"Growing Up Online" Reaction

"The average man does not want to be free. He simply wants to be safe" -H.L. Mencken, though nowadays it seems that this saying is reversed: the average internet user does not worry about being safe; he simply wants freedom.

A common theme between the various "Growing Up Online" stories is that the internet, when unsupervised by adults, is a dangerous place filled with hazardous information, a sort of Anarchist's Cookbook of the twenty-first century.

This theme certainly holds true for the story about Ryan, the victim of "cyber-bullying" who committed suicide after visiting a suicide-aiding site. While blocking the bullies from instant messaging him may have helped, the fatal flaw of the internet in this case was providing detailed information and diagrams on suicide and nooses, which Ryan used to end his life. If the government regulated such sites, based on the fact that these sites encourage suicidal tendencies, perhaps this child and many others, past and future, would have been saved.

Until, like Ryan's father said, we have "that same accountability" as when we are out in public, the internet will remain a place of largely unbounded freedom. While freedom is desirable, there needs to be more regulation and accountability for those people who abuse that freedom, making it an unsafe environment for others.