By CASEY NEILL
A FACEBOOK page promoting violence in Dandenong has attracted almost 1000 likes in two days.
The Journal is choosing not to name the page, which local high school students created on 12 May.
They are encouraging people to send them photos and videos of fights “from anywhere near Dandenong” to publish on the page.
Clinical psychologist John Jakupi runs South East Counselling and said such behaviour was unfortunately very common.
“Social media is a way for especially young people to get a sense of identity, to get attention,” he said.
“Part of it is the ‘look at me’ culture.
“That’s interspersed with the ‘violence is cool’ message.
“If you mix those two together you get lethal cocktail.”
Mr Jakupi said violence had always been part of life.
“But the degree of violence has become far more explicit and people are becoming a lot more desensitised to it,” he said.
“Social media’s a great way to push the envelope.”
Mr Jakupi said the page needed to be removed quickly and those responsible punished to send a message that the behaviour was unacceptable.
“If it drags on for a while, bad press becomes good press,” he said.
“The people who set it up won’t hear that message because they don’t care.
“I’m more concerned about the message it would send to 8-year-olds, 9-year-olds.
“They need to see a consistent message that this is never acceptable.”
