Today is is Stop Cyberbullying Day

In an effort to blog about something unrelated to 3rd Pea I'd like to note that today is (or was, almost) Stop Cyberbullying Day.

Thinking about it, it's not actually not blogging about 3rd Pea because it's something that's most likely going to affect her at some point (unless the internet implodes sometime in the next 10 years).

Bullying, in any form (physical, psychological, cyber, political) is utterly crap. Even when we know that it's merely the other person's way of not dealing with their own, sometimes serious, issues, it doesn't make the experience of being bullied easier to deal with.

While the threat (or actuality) of physical violence and/or dispossession and/or emotional torment that occurs with bullying in the playground or workplace is fairly horrid and insidious, I think the kind of torment that occurs online (or between nation states - and I'm thinking of Israel/Palestine here, classic example of the kid that gets abused at home taking the rage out on kids at school...) is all the worse as it is dehumanised.

It's awfully easy to be rude to people you don't know, and this ease is multiplied ten fold when you can't even see them and "it's only words".

It's also easy to forget that words can be as hurtful than physical actions, often even more so. Something that many commenters in the blogsphere (sometimes myself included) would do well to ponder.

It's not practical, but sometimes I wistfully think that codifying the "if you don't have anything nice to say, don't say anything at all" rule from childhood would make the internet a far more pleasant place to inhabit at times.

There's an interesting post on cyberbullying over at Blogher which is worth the read.

Oh, and 3rd Pea is doing fine. Her nose is still somewhat blocked, but she and her beautiful mum are sleeping peacefully right now and I think I'll go join them.

Have a happy Saturday.