Lifeline or Noose?

The U.K.-based group CyberMentors have complained that television stations have refused to air the ad above for their anti-cyberbullying organization. Their website emphasizes their live chat services, although they admit that "Beatbullying has funding to keep our BACP-accredited counsellors online from 8am-10pm," although "you will mostly find CyberMentors and Senior CyberMentors online until much later, often until midnight."

Of course, the question I find myself asking, as sympathetic as I might be to the parents who founded this organization after the death of their daughter, is if this ad only reinforces the idea that the web is harmful to teenagers and brings abuse into their homes, despite the fact that there are teens who use Internet websites as a way to escape abusive situations and define what is normal in a separate realm from a dysfunctional home.