Warning: NSFW audio
Videotaped Florida Teen Beating Prompts Calls To Block Violent Content — Video — InformationWeek — What is the logic of blocking violent content if it gets these idiots busted?
The parents of a Florida teen who has lost her hearing and sight after she was attacked by other teens want video-enhanced Web sites like MySpace and YouTube to stop allowing users to post videos of such beatings.
Six other teens reportedly beat 16-year-old Victoria Lindsay on March 30, recorded it, and threatened to post the video on the two top visited sites. The local sheriff is also calling on the Web sites to stop allowing users to upload videos of beatings.
The teen has not fully recovered her hearing and sight one week after the videotaped beating, according to reports in The Ledger, in Lakeland, Fla.
What is wrong with these people? Where are the parents?
Sad, I can’t watch it!!
This world is getting sicker everyday .Such hatred,when will it stop?
I’m all for blocking violent content. On TV. In movies. In real life. I realize that is a pipe dream and that it is unconstitutional in the USA, but considering that so many governments take such strong actions to block sexual content which is not violent at all, we have to at least look at our world of double and triple standards before we puke.
I don’t know what disturbs me the most, that these kids beat-up this girl or the fact they recorded it. I’m glad their being tried as adults. I wonder if their parents could also be held accountable.
Violent video’s should be treated like any other==post everything and wait for complaints. I think that would “balance” all the competing interests and provide a law enforcement link as well.
The girl is having quite a rough spot in her life, but I thought, wow–cat fight, very weak punches. Chick was lucky she wasn’t a guy and pissed some brothers off by posting negative material on their blogs. She would be a bit more worse off.
As the father of two girls (5 and 7) this makes me very worried. The fact that she was lured away some place and then ganged up on was very unnerving.
That said, going after companies like Youtube, MySpace, etc is not the answer. The answer is being a better parent and teaching your kids right from wrong. This attack happened in someones home! Where were the parents? No one knows, they were gone. These kids were able to coordinate over at least a day or two this attack and no one was supervising or involved in any of their lives enough to do something to prevent it. If at least one parent, just one, had enough interest in their kid’s life and a good enough relationship that the kid trusted them it could have been stopped.
The logic behind banning these postings, is that the beatings are driven by them. It’s imitative behavior.
Young girls are much more violent (physically and mentally)then boys. They are little sociopaths.
The logic behind banning these postings, is that the beatings are driven by them. The kids see the vids online and imitate the behavior to make their own postings. The more there are, the more normalized it becomes – it will keep mushrooming.
To throw my hat in the ring, I absolutely agree with everyone here except #3. My fear is that Youtube, etc. will start to censor these postings. Because of this posting, the girls are caught, will be tried, and the parents – specially those who own the house where the beating happened – will be on the hook for negligence and possibly aiding and abetting.
Posting or not does nothing toward preventing the criminal act. All that posting does is catch the criminal. I expect the victim of the crime would be all for posting because of the deep satisfaction gained by having the criminals caught and tried. That’s how I would feel.
Watching the hypocrites on the Today show the last 2 days exclaiming how horrible this was and showing the clip over and over, is THE problem. As one lady put it, its about the 15 Megabytes of fame.
@becagle
adam carolla was talking about this today and I have to agree with him that the parents should be held responsible. he mentioned that if you have a dog that goes around biting people it is your responsibility to prevent it. while i wouldnt say that one could directly equate a teenager to a dog, but the principle is the same. especially when it comes to financial responsibility, like if your kid causes a car accident the parent is financially responsible.
if parents were all of a sudden completely responsible for their child’s actions you definitely see an immediate spike in the number of parents that were put into jail because of this, but that would be followed by an equally immediate plunge in the number of parents being locked because they would see the consequence of letting their kids run wild.
way I see it I am responsible for every action of my child financially and legally until they reach the age of 18. It is my job as a parent to take the time to teach them right and wrong and instill good moral qualities on them
I also don’t agree with #7. Additionally, I don’t entirely agree with #2 on one point. Although I believe America is having problems, don’t get confused between things being worse in actuality and just seeming worse.
“Worse in actuality” means that more crimes are actually being committed, while “seeming worse” means more crimes are being reported.
The rate of many types of crimes apparently have been going down, but registering and reporting those crimes is increasing, giving the appearance that the crime is worse today than yesterday.
Case in point: Catholic Priest Pedophilia. It seems like this problem just exploded in recent years, but a closer examination reveals that this has been an ongoing problem since who-knows-when and the only thing which changed was public attitude and willingness to address this problem.
And so on…
So, nobody really knows if things are worse in actuality or just in perception.
Something to think about…
Hmm.. I always thought having evidence was a good thing? Am I wrong? Lets sue youtube for providing the evidence to lock those little bitches up!
she’s probably lucky she wasn’t murdered.
they’ll probably all get off with community service or something.
To put a corollary on my previous comment, the more people know about the crimes being committed (this video being a good case in point), less tolerance and more action can be taken against it.
This is also why I believe posting these videos is important.
These types of attacks have been happening for way too long, but in secret and silence. When people are unaware of the problem, the problem goes on. When the problem is exposed to the light of day, then people can work on a solution.
