StopCyberbullying founder Parry Aftab is not happy about Monica Lewinsky’s attempt to paint herself as the “poster-child of cyber bullying,” blasting the White House intern-turned-celebrity for setting back the anti-bullying movement “years” by making it “all about Monica.”
In her speech this week, Lewinsky said one of the “principal reasons” she broke her silence after all these years was the suicide of Tyler Clementi, a Rutgers University student who took his own life in 2010 after pictures of him exposing his homosexuality were posted online:
"While it touched us both, my mother was unusually upset by the story and I wondered why. Eventually it dawned on me: she was back in 1998, back to a time when I was periodically suicidal; when she might very easily have lost me; when I, too, might have been humiliated to death."
In the speech, Lewinsky blamed the Drudge Report and other media outlets for ruining her life, and with the analogy she drew between herself and Clementi, deliberately attempted to portray herself as a victim of cyberbullying.
The world’s largest cyberbullying nonprofit, however, was incensed by what it says is Lewinsky’s self-serving attempt to insert herself into the discussion, founder Aftab saying the move is "setting us back years":
"I find it a bit insulting to the people who have been cyber bullied to have Monica Lewinsky step out and say she's the poster-child for cyber bullying," said Aftab, whose nonprofit is organized in 76 countries and began in 1995.
Aftab said that Lewinsky's baggage would take attention away from the main issue.
"Look at her interviews — it's all about Monica," Aftab said. "She's setting us back years. She doesn't know what she's talking about."
Aftab also defended the Drudge Report for breaking the story, arguing that Lewinsky became "a public figure and it was newsworthy."



