The Flipside To Cyberbullying

Amanda Marcotte thinks social networking has helped in the fight against bullying:

Cyberbullying is no different than regular bullying, with one giant exception: now there's a record.

Now parents, teachers, kids who play like they're oblivious, and other adults can see how vile the things that kids say to each other can be. Now we have a record of how ostracized some kids are, and how the popular kids use cruelty to reinforce their social status.  Now the problem is harder to paper over and ignore, because it's staring us in the face.  Feminists figured this one out a long time ago. The greatest weapon that rapists and domestic abusers have over their victims is the conspiracy of silence, and the greatest weapon to stop the violence has been to expose it to the light of day.  I think the same is true of school bullying. Now that we see bullying for what it is, it's much harder to pretend it's not a problem.