to send a copy of this disgusting, homophobic, racist, disablist, misogynistic, offensive FB convo to the head of the local school?

[nearlyNovember]

It is horrifying what these 13/14yos are writing.

They have used practically every swear word.

Told each otehr they're slags/retards/faggots/cunts/to get out of my country.

That they're just bombers.

..and laughing at her behind her back,

Whether the convo was 'private' or not seems irrelevant - if its bullying it should be reported. Most RL bullying is 'private' isn't it?

My DD and some friends got into a silly slanging match on FB back in Year 8. I remember it mostly because one of the parents joined in and made it ten times worse.

I asked the Year Tutor to 'have a word' and fortunately it stopped immediately.

I hate FB.

Sorry, my point is that the Police will get involved quite quickly if it is 'public'. I'm not defending any of it. But 'expectation of privacy' has been used a defence by others.

Oh dear lord I have seen parents on my facebook getting involved in their teenagers arguments I am like WTF are you doing you idiot you are a grown woman ,

What are you doing reading their pages? Don't you have anything better to do? Get over yourself.

I would be reading all that if I thought there was anything going on that could be an issue for one of my dcs.

Saying 'Oh it's private', 'just delete' or 'don't you have better things to do that reading what is happening on your dc's FB' is for me very similar to say 'Oh there is some bullying going on but if I close my eyes and ignore it will go away'...

I don't think YABU.

If this is a page on FB which can be accessed (either through lax security controls, or because it is actually a public page) by members of the public, it would be good to raise it to the head of the school, and discuss with him how best to proceed, be it through reporting it to the police, involving the parents of the relevant children or having the school have some kind of lessons on 1. Not being a racist/disablist/xenophobic/homophobic twat and 2. that once stuff is on the internet, it's not private and it could be there for many many years to come.

Teenagers can be very stupid, and for us people who are older we have the benefit that the stupid stuff we did/said was not permanently recorded in a highly accessible medium. Teenagers these days don't have that same advantage. And, if some of them truly belief some of the crap they come out with, that is a HUGe issue which needs to be dealt with, ideally with the involvement of the parents.

Having said that, a lot of parents aren't much better than their dcs and don't ave a better grasp as to how FB is working or whether some comments are appropriate or not.

It was a girl's dad, Mrsjay! He went off on one. DD showed me and we turned the computer off, and I phoned the Tutor the next morning to seek assistance!

I think FB sets us a very difficult legal and ethical challenge about what is public and what is private, and what is freeedom of expression and what is illegal.

Pragmatically, I agree very much with Absy about the consequences of having one's teenage arguments recorded for posterity, and globally accessible. Ouch.

Yes Absy put it much better than me.

And the thought of it being there forever is frightening.

I would report this to school.
It seems unlikely that that much unpleasantness isn't spilling over into their school lives.
School should have anti cyber bullying policies and someone who knows if it's school, FB or police business.

It needs flagging to school imo. They should have stringent cyber bullying protocol in place and this should trigger it.
Screen grab the lot, print it out twice and take it to the head of year. Then they can deal with it/the kids involved/do yet another assembly on appropriate language/behaviour online, public/private domain etc.
Facebook is a pain in the arse at school.

I'm not going to justify why I was reading a public convo that appeared on MY FB news feed to you, ClippedPhoenix. Why don't you go and find something better to do?

Thanks everyone else for constructed ve comments. I just feel aghast that these kids speak to each other like this.

The NYTimes did a very good series on how to deal with cyber bullying a couple of years ago, as there were a few cases in the US about online bullying. one of the articles

Curtain twitchers are no longer contained at home it seems

Don't be so bloody ridiculous.

Haven't read entire thread.

Who are these teenagers saying this stuff to? Are they saying it to a particular person or just to each other? I don't think the school will get involved if it's a "joke between friends" iyswim? Kids say all kinds of horrible things to each other at that age. The racist language is big concern though. So the school get involved over that regardless of it's context. Because racism isn't a joke.

I really think someone needs to sit kids down and explain the implications of behaving badly using social media. It could effect their job prospects! I was 17 by the time Facebook came along and was always careful about it because of the kind of career I wanted (at the time). These kids just don't understand the potential fall out. As in all children a lot of the time,not these particular charmers.

Same happened with kids from my sons school. The whole thing was not private in any way and kept coming up on my FB. After a few hours of reading and tutting away to myself I rang school. Spoke to one of the 'year team.' He said 'You have just solved a massive problem that we are having this morning.'

The bullying had carried on in school and the poor kid who it was aimed at had gone to the same teacher and asked could he go home. He wouldn't tell him what was wrong. Some of the threats were very serious and involved hurting this lad. It was sorted within the hour. Police were brought into it and several pupils were excluded.

Report it to school.

YANBU it is hate speech end of story. It needs reporting to either the school and/or the police. It needs to be sorted or it will get worse.

School will say it has happened outside school. Probably very understand your anger and maybe have an assembly with a talk on stuff but more than that, I doubt you will achieve much. Facebook is evil. I don't have it thank god, but no doubt would be reeling at what my dc put on there too.

Ds's school takes all things FB VERY seriously!

But ClippedPhoenix, it's not "Curtain Twitching". Depending on how these posts were done on FB, it could be in a public group so every member of that group would have access. Or, if it is comments under someone's status update, (subject to someone's security settings) it could be published on the "newsfeed" of everyone that person is friends with.

So if it was kids, say, spraying offensive graffiti about someone on the wall outside their house and people saw it, would that be curtain twitching? Because what they've done (depending on how it is) is the internet equivalent of that. Are you saying it's okay because it's teenagers? would you say it is alright for teenagers to express racist/homophibic/disablist/xenophobic views? Should people not be concerned when teenagers express such views?

What I'm saying is everyone should calm down. Teenagers do use some terrible language, I did when I was that age. I don't think it's anything to get in such a lather about where someone wants to contact the school on them! We do still have "freedom of speach" in this country but I'm beginning to wonder and I think the suppression of this these days is just bloody making it worse.

Should we all have to learn some sort of "politically correct bible".

Teens will always flaunt rules etc. that's what they do.

And unless this was actually aimed at the OP's family then she should stop twitching those curtains.