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Originally Posted by HarryT
Children do seem to commit mass murder with some regularity in the United States, if our news reports are to be believed. Can such threats simply be ignored?
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Not categorically, but it's possible that either the police were never called in, because nobody seeing the threats took them seriously (indeed, we don't have any evidence, even now, that she had any intent or means to kill people), or the police investigated, and identified the situation as "pre-teen kid mouthing off" rather than actual threat.
I'd think that "ignoring" a threat means not considering it at all; I assume that, in this case, the threat was evaluated and the risk deemed to be low, and therefore not worthy of official sanction.
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Obviously that is not a justification for cyberbullying - that's a cowardly act that can never be excused.
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I can think of excuses for it, but this definitely isn't one. There are situations where a person or organization's status and resources has put them outside of any normal censure--I don't have a problem with anonymous tackling the Church of Scientology--but that doesn't make it reasonable to harass and threaten a child. Even a very bratty, vicious child who needs to learn some restraint and manners.
Where the line is would need to be evaluated separately in each situation; there's not going to be a hard-and-fast rule about when it's ethical to bypass normal social conventions to show one's disapproval of someone else's actions.