Cyberbullying at its Finest

                        For this week’s blog, I decided to shed light on a topic that I had written about in my first paper for Computers & Society.  The issue(s) are that 6ABC News had made a false report against my family’s business, and as an effect of that, the people of Facebook felt they had the right to comment all over the place about it.  So to begin the story, it’s key to know that my dad has two jobs, he is a pediatrician, and he also owns the last drive-in movie theater in the state of New Jersey.  One night this past summer, we were all at the drive-in, working another busy weekend as usual.  Half way through the initial rush of customers, there was one family that had the need to cause a little commotion.  A car pulled up to the box office with a couple, their teenage son, and many friends of his inside.  Let me say here another important bit of information, at our drive-in we do not allow outside food or beverage, as we make all of our money through the concession stand, and have a massive, restaurant-like menu for our customers.  So this family coming in ended up showing they had brought a bag of Fritos with them because “their son has diabetes, and those are all he eats.”  After one of our box office staff members not knowing what to do with this specific situation, he called my dad for assistance.  My dad explained to the family why the Fritos were not permitted, but that was not acceptable.  The boy’s mother proceeded to inform my dad that she’s a school nurse, and therefore knows what she’s talking about… Well that only led my father to inform the family that he is a doctor, and so he knows a little bit more on the subject than her.  For whatever reason, there was no giving up the Fritos, so the diabetic’s dad ended up yelling at my father in outrage, and telling him that “he’ll be hearing from him about this!”  Not long after, my dad was approached by 6ABC News to get his side of what happened.  When the report aired, we were all in shock.  6ABC had twisted my dad’s words around to make him look cruel to people with handicaps by saying that we did not allow the diabetic’s emergency kit, which contained insulin and glucose tablets, along with some mini M&M’s, inside the theater!  WHAT?!  That emergency kit was never even shown to the box office employee, or my dad!  Immediately afterwards, the not-so-kind people of Facebook went at it.  People from all over the country felt that they had the right to state their opinions about my father on this social media site.  Everyone went onto the Delsea Drive-In (DDI) Facebook page to let my family know just what they thought of my dad.  According to them, my dad has no right to be a doctor, business owner, and father.  He had death threats against him, along with bomb threats to our theater.  The emails and posts were never ending, and got crueler and crueler as time passed.  Let be known, that most of these people saying these things were not there the night of the incident, do not live anywhere near our theater, and have never even been there or heard of it once.  My family is still dealing with the effects of this false report, we had to delete our DDI Facebook page, and my dad has lost several patients at his practice due to it. 

                        My point with this story is pretty obvious.  Media will do whatever it takes to get a “good story” that will rack up viewers, and stir up trouble, no matter who they hurt or screw over in the process.  News stations are supposed to report the facts, but clearly didn't do that here, and that is astonishing to us.  Now don’t even get me started on Facebook!  Absolutely none of the people on there that made their negative, hurtful comments should even have a Facebook account.  They clearly use it for the wrong reasons, which are to bully strangers and let their worthless opinions be shouted from the rooftops.  I, personally, have never witnessed such an intense case of cyberbullying in my entire life.  With Facebook, no matter how many comments you “report”, an explanation must be provided for each one, but I guess slander wasn't a good enough explanation.  I do believe people should be entitled to their opinions, but I absolutely think that those people stating their opinions had to experience, or witness whatever it was they are commenting on to begin with.  In my paper, my solution to such issues such as these was that “liking”, “commenting”, and “sharing” should just be removed as options on Facebook entirely.