Trisha Prabhu from Illinois heard the stories of teen tragedies involving cyber-bullying, and she was driven to make a difference.
Social media developers haven't done enough to prevent abuse, and Twitter recently admitted this.
I teach social media safety, and when it came to the old adage of 'think before you post', I never felt that the curriculum available to me was reaching the students.
For example, look at how many different versions of this same message abound online:
Don't get me wrong, I agree with it. It's just, as an adult, I can see clearly on a daily basis that even adults have a hard time following these guidelines.
When I saw this post a couple weeks ago on Twitter about a technology that dramatically reduces online bullying, I was thrilled.
Trisha's TEDxTeen presentation is fantastic for high school students.
I'm currently teaching 6th graders, so I edited a version of her talk that removes the graphic details of teen suicides.
Trisha's software is called ReThink, and it simply identifies hurtful messages and asks the person to rethink their message before sending. It's prevented 93% of hurtful messages in trials. It's being developed for desktop and mobile use.
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