Difference between revisions of "Cyberbullying"

Revision as of 01:53, 27 April 2016

Cyberbullying is defined as the use of any technological means of communication, such as email, text messaging, websites, or discussion forums, to intentionally hurt, defame, or intimidate another person.^[1] Cyberbullying can occur in the following forms: a threat of violence, hate speach, harrassment, peer pressure, bribery, psychological abuse or extortion.^[2] As technology immerses itself further into the lives of society, cyberbullying can follow a victim anywhere through cell phones, computers, and other emerging communication devices.^[3] Compared to traditional bullying, cyberbullying occurs because the increased use of technology has made bullying even easier with chat rooms and social networking sites. Nevertheless, cyberbullying is just as unethical as traditional bullying. The ubiquitous nature of cyberbullying has made it into an important social issue and has led to the formation of initiatives such as Stop the Rage and Stop Cyberbullying which were obviously created to prevent cyberbulling from occuring.

An example of cyberbulling in which the bully enters the victim's home and types their insult on Wordpad

Background

While traditional bullying is not a new concern, the emergence of cyberbullying brings to light many new methods of harassment and questions about solutions to stop the hurtful behavior. ^[4] Cyberbullies feel they do not have to face the consequences of their actions in the online environment and often say things they would not normally say in person. ^[4] One environment in particular where the ramifications of cyberbullying can be seen are in schools, and, as any other form of bullying, is most commonly displayed between children and adolescents. This generates discussion of ethical responsibility because the act of cyberbullying does not occur in the school, but the effects are pervasive. Because cyberbullying can be done while a child is at home, it makes the bulling more intense. ^[4]The idea of cyberbullying can also be extended to include hurtful tabloid talk and exploitation of celebrities.

Cyberbullying vs. Traditional Bullying

Anonymity

There was a time when all bullying happened face to face. However with online communities, people can bully anonymously through social networking websites, chat rooms, email, etc. A cyberbully can cloak his or her identity using anonymous email addresses or pseudonymous screen names. Cyberbullying is particularly challenging to deal with because the victim often does not know who is attacking them or why they are being bullied. Anonymity gives users who would normally not be able to defend themselves an outlet to humiliate others, often times without repercussion.

Widespread Occurrence

Traditional bullies have to let their victims see them and can only gain supposed from friends around them. Cyberbullies, on the other hand, can threaten or humiliate their victims without their identity being known to an audience of thousands of people. Using social networking sites, a cyberbully can post stories to a large number of people with minimal effort. There are potentially an unlimited number of witnesses.

Location

It is easier to be cruel using technology because a bully will not feel the repercussions of their actions in a timely manner. They do not get the social cues from the victim, such as crying or pained facial expressions, that let them know they have gone too far. Those around them do not have a chance to ostracize or scold the bully due to the lack of an audience. The lack of normal social cues from others enhances the victimization.

Increased Level of Damage

Cyberbullying is more threatening than traditional bullying because the potential harm of damaging statements is greater. With cyberbullying, victimization is more prevalent and the dangerous effects of bullying are amplified. Cyberbullying communications are difficult to completely delete; they persist online for longer than a vocal jeer made in public. The increased threat is also due to the anonymity associated with forms of cyberbullying. Because the victim does not necessarily know who their attacker is, there is a more realistic threat. In turn, a victim has the same opportunity to lash out at their bully. The equal opportunity to this type of harmful speech continuous the cycle of victimization. ^[5]

Characteristics

Cyberbullies share many of the same characteristics as those of traditional bullies. Both parties are known to have poor relationships with parents or guardians.

Cyberbullies are also more likely to:

• be victims of traditional bullying
• be frequent and daily Internet users
• be involved with harmful substances
• be responsible for other delinquent behavior ^[4]

Motivations

Cyberbullies find many different reasons for their actions:

• protection of another friend under attack
• establishing power by instilling fear
• invincibility through anonymity
• technological manipulation skills
• boredom
• power hungry/abuse
• attack of a weaker peer ^[4]

Platforms

Cyberbullying can occur anywhere technology allows it. Examples include social media sites such as Facebook and Twitter, as well as cell phones, chat rooms, forums, blogs etc. Social media sites stand as the most common instruments employed by cyberbullies to harm their victims. Social media sites, with their sense of anonymity granted as a result of the complex social organization found within them, allows for users to speak up against bullying that they see taking place.

