White House Puts Out Cyberbullying Guidelines for FLOTUS Initiative, and Twitter Can’t Help But See the Irony
First Lady Melania Trump wants to take on cyberbullying to help out children who get bullied or harassed online. It’s an admirable goal, but every time it comes up in the news, there’s always the elephant-in-the-room nature of President Trump‘s own tweets about his political rivals.
And now the White House has put out specific guidelines on how to deal with cyberbullying––one pillar of the First Lady’s “Be Best” initiative––that might only highlight that very discrepancy.
For example:
Talk to your kids about bullying. Tell your kids that they can’t hide behind the words they type and the images they post or send. Bullying is a lose-lose situation: Hurtful messages make the target feel bad, and they make the sender look bad.
Recognize the signs of a cyberbully. Cyberbullying often involves mean-spirited comments. Check out your kid’s social networking pages from time to time to see what you find… Look for signs of bullying behavior, such as creating mean images of another kid.”
It’s very good advice for parents, but that darn elephant…
tfw the advice giving to parents about teaching their children how communicate online … would best be given to the president of the United States https://t.co/AwbCPtKIQ7 pic.twitter.com/kuNHeL3zOG
— Michael Cohen (@speechboy71) May 7, 2018
This too, from Melania's "Be Best" campaign https://t.co/DR2oL7Qluy pic.twitter.com/0XYouuIh6a
— Marlow Stern (@MarlowNYC) May 7, 2018
For example, sometimes you tweet something and it ends up being used by a federal court to rule against your policy… https://t.co/FmFQjdktEZ pic.twitter.com/8PwfP9e7n4
— Elise Foley (@elisefoley) May 7, 2018
"Recognize the signs of a cyberbully. Cyberbullying
often involves mean-spirited comments. Check out your
kid’s social networking pages from time to time to see
what you find." pic.twitter.com/80rSk76PzV— Benjy Sarlin (@BenjySarlin) May 7, 2018
"Talk to your kids about bullying. Tell your kids that they can’t hide behind the words they type and the images they post or send." pic.twitter.com/OWaJWOOifX
— Benjy Sarlin (@BenjySarlin) May 7, 2018
"Could your kid be the bully? Look for signs of bullying behavior, such as creating mean images of another kid." pic.twitter.com/E4Hg56ONPE
— Benjy Sarlin (@BenjySarlin) May 7, 2018
UPDATE –– 5:33 pm ET: So it turns out that this guide is actually mostly comprised of the FTC guidelines laid out in this document under the Obama administration.
[image via screengrab]
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