NEWS / WINDOWS

UK Seeks to Curb Cyber Bullying

11 Apr, 2007, 2:00 pm IST | Priyanka Pradhan | Windows

The UK government has urged Google's video sharing site, YouTube and other websites such as ratemyteachers.com, to block videos of schoolyard bullying. UK secretary of state for education and skills, Alan Johnson, expressed his concern over the increasing number of cyber bullying cases, that have left teachers and pupils distressed.

Speaking at the national conference of the NASUWT teaching union, Johnson said the internet had allowed bullies to prolong the ordeal for their victims by following them into their homes. He also said that this trend has caused many teachers in the UK, to leave the profession.

Advice to tackle such anti-social behavior in school has been published. He urged the providers of websites to take firmer action to block or remove offensive school videos in the same way that they have blocked pornographic content. Johnson said it was also important that teachers who had been subjected to this kind of bullying had speedy and effective methods of redress.

RateMyTeachers website, which has been criticized by teachers' leaders, insists that it does read and moderate comments about teachers and argues 70% of its postings are positive, while YouTube's website says it trusts its users to "be responsible, and millions of users respect that trust".

However, Chris Keates, general secretary of the NASUWT, questioned whether websites such as RateMyTeachers could adequately regulate themselves. Mr Johnson said he would be asking the web firms to join the NASUWT panel, for better regulation of content on websites.

Tags: YouTube , Google , internet , website , cyber bullying , NASUWT , RateMyTeachers.com

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