Everything, Everything

If the teachers are being bullied by kids and can't do anything about it, what hope do the other kids have? Teachers have been calling for tougher restrictions to be put in place to prevent them being targeted by online bullies. They claim offensive videos of them being abused, bullied and derided by pupils affect their ability to command respect in the classroom and causes them pain. Perhaps they should practice what they preach; or is this a frank admission that all the bullying advice that teachers give to pupils is just a load of crap and there's nothing that they can do?

The education secretary Mr Alan Johnson will tell delegates at the NASUWT conference in Belfast that web providers have a "moral obligation" to cut offensive videos of people being attacked, harassed or ridiculed. But if you ban videos of people being attacked, harassed or ridiculed, videos that violate copyright laws and all pornographic content, what exactly are you left with on YouTube et al? I can't help think that tackling the problem of bullying is what needs to be done, not attacking web providers for allowing such user content to be distributed. Johnson claims that by removing the platform, it'll blunt the appeal, but there's always going to be somewhere online where this sort of content will appear. All you'll do is drive it deeper underground, or onto servers in countries where they can't be touched.