CityMama™

Dear Cyber-Bullies, Your moms are on Facebook

Last week, a dear friend of mine emailed me a link to Facebook "hate group," created about her son. After getting over the initial shock which included my heart breaking into roughly a thousand pieces, several thoughts ran through my head:

"Who are these kids?"
"Why would they do such a thing?"
"Do their parents know?"
"Why weren't more kids posting comments that this was wrong?"
"Who do I know at Facebook (which is headquartered five minutes from my house)?"
"How do I get this taken down?"

I knew my friend was very upset, but strangely, the person I knew who would emerge from this "okay" was her son. Of course, I felt protective of him, but he's just in a different world from people like that. Did I want to throttle those kids? Yes. Would I feel like an absolute failure as a parent if I knew my kids ever did something like that? HELL yes. But their intended target is one of the most sweet, brilliant, and together kids I know. If anyone could come out of this looking at the bigger picture, I knew it was this amazing boy. The person I was most concerned for, one mother to another, was my friend.

Kathy Sierra Gets Cyberstalked, Names Names (Right on, sistah!)

Yesterday I woke up, checked my email, and found this waiting for me in my inbox.

Author/Speaker/Blogger Kathy Sierra has been the target of a cyberstalking attack so disgusting and vicious that she has canceled speaking engagements and is afraid to leave her house. That is wrong and whoever made her feel that way should be ashamed of themselves. (BBC coverage here.)

Unfortunately in this day and age, these types of attacks are all too common. I think everyone that puts themselves out there in the blogosphere has horror stories to tell, myself included.

Lisa Stone, President of BlogHer writes this excellent response about everything that has happened and about cyberstalking, bullying, trolling.

Bottom line: everyone deserves to be safe online as well as off. No exceptions.

Kathy: I support you and hope you "don't let the terroists win," as it were.