‘Burn Book’ upsets parents, students
Cyber-bullying is a huge deal nowadays. Then when a Facebook page was started which is solely targeted at ridiculing teens, some folks inside the Overland Secondary school community immediately wanted it stopped.
“It may be the racial slurs. It’s the sexual overtomes, the profanity,” said Sherri, a parent of a student at Overland Senior high school in Aurora.
In order to avoid further ridicule, we agreed not to use Sherri’s last name and identify her daughter only as “Michaela.”
“They posted that stuff about me that we feel a little bit victimized,” Michaela said.
The page, that has been nicknamed “Burn Book,” features pictures of students from Overland. Attached to the pictures are inflammatory comments placed the secretive owner of the page officially titled “Overland Book.”
“It takes real big onions being anonymous,” Sherri said sarcastically.
Other students adding towards the comments. Not only does the page celebrate bigotry, it bashes gay students, offers threats, and merely plain bullies kids whose pictures were posted around the page.
“The fact that it’s the school’s logo on it,” Sherri said, “so ugly, just absolutely ugly.”
“It’s making our school look worse than it is,” Michaela said. “We already have kind of a poor reputation.”
Tustin Amole, spokesperson for that Cherry Creek School District , says administrators have dealt with issues like this before.
Amole released this statement: “The Cherry Creek School District advises parents to monitor what their children do on the internet and their use of all social networking. When issues are taken to our attention, we investigate to determine whether district policy continues to be violated and notify police associated with a criminal activity.
“We continue to assist our students to understand the need for respect in face-to-face interaction, but also that the same hurtfulness is brought on by indirect communication about others as with social networking.”
Sherri says what makes matters worse is the fact that she feels helpless.
“I couldn’t contact anybody. Nobody would send me an email back,” Sherri said. “There’s no chance to delete anything once it has been posted.”
Simon Axten is a spokesperson for Facebook. He responded via e-mail that his company takes matters such as this very seriously.
“The safety of the people who use Facebook is really important to us,” Axten wrote. “We have strict policies that prohibit the posting of content that bullies or harasses.”
Axten stated that Facebook will investigate this matter immediately and could go ahead and take page down entirely.
“While only a small percentage of individuals is ever going to experience bullying on Facebook, we’re concerned with any abusive behavior and have made these efforts to advertise an atmosphere where everybody on Facebook can connect and share comfortably,” Axten wrote.
Meanwhile, other students have created a counter website called “Overland Cool Kids.” This page focuses on sharing positive comments about students.
“That was, really nice,” Sherri said.
Michaela says it did help heal a few emotional wounds.
“It helped me feel better, but I am not sure about other people,” Michaela said.
Sherri hopes Facebook will require action and chuck the ball book at “Overland Book.”
“If this site does end up being deleted, another one will appear somewhere,” Sherri said.