AMANDA TODD SUICID : A RESULT OF CYBERBULLYING

A 15 years old Canadian girl committed suicide on October 11th, 2012 after explicating her uncomfortable position through a video posted on Youtube. In fact, as she was cyber-bullied, the young women could not fight against harassment anymore.

« I have nobody...I need someone... ». This cry for help started on September 7th by Amanda Todd, in a vidéo posted on Youtube. Since few weeks, the Vancouver teenage girl was talking about was she was living at school but also online. On October 11th, considering that nobody was taking her seriously, and that everybody was still making jokes on her and humiliated her, she decided to kill herself. As a consequence, and as all the country was emu by the young girl’s story, an international debate started.

Amanda was writing her entire story on few paper notes, and showing it to the camera. She explains how she has been into a depression, and then how she arrived drinking alcohol and taking drugs.

In fact, at 12, Amanda met a man through a meeting website. As they were showing each other with their webcam, the man quickly started asking Amanda to show herself naked. Pressure, blackmail, the man was determined to have naked pictures from her. Amanda finally accepted to send videos and pictures, thinking that this man will let her alone after that. But the man shared each of the pictures and videos of the young girl on social media. Here started Amanda’s cyberbullying nightmare. As the pressure on social media was so strong, and as nobody was helping her, but judging her, she decided to kill herself after few years experiencing cyberbullying.

Today, social media are taking such a big room in our life, that we are not always able to find out what really matter. Is making fun with friend about naked pictures of a girl going to your school is more important than this girl’s life ? Was it fair to make her privacy become public ?

Unfortunately, sometimes, some anonymous people decide to make this choice without considering our own opinion. Moreover, teenagers are more a more able to send pictures of them (mostly on snapchat) thinking that these pictures will never be seen by anyone. But some insane people can find these picture and ruine a life so quickly. That is why we all need to protect our intimate life, by being responsible and aware of all risks we can find on internet.

-EVA