A panel organized by the Carleton University Students’ Association (CUSA) Oct. 24 featured four people focused on tackling the issue of cyberbullying on the Carleton campus and in the larger community.
“I wanted to open up a conversation about cyberbullying on our campus,” said Hayley Dobson, CUSA vice-president (student issues) who organized the panel.
“I wanted to see what we can do as a campus to address it,” she said.
The panel was part of the larger “Speak Out to Stop Cyber Bullying” CUSA campaign which seeks to tackle Internet harassment by asking students to take a stance against cyberbullying and use social media to speak out against it.
While the four panelists agreed cyberbullying is a problem, they also agreed it was merely a symptom of a much larger issue stemming from racism, homophobia, and sexism, among other forms of oppression.
Arun Smith, a student who was the target of a number of threatening image macros over the summer and one of the panelists at the event, was critical of the panel and the larger campaign.
“There was not a concerted effort to ensure that survivors [of cyberbullying] were incorporated into this initiative and I think that does a massive disservice in terms of explaining what the issue actually is,” Smith said.
Yet Dobson said the panel is just the first step.
Grassroots campaigns organized by service centres are imperative to tackling any form of oppression on campus, Dobson said.
The GLBTQ Centre has a campaign to challenge transphobia on campus in the works, Dobson said, but a campaign to deal with homophobia is still forthcoming.
“Our plan is to support [the service centres] with any campaign they come up with,” she said. “We will be working with them in the coming months to develop something to address [homophobia] on campus.”
The issue of cyberbullying is also being addressed at other universities in Canada.
A new study into homophobic language on the Internet was recently launched at the University of Alberta, according to the initiative’s website.
The “No Homophobes” campaign pulls together tweets that contain the words “faggot,” “dyke,” “no homo,” and “so gay,” and targets their authors.
Dobson said she thinks the study, although effective, would be “bullying the bully” and that there are better alternatives.
“A greater way to stop the use of language is through education and through the way that people look at words that they use rather than punishing them for using a certain one,” Dobson said.
“I think it would be more efficient to let them know why it’s wrong and let them learn better ways to express themselves,” she said.
Dobson said a motion was introduced this year that states all councillors must take a safe-space training course by December or else they will lose their seat.
“My hope is that through that action, that proactive approach, that we won’t have to deal with that problem at all,” Dobson said.
