From the mailbag:
"Dear Mama Bear,
Last night, my kid had a very obscene message posted to his video. I don't know if it's from someone in his class or maybe just a freak…how can I find out who did it? Whoever it was closed his account.
Anonymous"
Dear A,
Grrrrr.
Mama Bear *hates* cyberbullies (and regular bullies and any sort of bullies and …)
Hugs to you and your son!
The thing about YouTube…even if the account is closed, if the person made any comments on prior videos, they'll still be in the system.
And if you're lucky, you'll be able to find other clues that give an indication just *who* the scumbucket really is.
For example, maybe the person in question will share other user names and tags by which they go.
You can then search on that particular bit of information and see where it takes you. Ideally, you'll be able to connect the dots and zero in on who was behind the cowardly comments.
In this case, Google is your friend!
Search for the user id, and then click on the Cached next to each result – it will show you how that user name was referenced.
There are several YouTube articles about this as well:
- Harassment & Cyberbullying
- YouTube Help and Safety Tool
- YouTube How can I stop Harassment & Cyberbullying?
- Moderating channel comments
Hope this helps! Cyberbullying is horrible; your kid should not have to deal with it. 🙁 And the following videos might be useful too:
Thus speaks…Mama Bear
