you support, maybe even money.
I think that these days, people should be taught from the early years to separate their real lives from what they do online, both by the parents and the education system.

I'll grant that I've got some emotional baggage on this one, I did have a friend attempt suicide after a case of cyber bullying. Still an even larger portion of me gets zealous on the subject because I really dislike seeing people be hurt by others, especially when a group gangs up on a single person. Of course charging people who comment on the internet with murder is extreme, but that's not what we're talking about here. What we are talking about are people who intentionally harass someone to the point where the victim attempts suicide. Now a murder charge might be extreme, but such actions are still criminal in nature, as they do require extreme harassment. Now the difference between a fan and an internet harasser/stalker/doxxer is pretty easy to separate. A fan would follow someone's work and their public social media, a fan might they hate something the person they're following did. On the hand, a harasser would make a concerted effort to spew vitriol at every turn at the person they're going after, going way out of their way to do such things. A coxxer would find things like the persons real name, address, and phone number, then publish them to get the person harassed in real life over the phone and in person. A stalker would find the person's most intimate details and follow them while trying to insert themselves into the target's life in a harassing, or/and threatening manner. You don't need to hack to get someone's personal information, it's generally not very difficult to back track things like IP addresses and find out where the came from, thus who pays for the internet, who that person is, where they live, and what their phone number is. That's all essentially public information.

You know, I'm a weird guy.
I've got several mental disorders, including ADD, OCD, bipolar disorder and clinical depression (seriously, I'm fucked up in the head).
I also used to be short and weak when I was a kid.
As a result of those things, I was constantly bullied.
That included being beaten up, spitted on, ridiculed, insulted etc.
In school, I was bullied by both the students and the teachers.
I couldn't just stop going to school and outside in general, it was real life with real consequences.
Online bullies are limited to bullying you online and to me, they're not a real threat.

Because there is no law requiring anyone to go to a psychiatrist. Plenty of people don't get any treatment for mental issues for a multitude of reasons, and there's nothing anyone can do about it. It can range from simply not thinking there is anything wrong with them, to feeling shame about their illness, seeing it as some kind of weakness, and if they just "work it out" they'll be fine. And any number of other reasons in between. Your statement assumes the person with the mental/emotional issues actually has "a psychologist or whatever", and very often they don't. Family members might not notice it, as they might live alone, or simply not act in any way that displays their problems, because they are hiding them out of shame or whatever. So putting all the responsibility on the psychiatrist or whatever isn't realistic. They can only help the people they interact with, and there aren't enough of them to constantly monitor the entire human population for problem signs, and then advise them to stay off the internet.

The thing is, the person from the OP has already been seeing a psychologist and taking anti depressants.
The psychologist should have advised her to stay off social media as much as possible.
He should have also advised her parents to monitor her online activity for her own good.

 

[TakerFoxx]

I love how people assume that Tumblr as a website is "a problem" yet when people shit on 4chan the response is "omg it's only /b/ and /pol/ that are bad!" Please.

Just hypothesizing, but it's probably because the 4chan mob freely admits to being a bunch of assholes, whereas the tumblr equivalent keeps trying to claim to be on the side of good. Not justifying /b's actions in the slightest, but moral hypocrisy does tend to rile people up more than being a dick for the sake of being a dick.

 

[1981]

Oh, and if this isn't personal but started out as someone's attempt to make SJW's look bad, it's despicable.

 

[halisme]

Sigh, can't we all just get along and go get ice cream or something.

 

[Lightknight]

Stuff like this is why I'm of the opinion that driving someone to suicide should be considered first degree murder. It's not right that people get away with harassing someone until they commit suicide, this sort of thing needs a really harsh punishment, to make those who do the harassing think twice. If they're too stupid to think twice, put them in prison for life as an example to others that this kind of hateful bs is not okay.

This would require making people take responsibility for someone else's actions. That kind of responsibility is never OK to enforce as we should never be responsible for someone else at a criminal level.

Now, this kind of harassment would certainly be deemed as severe. If they could be held accountable for anything it would be their own actions and words. First degree murder? No. But harassment and cyberbullying, sure.

 

[Lightspeaker]

So today I learned from the internet that having depression is considered being insane. Cool.

Having depression and attempting to commit suicide are 2 different things.

The two are absolutely extremely intimately linked, its one of the key indicators of depression. More to the point suicidal thoughts are not automatically a question of sanity. Mental illness is not the same thing as sanity.

I love how people assume that Tumblr as a website is "a problem" yet when people shit on 4chan the response is "omg it's only /b/ and /pol/ that are bad!" Please.

I think its because on the whole 4chan has a long history of being considered a "hive of scum and villainy" whereas Tumblr is presented as a social media platform full of people claiming to be "progressive". So the reason for that 'assumpution' can be boiled down to "this place considered horrible isn't quite the demon infested lair that it is presented as, whilst this progressive social media platform has a hell of a lot of truly awful people on it".

 

[Joseph Harrison]

God, I'm getting so sick of all the hypocrisy, negativity and just utter infuriating bullshit that have crept up in these past few years, Rape threats, death threats, Doxxing, telling people to kill themselves, the constant fighting and harassment. Fucking everyone is doing it, like GG anti-GG, 4chan, Reddit, Tumblr, I'm just getting real fucking tired of all this crap. I hardly even bother to go on to any forums anymore cuz I'm sick of all this fucking drama. The internet is and has always been shit, but getting death threats cuz I think the PS2 is better than the Xbox ain't the same as this garbage. True or untrue, harassment isn't cool, even if you believe you're doing "good". That goes for literally everyone GG and Tumblr

 

[Gordon_4_v1legacy]

While I don't believe the bullies caused the suicide I do believe the bullies are scum sucking assholes whose parents did a shitty job in raising them. I think we can all agree on that.

I'd drink to the sentiment but it's only 10am and I have to drive soon.

 

[lord canti]

Well apparently one of her fans doxxed one of the bullies and had him arrested. She is also threatening to doxx anyone who has a hate post or blog regarding zamii.