Victims

Victims of cyberbullying are most commonly vulnerable members of the population being examined. They are also commonly the victims of bullying in real space. Victims often experience isolation or exclusion from other peers because of their lack of popularity or other factors. Victims often suffer from depression, anxiety, and low self confidence.^[4] Because of these factors, victims are more likely to experience cyberbullying because they seek attention and/or acceptance from peers and hence are easier to manipulate. They are also apathetic in observing Internet safety strategies, in relying on their parents for guidance or help, and in reporting abusive situations.^[4]

LGBTQIA Identifying Victims

LBGTQIA citizens are most likely to be the target of violent hate crimes in the United States, according to the FBI. ^[6] In a study conducted by the Cyberbullying Research Center, Cyberbullying of LGBTQIA individuals is found to be twice as high as heterosexual youth. ^[7] In addition, four times as many more students who do not identify as hetoerosexual miss school due to concerns of their safety. While many schools have rules and guidelines preventing discrimination on these grounds, there is no Federal law nor policy that explicitly addresses this issue.

Effects

The main effect of cyberbullying is significant emotional hurt. Victims are often driven to the point of emotional breakdowns. Repercussions of cyber-bullying on students in school include: poor concentration, poor class performance, and tardies or absences because of low self confidence, depression, and anxiety.^[4] Because cyberbullies are commonly anonymous, victims can become hypersensitive and paranoid in their environment. ^[4] Some serious documented effects include violence, depression, and severe dysfunction^[4]

In some extreme cases, like with Megan Meier, cyberbullying can lead to suicides ^[8]. This has lead to several prominent organizations, like the National Crime Prevention Council and StopBullying.gov to publish guides on how to deal with cyberbullying and what to do if you're a victim. ^[9][10]

Prevention and Solutions

There are no magic solutions to combat cyberbullying and other threats over the Internet. However, people can take preventative measures to reduce any risk that exsists. On the Internet, there are many public displays of connections. For example, on Facebook, the list of friends people have allows access to friends profiles and then to friends of friends profiles. Keeping friend lists on Facebook accurate and up to date is an important way to avoid unwanted encounters. Cyberbullies seek a reaction from the people they harass. When they fail to get one, they often give up.

Girls and Cyberbullying

Research conducted by dosomething.org found that girls are more likely to be the victims and perpetrators of cyberbullying than boys. Boys tend to engage in more physical bullying while girls engage in bullying that is more emotionally damaging. They bully in more covert and sneaky ways. Therefore, it is easier to bully others behind the screen of a cellphone or computer.

Ethical Implications

Bullying in any form is considered an unethical action. Because of the pervasive nature of technology in people's lives, a very efficient outlet for harassment is created in a technological environment with the birth of social networking sites and other communication portals. Technology progresses faster and easier, but our moral principles are no different from what existed before; rather there are the same ethical issues just on a larger scale. For many victims of bullying, the virtual environment is only another place for them to be bullied. Anonymity online has made it easier for bullies to target their victims because at times they are able to generate fake profiles on multiple social networking sites to target their victims. Technology has also made it easier for bullies to obtain their victims' personal and contact information, making it even easier for them to come into unwanted and threatening interaction with others.

Some people have questioned whether or not cyberbullying constitutes legislative action, and how cyberbullying can be defined as to be precise enough in an ever diverse technological world. With different technologies for virtual communication, cyberbullying can extend to various media. Recently the state of Michigan has signed legislation that would require schools to have a policy for bullying, including cyberbullying. Some critics of the legislation believe that the accounts of bullying in an online environment do not transcend into the offline world.

Some others believe that virtual reality is not actually reality, and therefore, people should be free to act as they please in such environments. For many, it boils down to the fundamental question: should real-world rules apply to virtual realities?

Media Portrayals

Due to the increased media coverage of cyberbullying cases, television networks have taken notice to the rise in this harmful communication. ABC Family produced Cyberbully, a movie about a girl who is victimized on social media sites and almost commits suicide. Through the film, ABC Family and Seventeen Magazine launched the "Delete Digital Drama" campaign. Through this campaign, they hope to shed light on the harm caused by cyberbullying in order to make the bullies reflect on what they have done, and stop.

ABC Family's "Cyberbully"

MTV also their own campaign to end cyberbullying and other harmful types of speech on the web. Their A Thin Line campaign aims to help draw the line for harmful, sexual explicit, and damaging types of speech. The goal of the initiative is to empower America's youth to identify, respond to and stop the spread of the various forms of digital harassment. ^[11].

MTV's A Thin Line campaign

Media journalists such as Anderson Cooper and Perez Hilton are specifically strong advocates for antigay bullying. Both post many articles and segments about gay cyberbullying as well as many resources and links for kids experiencing the bullying.

