Police in Alabama say that a group of teenage girls had a fight on Facebook before deciding to meet in a Birmingham park to resolve the situation. The planned fight was going to be videotaped and then posted online.
As the fight began, two teenage boys pulled out guns and started shooting the girls. Two girls were wounded; 14-year-old Kierra'onna Rice was killed. The two suspects, ages 17 and 19, have been arrested and are under questioning. One of the boys was dating Rice, authorities suspect.
This
story is still in its developing stages, and I feel like a lot of information
is missing. Why, exactly, were the girls planning on filming the fight? For
publicity or social media popularity? And why did the teenage boys pull out
weapons and start shooting? This story brings up two very important issues that
we are facing as a modern country today: how to deal with bullying/violence
that arises with social media and technology, and gun regulation. While it is
so hard to manage life on the Internet, perhaps a life would have been saved if
there had been Facebook regulation, or the teenagers didn't have access to
guns.
We
are always advised to be safe online and to think about what we post. I think
this situation brings some weight to these words. It will be interesting to see
what caused the fight. As we become more connected to the internet and social
media, what is said online becomes more of a reality to us. We see more things
critiquing one another online that we hear in person during the day.
I can't fathom why someone would videotape this, and I really cannot understand why they would hurt and kill this girl because of a fight. Obviously there were more problems, but they should have been resolved mode civilly, and there should definitely be more regulations on gun use, and the amount of access teens should have (well, shouldn't have).
ReplyDeleteI feel like the terrible end to this conflict could've been averted if people had been paying attention to social media, but still...
ReplyDeleteI'm always baffled when I see videos like this. Why would someone decide to use their phone for taping a terrible from rather than calling the police or putting away their phone so they could break up the fight? What have we let technology do to us?
ReplyDelete