Pictures of drunken youth published on Finnish-Swedish Internet site

Local schools have blocked access to pages maintained by youngsters from Vöyri

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Many schools in the Swedish-speaking Ostrobothnia region in Western Finland have closed off the Internet pages hosted by boys from Vöyri, where the youth have been able to send party photos of their drunken and passed-out friends. The www.berusad.org site, which was opened in August, has over 3,000 registered members.
      Images of intoxicated youth passed out on a bathroom floor are a common site on the berusad ("drunk, wasted" in Swedish) pages.
      "The youth like to party and they enjoy watching images of wild revels", argues 20-year-old Tom Israels, one of the maintainers of the site. He feels getting stoned and legless is something that brings youngsters together.
      "Nobody is encouraged to experiment with alcohol; not those underage, not even the grown-ups."
     
According to Israels, an article in the Swedish-language daily Vasabladet alerted the parents. On Friday morning Israels decided to remove all the images.
      Israels denies any responsibility as the administrator of the site.
      So far, no reports of an offence have been filed on account of secretly taken images of intoxicated minors.
      Pornographic material was not published on the site.
     
Psychologist Saara Kinnunen explains that feelings of emptiness, loose family ties, and loneliness arising from the Finnish melancholy can drive teenagers unconsciously towards self-destructive behaviour.
      The threshold of shame is crossed when "nothing else matters".


Links:
  Berusad (site in Swedish)

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