Last week, pictures of Justin Bieber smoking weed at a party surfaced on the Internet.A disturbing new trend surfaced on Twitter today as a result of this. You might have heard about it already, its called #cut4bieber. Originally thought to be real, this is a hashtag where people, supposedly teenage girls, have been posting pictures of their cut wrists in protest of Justin's actions, saying they will continue to cut themselves until he stops smoking. It turns out that it was actually a prank started by a website called 4Chan. Some people on that website created fake Twitter accounts and posted pictures of cut wrists. This was created to be some sort of sick prank, an attempt to “get some little girls to cut themselves." Hopefully their prank wasn't successful and didn't cause any kids to actually cut themselves, but its unclear which pictures are real and which are fake. This prank, besides having a terribly mean hearted motive, is just so disrespectful to the real issue of self harm going on with kids today in the real world. People are even starting to parody the hashtag, posting pictures of their wrists with ketchup smeared on them. This is making the real issue of self abuse into a big joke. Many people are now speaking out about all of this, calling it completely disgusting and disrespectful to people that really have these problems. This issue should never be taken light heartedly, and should definitely not be used as a prank to get kids to really cut themselves.
What, if anything, do you think should be done about this? Should Justin Bieber come out and do/say something himself about the matter? Should the website that started the prank be closed down, or would that be a breach of freedom of press/speech? When people are doing things this terrible, disrespectful and dangerously influential online, when can action be taken without inappropriately suspending civil rights?
No comments:
Post a Comment