I agree with the sentiment that sites like YouTube shouldn’t be closed down, however, they also need to act in a way so as to be seen to be not condoning/glorifying such acts of violence. Allowing such clips to be posted on You Tube and peer sites, allows the perpetrators and their cohorts 30 seconds of fame and adds to the idea that bullying is OK. Its no more OK than allowing child porn on the internet, it satisfies the same base urges, its immoral. Moderate the sites and put out a firm message that such clips won’t be tolerated. The incidence of bullying will decline. Showing incidents of brutality and humiliation is providing the Bully with a platform to gain kudos; it simply incites Bullying. YouTube also have a responsibility to report violent crime; these are violent assaults, some as serious as GBH, to the Police. Abdicating responsibility for permitting it to be shown, makes them complicit in bullying. Allowing it to be shown increases footfall; the sites gain financially.

Zoë Lynch, Hampshire, UK

Why no weather report from Jerusalem? Who would that information offend?

Mike, L.A., USA/ CA

Bullying generally only takes place in a group bully context., where the bully can be admired by fellow bullies for bravado in inflicting humiliation on others.

On their own such bullies are usually extremely vulnerable, if not to a physical lesson, certainly to ridicule.

It could be time for new dedicated webistes. Bullies.com? and Nameand Shame.com?

Such sites might have stock animations of virtual authority figures such as ex-sgt-major borstal staff or sharia-law practitioners dealing with miscreants to append to the image of known bullies, doing their stuff..

Although the correctness-fixated might frown, there could be scope for a youth military training section to have a wider social remit in this regard.

dr venables preller, Warminster, UK

the headline in question (bnp)was taken from the daily mail and is true.

Paul Slater, Liverpool, England

The "to be" is redundant. Thanking you GCromey

Gordon Cromey, Leeds , Yorkshire

Taking a sideways look at the Facebook ad issue, I thought that we had legislation in the UK that forbids commercial organisations turning down business if offering services to the public. So, if the BNP approaches someone providing advertising services, and they cannot refuse, should there not be a reciprocal requirement to prevent others taking business away from an business if they don't like their other, unavoidable, customers?

Does the legislation actuall apply to British based advertising companies in this way? Or do Political organisations not count as part of the public for this purpose? Are there safeguards to prevent the sort of scope for unscrupulous practice that could arise?

Oh, and banning U-tube et al? Sure, don't let anyone over 30 look at it. I'll readliy give it up to make sure my children are left to get on with their generation's world

Avana Beach, London,

Many people who post these clips don't ask permission from their subjects.

How would you feel if someone took a video of you changing for sports and posted it on youtube, perhaps with some skillfull editing. Before this technology you would find out who it was and least could give them a good hiding - now they can be totally anonymous.

These sites do get away with stuff.. e.g. Ebay could stamp out many of the attacks - by only allowing mails through its internal mail system. That way they could filter bogus ones out... But that requires responsibilty and effort. Better to forward mails onto original mail accounts where it sits with bogus phishing emails - not their problem.

Personally I would welcome someone suing (if possible) youTube...

Terry, london,

Melanie McDonagh's article August 8th - I'm sick to death of reading article after article over the years, from women banging on about NOT breasfeeding. I never see articles from women who ARE breast feeding. So here I go - I did breast feed both of my children, I did so not to annoy anybody who didn't want to or couldn't do so, but just because I could. It worked for me, my circumstances were right, it suited both me and my babies- I never bought a bottle or formula they went straight from boob to trainer cup with absolutely no problems. Why should I feel guilty about that? The problem is that your type of article tries to influence people not to breastfeed, makes it sound as if to do so is not a modern womanly thing to do in 2007. You are wrong! we all should do what we want and are able to do. NOT breasfeeding doesn't make you a bad mother, just as breast feeding doesn't make me (in your words) a human version of Dairy Crest. You didn't do it, that's your choice,get over it!

Chris Oldfield, Chester, Cheshire

Maybe this is just a crazy idea - but instead of banning sites like YouTube, we go after the bullies themselves? We could put a posting of the bullies being hounded and ridiculed by an authority figure.

Maybe we could support the kids that decide to stand up for themselves and others, rather than the usual PC cop-out of punishing them for daring to show some backbone.

Blaming everyone but the bullies just reinforces the power they have over their victims.

Dan, London,

"We mustn’ t be bullied into closing down YouTube"

I guess you haven't seen the foul language/racism used by more than 65% of it's users. However, if it was moderated it can be good fun.

Mohammed, London, UK

I incline more towards the National Front website, particularly the Gardening Page.

Andrew Milner, Karuizawa, Nagano

If a web site's administrators do not have a proactive, pre-emptive approach to filtering content, then that web site is potentially more likely to be harbouring drive-by viruses (especially sites which allow "widgets" as the current crop of social networking sites do), and therefore to pose a real danger to visitors. The virus writers currently seem to be honing their techniques on smaller and more obscure community sites, but it's only a matter of time before they hit the big names in force.

This is probably a better reason to be worried about such web sites than whether or whom the content is bullying.

ian Kemmish, Biggleswade, UK

Ban it. What type of society do you want? Chewing gum is banned in every school I know. Look under the desks.

Roy Davidson, Stornoway, UK

everyone should wear masks in school in case a person gives someone else a bullying look

Dave Winchester, london, England

I'm less concerned about people intimidating YouTube than I am about people beating others into having serious life-threatening injuries. If it's okay to post people being hospitalised on YouTube, and if things which happen in the real world can happen online, does this attitude extend to rape, terrorism, etc? I bet not. So clearly we need to ban all glorification of crime, and close down any website which will not take action to prevent material glorifying crime being uploaded.

Wayne Nigel Senior, Dewsbury, England

What next? Ban pens and paper because they are used by bullies to write threatening notes?

Rich, Birmingham, UK