Virtual or no there was a person at the other end of the keyboard telling a very influential kid nice things about herself. While I agree that she could've probably had better parenting, it's moronic of you to just blame her and her parents. What about the **** and the **** mother who thought it'd be funny to humiliate a little girl publicly?
The internet is NOT in public. In public is amongst real breathing people.
There were words posted in an artificial environment which is only accessible for those with technology and the inclination to do so.
I do not condone the behavior of the mother who wrote false things online, but the fact is that people lie, and in the absence of proof when dealing with a previously unverified source, nothing that is written can or should be taken as true.
Someone could invent an AI that randomly does this to people. The AI starts chat, gathers information from same, and begins to impersonate a real person. Then an AI could do this same thing to anyone. Only the extremely gullible would fall prey to it.
I think there have been too many safeguards erected by society to the point at which people have been deceived into believing it is normal to abandon common sense. People need to have responsibility for themselves, and make good decisions, and that starts with good judgment taught by parents.
People get passed to the next grade in school without actually getting passing grades. There are guardrails where there used to be none on trails because people have grown careless.
People are becoming more and more disconnected with nature, and are less able to relate to being able to really survive, as in in the wild.
People have forgotten how to think. It used to be, people grow up with good judgment or they get eaten by wild animals or fall off a cliff.
Now people have lost so much of their ability to use logic that they seem to have become so helpless that they need more protection, even from themselves.
I think the public school system, with it's emphasis on memorization instead of logic and ethics is largely to blame.
The fact is, that if this mother does the things she does online, it is HER problem, and only shows how messed up she is. Any person with common sense would see that, and would never be taken in by someone they had never even met in person.
This girl who hung herself did so because she lost touch with the real world so much that she could actually BELIEVE that things said online could be taken as truth without question. THAT was the girl's fundamental problem. It's sad, but I don't think the other girl's mother was responsible for that. The girl's own mother was responsible for letting her grow up so stupid or delusional, or out of touch, what have you. Perhaps irresponsible for her daughter is a better word.
The moral of the story is that people need to take parenting seriously and actualy be involved enough with raising their children so their children have good enough judgement that they would read such stuff by that mother with the healthy skepticism that should have been there.
Her parents are responsible for her lack of healthy skepticism.
There are con men and liars in this world and people need to be raised with good judgment so as not believe everything they read, especially online.
It would be different if the mother had hired someone to become involved in her physical life and spent time with her and maybe even had sex with her and THEN broken her heart. In that case, yes, the mother would bear most of the burden, along with the young man she hired. However, this was just online b.s.
Again, sad it happened, but people need to take time to raise their children right. This was a massive parenting failure. At the very least, perhaps the parents should have monitored her online activity, like having the computer in the living room. What about the: Now, remember, you shouldn't believe anything anyone says online just because they say it talk? Did THAT ever take place? Apparently not.
Sad it happened, but her parents must blame themselves because of lack of due diligence, and absent parenting. They obviously didn't know what they were doing.