Cases

Pheobe Prince

After death, Phoebe Prince was still bullied. Her memorial page on Facebook that was dedicated to the Massachusetts teen that had committed suicide, was ravaged by trolls who left spiteful comments that were eventually removed. The 15-year-old teenager was a recent immigrant from Ireland. She was a young girl with a pretty face and was found dead in her home in little South Hadley on Jan. 14, according to police. Afterward, some of her fellow students and classmates spoke out to let school officials know that Prince had been insulted incessantly via text messaging and harassed on social networking sites like Facebook. David LaBrie South Hadley Police Chief denied discussing the details of Prince's suicide out of “respect for the family's privacy.” Many in the community of about 17,000 in western Massachusetts was in shock after learning that Prince had reportedly hung herself. ^[12]

Megan Meier

Megan Meier is a 13 year old girl who committed suicide by hanging herself a few weeks before her 14th birthday. She was humiliated when she was sent hurtful messages through MySpace from a fake profile created by a former friend's 49 year old mother. ^[13] In the aftermath of her death, her friends and family set up the Megan Meier Foundation to "bring awareness, education and promote positive change to children, parents, and educators in response to the ongoing bullying and cyberbullying in our children's daily environment" ^[14]. The foundation organizes speakers to talk to kids about how they can prevent and stop bullying.

Tyler Clementi

Tyler Clementi

Tyler Clementi was an 18 year old student at Rutgers University who committed suicide in 2010 by jumping off of the George Washington Bridge after a webcam video displaying him kissing another male classmate was posted on the Internet. After his death, Tyler Clementi's parents, Jane and Joseph Clementi, established the Tyler Clementi Foundation, which focuses on promoting acceptance of LGBT teens and others marginalized by society, providing education against all forms of bullying and promoting research and development into the causes and prevention of teenage suicide. ^[15] Dharun Ravi served twenty days of a thirty day jail sentence for posting the Clementi video on the Internet. Ravi was also "sentenced...to three years of probation and [is] required...to pay $10,000 to a fund that helps victims of bias crimes and to perform 300 hours of community service." ^[16] The fact that Ravi served any jail time, even just a few weeks, shows that Cyberbullying is becoming a more important topic in the media and can have real world consequences and lasting punishments, including jail.

Chris Armstrong

Chris Armstrong(left) and Andrew Shirvell(right).

In 2010, the University of Michigan's first openly gay president of their student government was the subject of an anonymous blog called ChrisArmstrongWatch, dedicated to exposing the allegedly homosexual agenda he was purported to be enacting at UM^[17]. The author of the blog was revealed to be Michigan Assistant Attorney General Andrew Shirvell, who had been appearing at UM student government meetings to protest Armstrong's presidency^[18] as well as videotaping Armstrong's off-campus residence during parties that he would go on to characterize as "gay dorm orgies," taking innocuous comments from other UM students off of Armstrong's Facebook page to corroborate his story^[19]. Armstrong pursued legal action^[17], and Shrivell was dismissed from his job with the state of Michigan^[20]. The case was resolved on August 12, 2012, with a jury ruling in favor of Armstrong and ordering Shirvell to pay $4.5 million in damages. Shirvell continues to remain unemployed since the incident ^[21]. Additionally, in September 2012, Shirvell's lawyer sought a court order for a mental examination of Shirvell ^[22]. Considerable attention was given to the fact that the office of the Michigan Attorney General had been focused on addressing issues of cyberbullying, which, according to the state definition, is exactly what Shirvell had been engaged in^[19].

"A Rape in Cyberspace" - LambdaMOO

A different form of cyberbullying is when a user attacks another user's avatar rather than the individual. LambdaMOO is an online community where users create avatars and in turn, interact with other players' avatars. In this particular case, a player named Mr. Bungle committed what is now called a "cyberrape." The player who controlled Mr. Bungle found a glitch in the system where it seemed as if other players in the game were the cause of the rape. Many users of LambdaMOO were very upset after the "cyberrape," including some who felt personally offended and some who felt that the player behind Mr. Bungle should be removed from the virtual community. The "rape in cyberspace" case questions who should be held accountable, if anyone, for the emotional harm created among members of this particular community. It also raises questions for where the line should be drawn between real world problems and issues faced in a virtual environment.^[23][24]

Cyberbully Quiz

Stop Cyberbullying has created a test to see whether or not you are a cyber bully and to what degree. You may not know you are a cyber bully because what may seem innocent fun to you can cause harm to others. The unclear definition of cyberbullying makes it hard to convict as well as hard to determine what bullying content looks like. Quiz

See Also

References