Bullied Australian boy to donate $475,000 to charity

SYDNEY -- An Australian boy with dwarfism whose distress from bullying became a viral video will donate hundreds-of-thousands of dollars in donations to charity rather than a trip to Disneyland.

The clip of 9-year-old Quaden Bayles showed him crying and repeatedly saying he wanted to die after being bullied at school, sparking an outpouring of support from around the world.

The video was watched millions of times and prompted US comedian Brad Williams to start a GoFundMe page that eventually raised almost $475,000 (P24 million).

Although the funds were meant to send Bayles and his mother to Disneyland, his aunt told Australia's NITV News that the money would be used for charities instead.

"What kid wouldn't want to go to Disneyland, especially if you have lived Quaden's life. To escape to anywhere that is fun that doesn't remind him of his day to day challenges," she was quoted as saying.

"But my sister said 'you know what, let's get back to the real issue'. This little fella has been bullied. How many suicides, black or white, in our society have happened due to bullying."

"We want the money to go to community organizations that really need it. They know what the money should be spent on, So as much as we want to go to Disneyland, I think our community would far off benefit from that."

Australian actor Hugh Jackman and NBA player Enes Kanter were among the hundreds of thousands posting support for Bayles.

source: news.abs-cbn.com

Instagram moves on online bullying with pop-up warning

WASHINGTON, United States—Instagram on Monday announced new features aimed at curbing online bullying on its platform, including a warning to people as they are preparing to post abusive remarks.

"It's our responsibility to create a safe environment on Instagram," said a statement from Adam Mosseri, head of the visually focused social platform owned by Facebook.

"This has been an important priority for us for some time, and we are continuing to invest in better understanding and tackling this problem."

One new tool being rolled out is a warning generated by artificial intelligence to notify users their comment may be considered offensive before it is posted.

"This intervention gives people a chance to reflect and undo their comment and prevents the recipient from receiving the harmful comment notification," Mosseri said.

"From early tests of this feature, we have found that it encourages some people to undo their comment and share something less hurtful once they have had a chance to reflect."

Another new tool is aimed at limiting the spread of abusive comments on a user's feed.

"We've heard from young people in our community that they're reluctant to block, unfollow or report their bully because it could escalate the situation, especially if they interact with their bully in real life," Mosseri commented.

A new feature called "restrict" that is being tested will make posts from an offending person visible only to that person.

"You can choose to make a restricted person's comments visible to others by approving their comments," Mosseri added.

"Restricted people won't be able to see when you're active on Instagram or when you've read their direct messages."

The move by Instagram is the latest in a series of actions on cyberbullying by social networks to deal with hate speech and abusive conduct, which can be especially harmful to young users.

source: news.abs-cbn.com

Netflix movie 'Bright' sends anti-bullying message

TOKYO, JAPAN – Netflix’ newest movie not only seeks to entertain as it also sends a powerful message about bullying.

“Bright” is set in an alternate version of present-day Los Angeles, where humans live alongside supernatural beings like orcs, elves, and fairies.

The movie also marks the reunion of lead star Will Smith and director David Ayer, who last worked together in “Suicide Squad.”

Smith said he was able to experience “a very different social paradigm” in his role as Daryl Ward, a human police officer who is racist against orcs.

“The elves are at the top of society, they’re the rich people that have everything. And the orcs are at the bottom of society. They’re the people that everybody looks down on. So humans are in the middle,” he said in a press conference at The Ritz-Carlton in Tokyo.

“In playing [that role], I learned a lot, looking at the racial and class divides from that angle in a science-fiction film,” he added.

In “Bright,” Smith stars alongside Joel Edgerton, who takes on the role of the earnest orc cop Nick Jakoby.

Bullied all his life by humans, elves, and even his fellow orcs, Jakoby seeks to make a name for himself as a police officer and was tasked to work with Ward (Smith).

Edgerton hopes that through his character in “Bright,” he is able to represent “everybody who is judged, bullied, and mistreated when all they want is to be judged based on their actions and merits.”

“When I read the script… I was very hooked,” he said. “I became very much in love with the character of that orc who is bullied by everybody. I felt like the whole script was saying something about bullying en masse, like bullying other cultures, religions, and groups.”

Ayer, for his part, said he wanted to use “Bright” as “a great opportunity to make a movie with a message in it.”

“Bright” also stars Noomi Rapace and Lucy Fry, who portray the elves Tikka and Leilah, respectively.

The movie is available in Netflix worldwide.

source: news.abs-cbn.com

Bullied teens twice as likely to bring weapons to school

One in five teens are victims of bullying, and these adolescents are about twice as likely to bring guns and knives to school than peers who aren’t bullied, a U.S. study suggests.

Researchers examined how high school students answered three survey questions: how often they skipped school because they felt unsafe; how often they got in physical fights at school; and how many times they were threatened with a weapon at school.

“High school students who reported being bullied on school property within the past 12 months were not at increased risk for carrying a weapon to school if they answered ‘no’ to all three of these questions,” said senior study author Dr. Andrew Adesman, a researcher at Steven and Alexandra Cohen Children’s Medical Center of New York in Lake Success.

