Friday, July 7, 2017

Where's Melania?

Eight months after Melania Trump announced she would take on cyberbullying as first lady of the United States, some of the nation’s most prominent anti-cyberbullying experts told Mic that neither they nor any of their colleagues in the field had been contacted by Trump or anyone from her staff.

[...]

Continuing the longstanding tradition of first ladies choosing an issue to tackle that helps set the tone for their husbands’ presidencies, Trump made a rare public appearance along the campaign trail in November 2016 to announce that, if her husband Donald were elected president, she would take on cyberbullying to prevent children from becoming the targets of an increasingly mean-spirited America.

[...]

Following the announcement, experts in the field of cyberbullying and online harassment said they made known to the first lady’s office their willingness to work with her to combat toxic behavior on the internet.

[...]

After her stated commitment, Magid told Mic he reached out directly to Trump to work with her on how she could be an effective combatant of cyberbullying. However, he said he heard no response from either the first lady or anyone from her office.

  Mic
That was all just part of the campaign. She doesn't even want to be in Washington. She doesn't mind going on overseas trips, though.
In a statement, the Office of the First Lady defended her husband’s right to smear Brzezinski, stating that “when her husband gets attacked, he will punch back 10 times harder.”

[...]

“We don’t encourage retaliation,” Hinduja said. “That can lead to a cycle of violence. It doesn’t lead to a resolution if you simply respond to harm with more harm.”

[...]

Anti-cyberbullying experts agreed that this was the wrong tack for anyone to take — let alone someone who had announced a commitment to ending cyberbullying.

“This comment was worse than silence,” Magid said. “If Melania considers herself a spokesperson for cyberbullying, the first thing she has to do is retract that statement.”
Not gonna happen, and that's a big "if".

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

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