I wondered how long it would be before YouTube, etc were blamed.
The fact is these girls are obviously f**ked up in the head and would probably be involved in some sort of appalling behavior regardless of whether it appeared on YouTube or not.
Also, if it was banned from YouTube, there are plenty of alternative methods of digitally distributing it, is the solution to stop all forms of digital communication? I think not.
So…just to get this straight… The video didn’t make it on YouTube because the police got involved. Yet it’s perfectly legitimate for every news station across the country to show the video with the victim’s face blurred and simultaneously pose the question of blocking the same video from being posted online?
Sorry, but that silly face blurring/whiteout didn’t change anything. Sure it took the girl’s face off the video, but you still see the violence everyone keeps talking about. Bottom line is, old media only pretends to have respect for the victim and in the end they got a “bleeding” lead story.
#8 – The logic behind banning these postings, is that the beatings are driven by them.
You are using a very liberal definition of logic in that statement.
The perpetrators should be declared non-human and euthanized like the rabid animals that they are.
#8–Some Guy===I recall when knuckle draggers said the same think about books. Then movies. Nice to see society progress and stay the same all at the same time.
Certainly, a few are motivated by all sorts of things including 15 Megabytes of Fame on U-toobe.
So the “real” question is one of evaluating the trade-offs. Summing up the good and bad of all the different factors. We can all do that rather than spot the single issue that squeezes our gonads–right?
Anyone read the user comments on the news site linked in the story?
We are a nation of Jerry Springer guests.
#19 – That’s for being an example of what I said in #21
They could earn a fortune by selling it as porn to the Japanese.
Many kids have had to deal with bullying and violence in schools and on the streets long before there was YouTube or MySpace. Usually it goes largely unnoticed – and those attacked are ignored.
The video getting posted on YouTube just made it easy to track down those who committed the crime. If they hadn’t made a video, those responsible might not have been held accountable. If there hadn’t been a video, the parents of those kids might not even believed their kids were capable of such things – now they know and have to deal with that reality and their own responsibility for this mess.
Given how old the girls are in this video, it’s likely too late to teach them any sense of ethical behavior that they obviously lack – more’s the pity.
Time to bring back electroshock torture therapy.
What ever happened to fighting back? This “victim” would not be one if she were taught to fight back and defeat the enemy. Do more damage to thy antagonist than thy antagonist do to you. We apparently live in a nation where the bully rules and we all quiver for fear of the police. This video would have saved her from any bad charges, unless of course the person videotaping ran away. We must teach our children to defend themselves and not cower in the corner like this young lady did. I am saddened that she just stood there and accepted the beatings. Lots of opportunities to fight off her harassers, take one down and the others will flee. That is what gangs do. They flee when the top dog is taken out. Learn from it!
this type of thing has been going on forever. seemingly nice and normal people can be far more brutal than you would ever expect. i saw my fair share of violence of this type in my teenage days (far, far behind me, and no, i wasn’t an instigator). the difference is it often gets recorded these days, and we have new technology which allows for free and easy worldwide distribution.
if my generation had grown up with the technology we have today, we wouldn’t have been any more violent, and you wouldn’t have seen any less of it.
the fact that they recorded this and put it on youtube is a good thing. it’s good insofar as it provides evidence by which these kids can be held accountable for their actions. this kind of behavior needs to be punished and discouraged. in my day if this happened to you, there wasn’t as much chance of it being recorded and prosecuted. it was your word against theirs.
as for punishing their parents for negligence, or, as #9 suggested, abetting, or bringing them up on any criminal charges at all is patently ridiculous. other than fiscal responsibility (e.g., the parents or their homeowners’ insurance paying for medical bills), sending a parent to jail for something that their kid did on all their own is a step backward, not forward. the parent goes to jail and the kid goes to foster/state care? oh, that will improve things. and which parent is responsible? is it the overbearing mother that beat the child when she was 7, or the coddling father who let the child get away with everything (or vice versa)?
these kids are old enough to know that what they are doing is wrong. my daughter is 11, and i’m a strong influence in her life. she’s well behaved. however, she is an individual and makes her own decisions, hopefully, but not necessarily, informed by the morals and values that i try to instill in her. when she is out of my reach and makes a bad decision, i should be held accountable? and on her 18th birthday that responsibility magically dissipates?
if the parents were there, or had any idea what was going on, all of that goes out the window. of course they had an obligation to step in and do something. but, if i’m going to be held accountable for anything my daughter does when she’s outside of my physical control, then the law needs to support me in keeping permanent physical control over her. that means she comes to work with me rather than going to school. that too, of course, is also patently ridiculous.
in situations like this, the mob has far more influence than any amount of parenting or threat of potential reprisal. it’s not a good thing, but it is true. normal people get caught up in pack mentality and do things that they would never do alone.
this video made me, like surely most people who see it, physically uncomfortable. what they did was reprehensible and illegal and should be punished. but, it’s good that it was discovered and can be used to hold these young people accountable for their own actions.
Surprised to see 28 responses so far and no one has hit on the real problem. Bush is the one who is driving this violence. Once he is out of office and impeached, everyone will get along and there won’t be any more fighting.
Humans are animals and things like this help prove it. My species makes me sick all to often.