“Importantly, students who said yes to all three of these physical safety/injury questions were at the greatest risk for carrying a weapon to school,” Adesman said by email.

For the study, researchers analyzed survey responses from a nationally representative sample of more than 15,000 students in grades 9 to 12.

Overall, about 20% of participants reported being victims of bullying at least once in the past year, and about 4% said they had brought a weapon to school in the past month, researchers report online November 27 in Pediatrics.

Only 2.5% of the teens who were not bullied brought weapons to school, the study found.

But about 46% of bullying victims who also reported skipping school, getting in fights and getting threatened by somebody else with a weapon said they had brought a weapon of their own to school.

Victims of bullying were more than four times as likely to skip school as students who weren’t bullied. When bullying victims did skip school, they were about three times more likely to bring weapons to school than teens who weren’t bullied.

Bullying victims were more than twice as likely to get in fights at school, and when they did get in fights they were about five times more likely to carry weapons, the study also found.

Teens who were bullied were more than five times more likely to be threatened with weapons, and when this happened they were almost six times more likely to bring guns or knives to school.

The study wasn’t a controlled experiment designed to prove whether or how being bullied might influence the odds that students would bring weapons to school.

Another limitation is that researchers relied on teens to truthfully report on their experiences with bullying and weapons, and some youth may have been reluctant to admit they carried weapons, the authors note.

It’s also possible that other factors beyond bullying might have influenced teens’ decisions about carrying weapons to school, said Melissa Holt, author of an accompanying commentary and a researcher at the Boston University School of Education.

“Findings from this study do not directly address motivations for weapon carrying,” Holt said by email.

“They do suggest that bullying victimization alone is not necessarily associated with increased risk of weapon carrying, but rather other individual (e.g. peer aggression experiences) and contextual factors should be taken into account,” Holt added.

Still, those three questions about skipping school, fighting or being threatened might be a useful screening tool for finding kids at risk of carrying weapons, Adesman said.

“The three simple screening questions can help us better identify which students are most likely to carry a weapon to school,” Adesman said. “School personnel, parents and healthcare providers need to be attentive to why some students may be reluctant to attend school and we need to evaluate circumstances whenever a child gets into a fight or is threatened or injured at school.”

source: news.abs-cbn.com

Obesity, heart disease linked to childhood bullying

Victims of childhood bullying are more likely to be overweight or obese as adults and have a higher risk of developing heart disease, diabetes and other illnesses, according to a study by British psychiatrists.

Researchers found that just over a quarter of women who were occasionally or frequently bullied as children were obese at age 45, compared to 19 percent of those who had never been bullied.

And both men and women who were bullied as children had higher levels of fat around their middle -- a known risk factor for heart disease.

"Bullying is bad for your physical health, whether you're a man or a woman," said Andrea Danese, who worked on the study at the Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology & Neuroscience at King’s College London.

Louise Arseneault, who led the research, said its findings should remind teachers, parents and carers to think about the victims, not just worry about how to stop the bullies.

Bullying is characterized by repeated hurtful actions by other children, against which the victims find it difficult to defend themselves, she told reporters. Unfortunately, bullying was "part of growing up for many children", she said.

"We tend to neglect the victims and their suffering," she added. "(Yet) for some children, they will be marked for the rest of their lives."

Arseneault's findings, published on Wednesday in the journal Psychological Medicine, come from the British National Child Development Study which has data on all children born in England, Scotland and Wales during one week in 1958.

It included 7,102 children whose parents gave information on their child's exposure to bullying at age 7 and 11. Some 28 percent had been bullied occasionally and 15 percent were bullied frequently. The children were then followed up at age 45, when measures of blood inflammation and obesity were recorded.

Besides obesity, the results showed that being bullied also led to higher levels of blood inflammation by the age 45.

Some 20 percent of those who were frequently bullied had high levels of a substance called C-reactive protein (CRP). High CRP raises heart disease risk by increasing atherosclerosis, where arteries get clogged up with fatty deposits.

Danese said the effects of childhood bullying on the risk of poor health in adulthood are relatively small compared to factors such as smoking, diet and exercise, but stressed that because obesity and bullying are both common, tackling them could have a significant health impact.

source: www.abs-cbnnews.com

John Prats denies bullying Melai on set

MANILA – John Prats denied allegations that he bullied his fellow “Banana Split” star Melai Cantiveros, causing comedian Jason Francisco to punch him in the face thrice last March 21.

In an interview with “The Buzz” aired on Sunday, Prats said he never bullied Cantiveros or anyone in “Banana Split” because they treat each other like family.

“We don’t do that here in ‘Banana.’ Tropa kasi kami eh. Kapag tropa normal na nagkakaroon ng asaran. Tinanong ko siya ‘Melai ikaw ba napipikon ba?’ Sabi niya hindi talaga and lambing natin sa bawat isa iyon eh,” he said.

Prats said even Cantiveros herself was surprised that Francisco attacked him.

