gk
columbus, ohio
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A disturbing story of a Rutger Student being outed by his roommate through webcam. The roommate and an accomplice are being charged with invasion of privacy. They may also be charged with hate crime.
http://www.cnn.com/2010/CRIME/09/30/new.jersey.student.suicide/index.html?hpt=T1
michaelcoyote
!seabus
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Saw that a few days ago including the posts the roommate put up on twitter about what he was doing. There's a special place in hell for people like that.
Cookie
Flyntonville
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Coy
Discovery District
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Add to that this other disturbing news...
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/09/29/seth-walsh-california-tee_n_744605.html
JonMyers
HCMC, Vietnam ✈
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People can be evil and sinister and the actions of the roommate are just that, evil.
I'm not saying the roommate should not be punished, so please don't pile on me, but I have a question.
Do you all think that it's possible this roommate didn't fully grasp the speed, efficiency and magnitude of damage that his actions would inflict?
Is it possible that he was just a dumb fucking kid?
Guys, gay or straight are tough on each other. Evil and hurtful, but even more so at that age. Now they have tools, which make the spread of that evil efficient even beyond their own expectations.
Just throwing those thoughts out there.
Twixlen
The Weston District
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I am a little surprised there isn't a separate thread on this - but have y'all heard of Dan Savage's "It'll Get Better" campaign? It's been going on for a little while - since that poor kid Tyler, killed himself in his families garage - and he realized that there WAS a way to talk to young gay kids suffering from bullying.
ABC actually reported on the campaign today - http://abcnews.go.com/WN/dan-savage-project-world-news-conversation/story?id=11764984
And, the You Tube videos are awesome. I'd love to see some peeps I know, make one. :o)
Twixlen
The Weston District
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@Jon -
The thing is - if the roommate didn't realize how powerful putting everything out on the Internet was, and using social media to "spread the word," he wouldn't have done it. He knew his roommate was "different" and did what he could to further cull the kid from the rest of the herd.
It DID happen to be over gayness. I can't separate that out. For someone who isn't ready to share that part of themselves with the world, for whatever reason - what those kids did amounted to internet-rape.
I know nothing about it, but I'm betting Tyler experienced a fair amount of bullying in High School - and was probably relieved to have that behind him, and finally be able to explore his sexuality on his own terms. What they did to him was more than a loss of respect - they forgot he was human.
bababoohi
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JonMyers wrote >>
People can be evil and sinister and the actions of the roommate are just that, evil.
I'm not saying the roommate should not be punished, so please don't pile on me, but I have a question.
Do you all think that it's possible this roommate didn't fully grasp the speed, efficiency and magnitude of damage that his actions would inflict?
Is it possible that he was just a dumb fucking kid?
Guys, gay or straight are tough on each other. Evil and hurtful, but even more so at that age. Now they have tools, which make the spread of that evil efficient even beyond their own expectations.
Just throwing those thoughts out there.
Yeah, I absolutely agree with this. When we were kids (I'm an old man, 31) it would take an hour, day or week before something spread through school. Now, with FB, I can post anything I want to 300 people in approx 3 seconds. Not only that, but you get the whole interwebs courage, issues with context and anonymity factor going and things can spiral out of control at lightspeed.
rus
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gk wrote >>
Interesting take on the application of the felony murder rule as applied to this particular case.
http://www.capecodtoday.com/blogs/index.php/2010/09/30/murder-charges-for-video-outing-gay-coll?blog=214
Interesting article. Seems like the felony-murder rule hinges on the idea that the scumbags with video knew or should have known suicide after outing was a foreseeable outcome.
Can't say I've heard of a lot of suicides after outing, but then I don't see why I would. At the very least, it's not unreasonable for the scumbags with video to know or should have known they'd be creating extreme emotional distress... from which, suicide isn't unreasonable.
Hang 'em.
Rockmastermike
The Bacon District
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groundrules
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JonMyers wrote >>
Is it possible that he was just a dumb fucking kid?
clearly he is. i mean, any way you slice it.
but we could say the same of say, dude blowing a stop sign and killing a family in the minivan, or pointing what he thought was an unloaded gun at his buddy. Or a host of other things you do without thinking that have tragic results. Stupidity and age aren't really completely viable defenses. It may effect punishment (intent does play a part at that stage), but whether the he was able to foresee an outcome or not doesn't make him any more or less responsible for his actions.
Twixlen
The Weston District
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So - what they are supposing is that someone who is THOUGHT to have been Tyler posted about a roommate on a website, and because he wasn't hysterically ranting, he wasn't upset? Because, clearly, people only post the truth of their emotional circumstances at all times? Outside of that, is it really likely that some other completely unrelated incident would have happened that would send someone to suicide? W.T.F.
Folks can make themselves feel better in any way they like, but let's not delude ourselves here. If the kid had been making out with a girl, it wouldn't have been fodder.
bababoohi
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Cookie wrote >>
Rockmastermike wrote >>
sad. very sad. The truth is, if the person is a dickwad to begin with, it just gets worse.There's nothing anonymous about tweeting your friends to watch streaming video of your roommate.
I was not referring to this specific case, nor was Rockmastermike (I don't think so at least). I was agreeing with Jon that the methods used to communicate these days allow things like this to go to a whole new level.
Cookie
Flyntonville
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bababoohi wrote >>
I was not referring to this specific case, nor was Rockmastermike (I don't think so at least). I was agreeing with Jon that the methods used to communicate these days allow things like this to go to a whole new level.
Well, yeah. But since we are talking about this case, Dharun Ravi knew exactly what he was doing.
rus
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Cookie wrote >>
bababoohi wrote >>
I was not referring to this specific case, nor was Rockmastermike (I don't think so at least). I was agreeing with Jon that the methods used to communicate these days allow things like this to go to a whole new level.Well, yeah. But since we are talking about this case, Dharun Ravi knew exactly what he was doing.
Seems like they both did.
Ravi and his friend Molly Wei, 18, of Princeton, New Jersey, are each charged with two counts of invasion of privacy for the September 19 broadcast, according to the prosecutor's office. Two more counts of invasion of privacy were leveled against Ravi for a September 21 attempt to videotape another encounter involving Clementi, the prosecutor's office said.
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