A cyberbully is someone who bullies using electronic devices such as computers, tablets, and cell phones (“What is Cyberbullying”, n.d., para 1). The victim is the person targeted by the bully or cyberbully. Bystander(s) in bullying have a few roles, they are the ones that watch, but do nothing, watch and join in by laughing or making comments, observe the behavior and walk away, or try to help the victim out (Kids Involved in Bullying, n.d., para. 2). Bystander(s) in cyberbullying are the ones that see the text messages, emails, social media posts, pictures, and videos, but do not forward them onto their contacts.
A child or young person may find cruel messages or pictures about themselves and having their username stolen to spread lies or rumours about someone else. Techniques used by a cyber- bully involves setting up websites to target certain individuals and inviting others to post hate comments about that person. • A child or young person may unknowingly download viruses and malware; a programme that can attach itself to another programme, if this is opened through a spam email it can then damage or create files and generate unwanted behaviour to your computer. • Young people also use mobile phones to send images of themselves to their friends or publish them on the internet, once that image has been published then the sender has lost the power as to what happens to it, it may then be used in contexts other than what it was originally intended for. • Even more seriously they may be groomed by individuals or paedophile rings that use the internet and mobile technology to identify and target potential victims.
Children and young people are at risk of bullying when using the internet, mobile phone and other technologies as it provides an anonymous method of bullying by way of text messages and emails which can be emotionally damaging to a child or young person. Racist, anti-social and cult groups use modern technologies to preach and spread what they are and what they stand for, leaving children and young people very venerable to becoming part of their activity which is unhealthy, unsafe and often illegal. Children and young people are very venerable to predators of all natures using the internet and other technologies, by the encouragement of giving out personal information about them and others close to them, which will put not
There are many reasons to worry about it. This social media is hurting our society in such way that it causing harm to one’s privacy, it disseminates misinformation, and effect on student’s grade. It is clear that social media is hurting our society by putting one’s privacy and security at risk. In the article “Teens Privacy Is Threatened by Social Networking” author Peter Bazalgette said, “Can you truly delete entries from social networking sites with the confidence they no longer exist on a server somewhere? You cannot” (Bazalgette p.1).
Examples are instant messaging, text messaging, blog, emails, etc. cyber bullying through proxy is when the bully gets someone else to do their dirty work. Cyber bullying by proxy is consider the most dangerous type do cyber bullying because adults often get involved and majority of the time the adults are unaware that they are bullying a child. Statistics says that nearly 46% of kids have been bullied online. 70% of students report seeing bullying online.
Anonymity One of the factors explaining the rise of cyber bullying is anonymity. Social networking sites provide the bullies with the ability to remain anonymous. However, this allows cyber bullies with the opportunity not only to exploit but also manipulate the vulnerable identities of teenagers. The mask of anonymity on the internet has become common and it has become impossible for victims to deal with their bullies directly face to face. People have the opportunity to construct one’s identity on social networking sites such as Facebook and My space.
Individuals can select a range of coping mechanisms when they endure cyberbullying. Victims can block bullies from contacting them through various means (Campbell 2005). Sufferers can change their identification on networking sites such as switching passwords, online identity, e-mail addresses and deleting anonymous text messages to terminate potential bullying from happening (Juvonen & Gross 2008). If perpetrator continue to annoy the innocent, the one who is affected can take further actions to prevent themselves from reading hurtful messages or the rumours spreading online. Seek help from a friend, inform parents, teachers or the more experienced can be alternatives (Cassidy et al., 2009).
Privacy is slowly corroding, and all this information can be obtained from any social networking site. Young adults who are struggling to find themselves can face some level of identity crisis. He or she may become involved in drugs or criminal behavior, which could result in negative circumstances. Many young adults find themselves in possession of an identity characterized by these rebellious behaviors. They claim to be non-conformist to show that they're different from their peers.
“Cyber bullying include mean text messages or emails, rumors sent by email or posted on social networking sites, and embarrassing pictures, videos, websites, or fake profiles” (what is cyber bullying, n.d.). One of the hurting cyberbullying stories is Jessica Logan was an 18-year-old Sycamore High School senior who sent nude photo of herself to her boyfriend which was rapidly through hundreds of phones in at least seven Cincinnati-area high schools after the couple broke up and the cyberbullying continued through social network as Facebook and Myspace till the teen hanged herself up in her closet (The cyberbullying story, 2011). Cellphones and computers are not to be blamed since they could be entertaining devices that could connect friends but these tools are also capable to hurt people, so the user chooses which way to use the device. Cyberbullying have lots of effects on teens since they could start taking drugs and alcohol addiction, have lower self-esteem, skip school, and receive low grades. Cyberbullying is different than any other crime since it is easy to do, it could reach a person even if he/she is alone on any day and any time through a message or a picture that could be distributed to a large number of people with several minutes and impossible to know the source, and very difficult to delete after its been posted on any
Paper on Cyberbullying Texts(articles): Nina Lakhani: “One in five children is victim of cyberbullying” Aleks Krotski: “Hate and the Internet” Jan Hoffman: “Online Bullies Pull Schools Into the Fray” In the first text, we are introduced to an article describing the current situation in cyberbullying. The writer Nina Lakhani describes how cyberbullying has become an extremely viral phenomenon and how this type of teenage cruelty hasn’t been present until now due to the lack of technology. She explains why this is a serious threat to young people, due to the intensity of the bullying which is caused by the fact that teenagers are not able to isolate themselves from the bullying. Surveys have also concluded that the impact is much greater than with regular bullying because of how it can spread out to the rest of the world in however long it takes load a picture. Nina ends her article with three cases of cyberbullying causing the victim to commit suicide.