This blog was provoked by Clay Shirkey's chapter on Collective Action and Institutional Challenges in his book Here Comes Everybody and by a remark that was made in a training session I attended earlier this week on Youth Protection. I delve into (really skim) this topic fully understanding the touchiness.
As an employee for a nationally acclaimed youth organization, youth protection is on the top of the list of important subjects for me. Outside of my job, it is still on the top of the list.
As aforementioned, the woman leading one of my training sessions this past week made a remark that I found ignorant, if I'm going to be honest. It went something to the tune of, 'Youth protection is becoming a real big issue these days. Times have changed and people aren't being raised the way they used to, like them good 'ole boys.' She continued on a little longer like so, but you get the point. My jaw dropped, 'How can she or anyone believe that?'
The thing is, most people don't even realize the vast social impact that Web2.0 has made. Back to Shirkey's chapter, he writes on two different cases of sexual abuse between a Catholic priest and (several) youth, pointing out the affect that Web2.0 had on the two cases.
The first (mentioned in the book) occurred in 1992 where "Rev. James R. Porter was accused of sexual abuse of children in three different Boston parishes." The scandal was publicized and brought before a court of law (notably many years after his service as a priest). He served in three parishes where he continually abused youth, wrote a note to the Pope that said 'I'm sorry I've been a bad boy, I don't want to be a priest anymore, let me get married and settle down,' and they let him! The greater issue at hand was the Catholic church's reaction to his deeds, quietly passing him along from parish to parish and quietly dismissing him. Families and youth were hurt, calling out to be heard, trying to make the Catholic system aware, but they did nothing.
The second instance, Shirkey notes, takes place in 2002 where sexual abuse accusations against the Catholic Father John Geoghan are publicized. Voice of the Faithful (VOTF) was formed as an activist group in the basement of a church and grew exponentially. People were pissed, not only because of the obvious situation at hand but because of the Catholic church trying to brush things under the mat again. The Catholic Church kicked the group out of the church basement and forbid VOTF to meet. But this is the neat part, thanks to Web2.0's involvement in the modern affair, they still met and grew even more. Although there were attempts on preventing physical meetings they found alternative locations and chatted with communities online through the tools Web2.0 provided. Geoghan was charged and sentenced (at a much faster rate) and the Church was faced with their issues more so than before.
Obviously, these situations have been abreviated and I'm 100% sure that they aren't 100% correct. Point is,
technology and more specifically Web2.0 provided a means for people to communicate, share and broadcast their ideas and issues with Geoghan's case. The Church could not prevent them from meeting and sharing the story. Bringing it back to what my instructor said in her training session and taking from Shirkey's chapter, problems with youth protection have been happening for years, decades, centuries, hell...forever. It's not a new thing and it's not happening more than usual. Only recently in our history have we been able to create communities so quickly and cheaply to spread these and issues. Now, all it takes is a post, tweet, blog, whatever it may be, to signal aggression and people are at (almost) immediate attention.
I hope to encourage thought and discussion. Who knows, maybe recent generations have been "raised worse" and we're all doomed.
Source:
Shirky, Clay. "Collective Action and Institutional Challenges." Here Comes Everybody: The Power of Organizing without Organizations. New York: Penguin, 2008. 143-60. Print.
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