Blog Post #2: Does Twitter torture or tease?

We all know about the dangerous effects of social media. People use it for advertising, for marketing, and for personal uses. But what we generally don't realize is that many people use social media to say hurtful things to someone that they would never say to them in person. Hiding behind a screen and saying mean things to hurt someone's feelings is not only cowardly, it is also abusive and unnecessary.

Take Twitter, for example. Twitter was originally programmed to connect and bring people closer together through the Internet. Today, Twitter is being used to harass others online. Being able to insult people through the Internet allows bullies to be hateful without having to physically face the victim.

Cyberbullying involves the use of communication technologies such as the Internet, social media networks, emails and text messaging to harass others. This includes: (i) sending mean or threatening messages to someone, (ii) posting embarrassing photos of someone online, and (iii) pretending to be someone else by using their name.

Some would argue that "freedom of speech and expression" should prevail even online, but there is a thick line that exists between commenting or posting positive things online and insulting or threatening someone. Although it is not illegal to hurt someone's feelings on social media, it is something that people have the ability to control and should control, simply for the good of humanity. Some extreme cases of cyberbullying have led to situations where people have committed suicide to avoid being a victim of nasty comments. If bullies and trolls could learn to control themselves when they feel the need to bring someone down, there would be hundreds and maybe even thousands of people still alive today.

Even though hurting someone's feelings is not against the law, it is illegal to threaten and intimidate someone online. Twitter is hoping to make online bullying (as a whole) illegal. Twitter is giving online users a tool to report the abuse to law enforcement rather than to just the Twitter staff.

Cyberbullying is not something that will go away on its own. It will continue to grow and get even worse as people are starting to use social networking sites more. Unless we can come up with a permanent solution to online harassment cyberbullying will continue to affect people who become victims of this cruelty. Social networking sites could take steps to ban the use of certain words online. This may be a big step that steps over our rights in freedom of expression, but consider it like this: would you rather have people control their hateful thoughts and mean words or would you rather have people commit suicide because of an insult that they read on their phone?

Blog Post #1: Celebrities vs. Paparazzi

Everyone knows about the never-ending "war" that takes place between celebrities and paparazzi. And we can all agree that it's the paparazzi's job to photograph celebrities, but the celebrities also have a right to have their own space. So who's right?

Neither of them can be right, but the line should be drawn when the feud gets out of hand. It is unfair to yell at paparazzi when they are taking pictures and asking questions persistently, but it is also unfair to force the celebrities to talk and answer questions when they are just trying to go on with their lives as regularly as possible. It should be known that when celebrities accept the job of becoming a celebrity, they are also accepting that their lives will never be the same. This is a sacrifice that must be made, regardless of who the celebrity is or where they live. Once the deal is made, they should know that they will not be getting any privacy for the rest of their lives.

Even though celebrities make a lot more money and are more widely known than most of the world, they are people, the same as everyone else. This means that they deserve to live without the constant flow of cameras photographing and recording their every action.

If a celebrity is feeling uncomfortable with the presence of photographers, they have a right to tell the photographers to leave and stop filming them. This also means that the photographers have to comply with their requests. It isn't decent to forcefully take pictures of someone when they clearly don't like it. In some instances, the reactions of celebrities is understandable because they are just provoked in order to get an interesting response that the world would enjoy seeing. Just because celebrities are always on social medias and on TV does not mean that they want to be photographed when they are trying to do normal things that the rest of us do, like shopping or even taking a walk in a park.

It is also important to imagine this from the perspective of the paparazzi. Their jobs, their entire careers, revolve around taking pictures of celebrities and showing them to the rest of the world. It's true, of course, that people enjoy watching videos and looking at pictures of these famous people trying to lead normal lives. For example, even if you were reading an article about a fight between a celebrity and the paparazzi, you would still read information about what the celebrity was wearing and everything else they did that day. Why does every detail of their lives have to be put out so the entire world can read about it? Would YOU want someone to know about every single event that took place in your life?

The more I think about it, the more I realize that neither the celebrities or the paparazzi are at fault. Could they be less violent (both physically and verbally) towards each other? Of course. But is it their fault if they get angry? This is open to controversy, but I think it isn't always their fault. If we were to judge a situation without actually being present at the scene, it would have to be based off of what we believe is right or wrong, and not about whether the celebrity or the paparazzi were telling the truth.

A recent feud between a celebrity and the paparazzi was when Brody Jenner, step-brother of Kim Kardashian, was asked about his sister at an airport. He refused to answer and became very angry (for no apparent reason, or so the press states) and ranted, swearing at the unfortunate man who had posed the question.

Brody Jenner Explodes at Photographer at Sydney Airport

(Even writing about this situation is a form of paparazzi because I'm spreading the news of it through social media...)