Facebook, Censorship Or Compassion

Are we going a bit over board?

Hey folks,

Slippery Slope? Compassion? Or is this outright Censorship. I also know, I'm about to really annoy, if not outright Tick some of you off. But we REALLY need to talk about this.

OK, so all of a sudden, we seemed to have some kind of "rash" of Teen Suicides. Four within a four-week period last month has triggered some in the Mainstream Media to ignitionate coverage of the topic of Anti-Gay Bullying and Harassment and prompted renewed calls for Congress to pass Anti-Bullying Legislation.

Folks, truth is this.

A continued rise in teen suicide rates is concerning mental health professionals, educators, and youth workers. In the past 25 years, while the general incidence of suicide has decreased, the rate for those between 15 and 24 has tripled. It is generally considered to be the second or third most common cause of death among adolescents, even though it is seriously under reported. No one has advanced a good theory explaining why teens are taking their own lives in greater numbers, but it's important for everyone to be aware of the problem.

Some of them are Gay. Some of them are said to be a product of "Bullying." Schools have been sued. Adults other than the Parents of the Kids have been charged. Other kids have been charged. Now we have a movement on Facebook, to censor whatever they, or a Liberal Gay Activist Group, determines to be Anti-Gay Rhetoric. Or Bullying. According to AP - Facebook works to remove anti-gay hate speech Fri Oct 15, 4:04 pm ET

NEW YORK – Facebook is working with a gay-advocacy group to reduce the amount of hate speech and bullying on the online social hub.

Anti-gay bullying has been in the spotlight recently after the suicides of several gay teenagers, including Rutgers freshman Tyler Clementi, garnered national attention. According to police, the 19-year-old jumped off the George Washington Bridge after his roommate secretly recorded him with another male student and distributed video online.

The Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation said it reached out to Facebook last week after Internet bullies flooded a page set up to honor teens who recently killed themselves in response to anti-gay hate.

The page, set up by a Facebook user, asks supporters to wear purple next Wednesday in memory of the teenagers. Purple represents "spirit" in the rainbow flag that's the symbol of the gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender community. On Friday afternoon, most of the comments on the page were from supporters.

Facebook said that its policies prohibit hateful content and that it has systems in place to take down such posts as soon as possible. But the company also said it wants its users to be able to express unpopular opinions and as such must strike a careful balance between removing harmful content and letting people speak freely.

"Facebook has taken an important first step in making social media a place where anti-gay violence is not allowed," said Jarrett Barrios, the president of GLAAD.

OK, so that all sound nice. But why are Gay Teens more important than Straight ones? What makes someone being "Bullied" more important than anyone else because of their Sexual Orientation? "Well Pete, Gay Teens are 300 times more likely to commit Suicide." Yeah I saw that number too. But it's not true.

Joel Best, professor and chair of sociology and criminal justice at the University of Delaware, untangled the knotty statistics behind the gay teen suicide rate in his book "Damned Lies and Statistics" (University of California Press, 2001).

Where did the number come from? "A chain of bad statistics," explains Best in the book.

Advocates began with the largely discredited assumption that one-tenth of the population is homosexual, derived from Alfred Kinsey's 1940s research. In fact more recent studies and polls find that around 1 percent to 3 percent of the population is homosexual. The advocates further assumed the proportion held true for teens (it may or may not), and out of about 4,500 annual teen suicides, figured that one-tenth (450) should involve gay or lesbian teens.

"Next, advocates drew upon various studies that suggested that homosexuals attempt suicide at a rate two to three times higher than heterosexuals," Best writes. He adds that multiplying 10 percent (the estimated proportion of homosexuals in the population) by 3 (a suicide rate estimated to be three times higher than heterosexuals), along with a mathematical miscalculation, led to an estimate that gays and lesbians accounted for 30 percent of suicides. (The miscalculation: Even if 10 percent of the population is homosexual, and their suicide rate is three times that of heterosexuals, homosexuals should account for only one-quarter — not one-third —of suicides)

This figure was rounded up to one-third. At each step of the calculation the numbers either had dubious validity or were selected from the extreme upper end of the estimates.

So what is the gay teen suicide rate? No one knows. "How could anyone hope to measure gay teen suicides accurately?" Best said. "Coroners, after all, do not record sexual orientation on death certificates."

Without accurate numbers on how many gay teens there are, any estimate about their suicide rate is little more than a guess.

So what is the answer? Why do we have this increase in Teen Suicides? What can we do to try to bring this number down? These are the things we SHOULD be talking about. Not advocating the Slippery Slope of Censorship.

Look, we all got, knew someone who was, or did the Bullying ourselves. I went through some. Chances are you did as well. Part of growing up. I didn't think about killing myself. You didn't kill yourself. So what has changed? Why is it a "Reasonable thought" to now have amongst our kids out there? Is it the chipping away of the sanctity of life? Is it the taking away, more and more of the Parent's Rights and Responsibility for their own Children. The Chipping away of the Family. Could it be the Moral Decline in this Country? Could it be the ever increasing Grey Area that is replacing what use to be Black and White, Right and Wrong?

Placing one group over another, be it with the "Best of Intentions" or not, is NEVER the answer. Hate Crimes, Hate Speech, Thought control. None of these things will EVER settle the issues nor deter the product. What will is discovering the source and fixing THAT. No one should be Bullied. Of course. But it matters not whom it is being Bullied, nor WHY they are being Bullied. It is the fact that THEY need to understand how to deal with it as long as it is possible. It is the fact that those found guilty of harassment of another, or worse yet, physical harm to another, for ANY REASON, needs to be held accountable. Not more so, or less so, depending on what some think.

I truly hope that Facebook walks this very fine line, understanding that crossing it, and violating our First Amendment, in the name of compassion is not the answer. It's time that we here in America, stop catering to Minority Groups with special interests, and start asking and answering the REAL and Tough questions. We need to protect Kids from ANY and ALL walks of life, Races, Religions, Sex, and Sexual Orientation matters not. We need to treat each other with respect, and look out for what is best for ALL. We need to treat everyone equally, and have Laws that do the same. Stop this nonsense of placing this or that group, over all others, and let's truly come together as one.
Peter

Sources:
Mental Health Matters - Teen Suicide
AP - Facebook works to remove anti-gay hate speech
Live Science - Is There a Gay Teen Suicide Epidemic?