There is far too much naivety around the Internet, cell phones, smart phones, text messaging, and Internet enabled gadgets. An impression has been created that these things are nice and safe without consequences. Just because you can hear them in the next room or they stay in the house because it's too dangerous to play outside, does not mean they are safe or are participating in activities that are appropriate for a child. The Internet is filter-less. The only content filter is you.
Please read this, post it around, and if you have dinner as a family around the table with the TV off, use this as a conversation piece. If you don't...start.
Please take responsibility for your self and for those who trust in you to guide them.
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This is a story about a little girl named Jessi. Jessi is an 11 year old child. Jessi has a computer with a webcam setup in her home where she had unsupervised use of this technology out on the Internet. She had a You Tube channel, which has been since closed for obvious reasons.
Now the other videos have been removed, but there was one that she posted that is now part of the Internet infamy for eternity. Jessi goes on a rant, a very adult themed rant. That video is embedded below. It is NOT SAFE FOR WORK OR OTHER CHILDREN'S EARS!!!! Watching it you'd think she was in her 20s.
I am not going to get into the behavior of this troubled child, like her multiple lip piercings she has or the vulgarity she throw out like it's a second language, or threatening to murder people with a Glock. I am going to focus on my point earlier that she is engaging in an activity without context. Because of her actions, for years to come, if someone searched for Jessi Slaughter or anything about her, like a college or future employer, that video and this situation will come up.
Think about the damage that has been done. It may not be felt now, but there is no way to ever repair it. It's out there forever.
Again, the video is NSFW language.... from an 11 year old child.
Parental Reality Check #1 - Everything posted on the Internet is there FOREVER. Videos, comments, images, sound clips. Everything.
After watching the video you can see the problem with this. Jessi and thousands of other kids, have not conceptual idea of the reach the Internet has. She might have thought she was only posting a video to her schoolmates or friends or small number of followers, but her post was globally accessible. Her mentality was that the harsh words used was to be an insult to her You Tube world, but unbeknown to her, she basically put the target on her head in a big way. Jessi, unsupervised, took it to a very adult level and the people lashed out in a very adult way. There was no stopping it. Poor 11 year old Jessi, emotionally underdeveloped with obviously no parental cushioning, couldn't take it.
Parental Reality Check #2 - Would you tell a complete stranger your full name, city you live in, where you work and what you do every moment of the day? Posting on the Internet with your real name you are doing exactly that, only to 1 billion strangers permanently.
Jessi is just one example of this idea of a virtual protection, an invisible wall to hide behind. Trying to be anonymous yet doing it in a very public way. This little girl had no problem telling everyone her name and enough details about her to make it very easy to get her real identity. A website that I am not going to credit here, released her full name, address and phone number. Because of that, the backlash from her video had people emailing her directly, calling her house, and sending pizzas to her home from the local Pizza Hut. These people most likely were no where near her physically but doing it from all over the country if not the world responding to her. A few reports have said her family is under police protection because of death threats, but no one can confirm it.
The true realization of what she had done became reality. That facade of the protective invisible wall, behind the computer screen, words in a comments section was gone. It now was real. It always was real to begin with, but this assumption of virtual reality created this fog that it wasn't.
Jessi not only damaged her self, but sucked in her whole family. Her parents house, their privacy, their safety was destroyed by her unsupervised actions.
Parental Reality Check #3 - There is no license required to drive around the Internet. Just because there is not, doesn't mean it's a safe and happy place to let kids roam around freely. Out on the Internet, your kids are like Ambassadors to your home. Your name and reputation. In the eyes of the law, your responsibility.
Jessi couldn't take it and she posted a new video with her father now dealing with the backlash. This last video has what made it go viral and now it's everywhere and put little Jessi and more so her father in the Internet spotlight with other unintentional Internet Viral Stars.
Jessi posted this in all seriousness to stop the flood of backlash on her and her family. But the way the Internet works, everything is permanent, they were made into this week's email rounds of re-mixes and the joke of the month. They inadvertently fed the Trolls. They would have been better off to just cancel all the accounts and disappear. She probably would have been forgotten and never have been known outside her small world. But they didn't and now the world knows them, all the news sites posted them, the videos are everywhere forever. Impossible to get removed.
If Jessi was 18 I would say she is not blameless. But she is an 11 year old child with no apparent parental support of any kind. She was let loose and tried to hold her own in a world she is not ready for.
Researching around I found this article about her and her Facebook page, where she said she's 15. Her Myspace page, which is now gone was xxxjessislaughterxxx. There are obvious issues surrounding her home life beyond this. Regardless, her actions on the Internet should be a focus point that it is a place where caution, care, and responsibility needs to be exercised at all times. She is an extreme example of the damage that can be inflicted from activity on the Internet. All it takes is one bad video or post to create hurricane damage. Everyone has to get one last word in and sound tougher. They have to send that one last threatening text message or email that's stored forever to come back and bite them. They have to post that embarrassing image or personal information and get slammed for slander later. The Internet never forgets.
Sometimes you need the extreme to address the subtleties.
The Internet is the greatest invention since the wheel. But it has a very dark side and used by some very mean and evil people. Talk to your kids. Teach them how to use it. Educate them on what not to post and why. If you don't know, you need the education too. Watch them where they go. Give them context. You can keep them from watching R rated movies on HBO, but a few letters with a .com at the end and in seconds could show them extremes that would shock and awe you.
Like everything in life, the best way to ensure your kids are knowledgeable is to ask them.
You might be surprised when that turns into a conversation.
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The items in this post are purely the thoughts and opinions of the author. All facts and data are gathered across various sources and the author's conclusions are based that information.
Techie Pro
Posted in: Internet,Social Media
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