I can't think of a bigger target of online bullying than her, especially given the fact that she was only 13 at the time.
In 2017 she wrote about the experience and how, as an adult, she looked back on it. There's so much to learn from that article. (https://www.nbcnews.com/think/opinion/what-i-learned-being-target-internet-hate-age-13-ncna811601)
One of the paragraphs that hit me the hardest was the following:
"Social platforms can really dehumanize the targets of online abuse. For instance, I once met someone who had bullied me online, and she told me to my face that she hadn’t ever considered that I was actually a real, living, breathing human being. Her actions were, she said, all about venting her own sadness and aiming it, sort of ethereally, at me. I can almost understand that sometimes, when someone is in pain themselves, they are not able to comprehend the level of hurt they are causing others. But that doesn’t excuse their behavior, it merely explains where change needs to happen."
The implications are obvious, the lessons are clear, and the required steps are manifest.
Will we hear the message and heed the call?