“Sinabi niya na ‘Kuya John hindi ko talaga alam kung saan nanggaling ang reaction ni Jason na ganun.’ Sobra daw siyang na-shock kasi hindi pa raw sila nakakapag-usap. Dumalaw kasi si Jason that time so tinanong ko, anong nangyari, nag-away ba? Sabi niya ‘Hindi kuya galing ako sa van, nakita ko siya papasok ng Music Museum. Pagpasok ko hindi kami nag-usap at all. He went straight to you at ginawa na niya 'yun,’” he shared.

Prats said it also bothers him that the incidents which Francisco referred to as “bullying” happened two years ago when he was still part of the show.

“Kung kahapon iyon or during that time, maiinitindihan ko. Pero two years ago iyon, umalis siya sa ‘Banana,’ nagkatrabaho kami sa 'Happy Yipee Yehey,' nag-'Angelito' pa kami, saan siya nanggagaling? Bakit ako?” he said referring to the now defunct lunchtime show and afternoon drama series, which both featured Prats and Francisco.

“Ako sa sarili ko alam kong wala akong ginawa sa kanya kaya nakakaharap ako ng maayos sa kanya. That day after the incident, nung tinawag siya ni Jason Gainza, tinanong siya bakit ginawa iyon, sabi niya, ‘Hindi ko alam.’ Nag-snap daw siya. Sabi pa niya ‘Kung gusto mo balik ako diyan, gulpihin ako ni Kuya John.’ It’s not about that. It’s not about getting even,” he added.

Despite this, Prats said he is still not sure if he’s going to file charges against Francisco.

“Parang gusto ko nang magpatawad but 'yung half of me parang ganun na lang ba? Minsan kasi kapag sobrang mabait ka, minsan naabuso ka. Palalampasin mo na lang ba? Magulo pa ngayon. But we are still talking with the lawyers and titignan namin kung anong magandang options. Ayaw ko na pag-usapan but I have to explain my side,” he said.

Meanwhile, Francisco, in a separate interview, said he only wishes to talk to Prats to personally explain his side.

“Kaya ko tanggapin lahat ng jokes, lahat ng pranks basta huwag lang kay Melissa. Parati ko nga sinasabi na iba ang nakakatawa sa pinagtatawanan talaga. Lagyan lang natin ng limit at respeto kasi babae pa din iyan,” he said.

“Bigyan mo ako ng chance na makausap ka. Kilala mo naman ako, hindi naman ako ganyang tao. Alam natin sa isa’t isa kung bakit ko nagawa iyan. Sana bigyan mo ako ng chance,” he added.

Cantiveros, on the other hand, refused to grant any media interviews, saying she only wants this issue to end soon.

source: abs-cbnnews.com

Bullying eases for lesbian, gay teens as they age: study

It does get better for lesbian, gay and bisexual (LGB) youth, with bullying in their early teens fading away as they grow older, according to a study of the name calling, threats and violence faced by teens in England.

Researchers, whose results appeared in Pediatrics, found that while more than half of non-heterosexual teens reported getting bullied at ages 13 and 14, fewer than one in ten was still being victimized six years later.

"This study provides strong empirical support for the idea that it does get better," said lead researcher Joseph Robinson, from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

"Even though you're bullied in high school, chances are you won't be bullied in young adulthood."

But not all the news was good. Gay and bisexual men, in particular, reported that they were still bullied much more often than heterosexual men when surveyed at age 19 to 20. And bullied LGB youth said those experiences contributed to their feelings of depression and worthlessness years later as young adults

The new data are based on a study of 4,135 teens in England who were surveyed every year between 2004 and 2010. Of those, 187, or 4.5%, identified as lesbian, gay or bisexual.

At the start of the study period, when the youths were 13 and 14 years old, 52% of gay and bisexual boys and 57% of lesbian and bisexual girls said they were called names or experienced threats or violence.

Six years later, 9% of non-heterosexual men and 6% of women were bullied.

By then, heterosexual and non-heterosexual women had a similar chance of being bullied, but gay and bisexual men were four times more likely to be victimized than their straight peers.

"Prior studies suggest that the general public has stronger negative feelings toward gay and bisexual males than toward lesbian and bisexual females," Robinson told Reuters Health.

Other experts noted that while the findings supported the idea that teens grow more tolerant as they age, discrimination still existed at aged 18 and 19, especially for boys.

Even when the name-calling and threats of violence had stopped, many LGB teens in the study continued to feel emotional distress, in part related to past bullying.

"There's a lingering effect into early adulthood... from what has happened earlier in life," said Anthony D'Augelli, who studies LGB youth at The Pennsylvania State University in University Park.

"Despite what would appear to be a decrease (in bullying), we should not assume that all is well in the lives of these young people," added D'Augelli, who was not part of the study.

Andrea Roberts, who studies trauma and health at the Harvard School of Public Health in Boston, said that bullying trends have a lot to do with local culture and acceptance of LGB people, so it's hard to know whether the findings would apply elsewhere.

"It would be really beneficial to have this study done in the United States," she said.

source: abs-cbnnews.com