Teen Girls are becoming racist Virally?

What is happening to young, sweet high school girls these days? This is why social media ethics should be taught in schools. I am not trying to give extra stress to the teachers in schools but as time passes, teens these days need to know what Not to say on the internet and be taught that there are limitation to freedom of speech. 

While I was in school back in 2003-2007, we weren't told anything about not being plain dumb on the internet. That's because back then, internet was a peaceful place where people come together and connect. I don't remember owning my own camera or laptop while I was in school and certainly, even my first notebook, it was plain basics without a webcam. I remember being hooked to the computer for computer games like 'The Sims' but I don't remember being hooked online other than logging on to my mail-less hotmail account, chat slightly on msn or a chatroom call Q-somthing(the chatting place that goes 'oh-ou'), and friendster. It was so simple back then. 

I was reading through David Mcmillan article on "How to ruin your life in 14 minutes", I was overwhelmed and immediately felt the urge to create an awareness on this issue. Trust me, I am the one person who doesn't like it when my parents keeps reminding me to be careful on my blog/facebook/twitter. To me, I felt that I am informed well enough after going through 4 years of hardcore communication or media classes. With the ethics knowledge running through my mind 24/7, I naturally twice on certain blogpost/pictures/videos that I put out there. 'Do I want them to know that I did this?, Will anyone be insulted if I put this up?'  Even with that, sometimes, I still do make mistakes. Though, most of the time, if I am able to put it online, which means I don't mind what others will think because it's who I am and I am okay with that. 

As I'm writing this, I can't help but to think of  most bloggers/people will probably say "Argh, enough of the pep-talk already, I know all that's to know about the ethics online!" While you may already know or are aware about this, keeping it to yourself won't do justice for those who don't know or doesn't bother to know. We wouldn't want to wait until it is too late for them where they will be shadow cast by one regrettable and truly disastrous social media fail for the rest of their life. This scar will never fades off no matter how much vitamin E oil you use. 

The girls you see above were forced to dropped out of High School and received numerous death threats, death threats from all around the world I believe. Can you believe their whole life is being re-path to the road less taken (in a bad way). What can they do now? Home-school until everyone forgets? Whatever it is, lets hope for the best for them because is a waste to see beautiful young girls life being thrown into the drain.

It's true that we need to broaden this conversation of social media ethics which includes anyone who uses or is affected by social media (Don't try to avoid, you reading this is included). David Mcmillan listed 5 key points of ethics that needed to be address (source: read his article here or continue reading, I'm listing it down for you from his article)

At the end of the day, what kept me wondering is why exactly did these girls did what they did? Why did they wanted to post these awful comments up on youtube? Were they really unaware about the possible consequences or just simply seeking for attention? Were they really bored of their life? What is it and why? I personally don't believe that it is because they have low self-esteem or insecure, it is no longer the 80s, teens are more complicated these days. 

What are your thoughts on this? I would love to hear them. :) Feel free to comment.