Wednesday, April 2, 2014

Always someone else's fault

There's a stupid game out there which involves necking down a strong drink in one gulp whilst on webcam on a dare from friends. It's called Neknominate and as with over indulgence with a lot of things can lead to problems for those doing it, sometimes lethal ones...
Mail.
The mother of one of the girls involved in a drinking game that left a nine-year-old in hospital has blamed Facebook for the shocking incident.
She said the three girls, aged eight, nine and 11, stole drinks from her cabinet after watching videos of so-called Neknominate stunts on Facebook.
They then went to a shed where Rhiannon Scully downed a dangerous mix of vodka, whisky and orange juice.
The woman, who is the mother of the 11-year-old girl and gave her name only as Mrs Leader, called for Facebook to ban videos of Neknominations. Three people have died taking part in the drinking craze.
‘The NekNomination videos should be banned to protect the children,' she said.
‘It is not appropriate for Facebook to have these videos on the site when children can access them, especially if people have died as a result. I think it is ridiculous.
‘In reality children as young as eight are on Facebook and they can see these videos which inspire them. Facebook should stop allowing them from being shared. As a parent it does worry us that they can see these things so easily.
‘While I try and monitor my daughter’s Facebook I can only delete things my daughter writes, not what she sees.’
She said she allowed her daughter on Facebook, where users should be at least 13, to keep in touch with friends after moving to County Durham from Portsmouth.
So the woman allowed her daughter to use facebook despite being 11 and the girl egged on a friend who was 9 and also using facebook and this is facebook's fault somehow? From what I can tell the girls were also unsupervised at the time too and clearly had free access to the internet at the time. You'd think anyone with even a modicum of sense could spot that this was a disaster waiting to happen? Granted there will be youngsters about on facebook, but you'd hope at least that a responsible parent would only allow them access when they are in the same room?
Naturally there are calls for facebook to do something about it, deal with a problem for those who shouldn't be on facebook in the first place.
Naturally there are no calls to actually deal with the parents who allowed the situation to develop in the first place...

4 annotations:

English Pensioner said...

No mention of fathers in any of the reports that I read. Mum must be doing quite well if she has a drinks cabinet with scotch and vodka!

Rickie said...

Naturally there is no mention of the culture of mums and dads in this country getting pissed as often as they can and then repeating the story of the glory of being bladdered as a badge of honour to any tom , dick and harry whilst their children see the pride their parents take in this achievement

Nothing to with Facebook really or being unsupervised, the pissed up culture is here amongst stupid old farts who are mums and dads.

Monkey see, monkey do.

Jim said...

One imagines 70 years ago there were similar people complaining about all these terrible musical discs being made available that encouraged their daughters to dance and consort with men, and all manner of other terrible things. And a few decades prior to that bemoaning the free availability of licentious novels that gave the lower classes ideas.

The technology changes, the people don't.

Anonymous said...

Totally agree.

If you have a potentially dangerous tool in your house, it is your responsibility to ensure that it is not used by your 9 year old children.

Children on computers should be supervised. End of story. I don;t see why we should all have to have our viewing restricted because people can't be bothered with their kids.

I don't think that necessarily the economic situation of the parents is an indicator to thier suitablilty as parents though, EP.

I remember making the mistake, when the story "Maddie" broke, of assuming that this was some lower class single parrent that had left their child unattended while they went on a vodka and coke bender... when as we all know it was a surgeon and his doctor wife with more than a few serious degrees between them as well as around £300,000 a year.

And of course, single parenting has no class either. His Royal Highness the prince of Wales, Duke of Corwall and Rothsway and a few thousand other titles with an income of some £26 million a year, was also a single parent.