Cyberbullying
What is Cyberbullying?
Cyberbullying or cyberharassment is a form of bullying or harassment using electronic means. Cyberbullying are also known as online bullying. It has become increasingly common, especially among teenagers, as the digital sphere has expanded and technology has advanced. Cyberbullying is when someone, typically a teenager, bullies or harasses others on the internet and in other digital spaces, particularly on social media sites. Harmful bullying behavior can include posting rumors, threats, sexual remarks, a victims' personal information, or pejorative labels (i.e. hate speech).
from Wikipedia
Stakeholders
Cyberbullies
Victims
Social media & Messaging app
Educators
(Schools, Parents, Teachers)
Regulators /
Lawmakers
How does it impact each stakeholders?
Cyberbullies
Positive Impact
They see it as a way to stay popular.
Hurting others makes them feel powerful.
It helps them cope with their own low self-esteem.
They think it will help them fit in with their peers when bully someone together.
The anonymity of the Internet gives them a sense of security.
Negative Impact
They will bring the full weight of paranoia, embarrassment, and feelings of isolation on the victim.
They may have to be fined or go to jail.
Ignorance of the consequences: Because they don’t see victims’ reactions in person, they may not realize how much damage they are doing.
Victims
Positive Impact
They can use social media & message apps to foster their friendships and purse their passions and causes.
These platforms offered them the freedom of expression.
Research on adolescents reported that changes in the victims' behavior as a result of cyberbullying could potentially be positive: Victims "created a cognitive pattern of bullies, which consequently helped them to recognize aggressive people.
Negative Impact
They feel worthless, vengeful, isolated and depressed
Many of them may commit suicide to escape the pain and tormentors.
It will cause critical impacts such as lower self-esteem, loneliness, disillusionment, distrust of people and self-harm.
They can't escape a bully by going home, these platform enable bullies to follow them anywhere.
The content used to harass them can be spread and shared easily among many people and often remains accessible long after the initial incident.
Educators
(Schools, Parents, Teachers)
Positive Impact
Becoming aware of the problems and started to take actions to mitigate.
Negative Impact
Their kids experience anxiety, fear, depression, and low self-esteem. They also may experience physical symptoms, and struggle academically.
Cyberbullying has become harder to stop because parents and teachers are unaware of when and where it is happening.
The signs that someone is being cyberbullied are hard to spot.
Without a law to specifically address cyberbullying, a person has to be charged with harassment or stalking and that’s a very high bar to meet.
Social media & Messaging app
Positive Impact
More and more young people start to use their platform.
Users are using their platforms more frequently, which is good for their ads business.
Negative Impact
Bad Reputations: The public accuses them of not taking enough action to prevent online abuse.
Lose the trust of their users.
There will be more restrictions from regulators on them and therefore slow their business growth.
As they didn't think about how to prevent online abuse at an early stage, cyberbullying become very hard to solve.
Regulators / Lawmakers
Positive Impact
Becoming aware of the problems and started to revise the law.
The growing incidence of online abuses will make them put more energy into this issue.
Negative Impact
What amounts to cyber bullying is often likely to be grey are on social forums.
In some cases, online abuse are more difficult to litigate online. Some states’ harassment laws only cover threats sent directly to the target.
The way that the statute defined cyberbullying – it didn’t just say harass, it also said language intended to annoy and the court said that that language is too broad to kick in and have someone be prosecuted.
What's the relationship between the problem and people, society, business, and planet?
Education - Lack of awareness of cyberbullying
Many cyberbullies not realized of the consequences they made and the harm they brings to the victims without seeing their reactions in person. Schools should develop awareness programs that makes the children aware of their options, as well as laws that enable the schools to act when incidents of bullying and cyberbullying take place. The educators should be educating kids on who they can turn to for help as well.
Anonymity - Anonymity Breeds Courage
The biggest difference between cyber bullying and traditional bullying is that the Internet companies give the offender an extra degree of protection and a sense of security. It also make it hard for victims to identify who is attack them.
Abuse of free speech - Cyberbullying and the Limits of Free Speech
It is tricky for social media companies to balance online free speech and mitigating cyberbullying.
In 2014, New York’s highest court ruled that a “local law” adopted to criminalize cyberbullying violates the First Amendment because it is overly broad in what it restricts.
Privacy VS Saftey - School Districts are monitoring students' social media accounts
Many school districts started to hire firms to monitors students' social media accounts in order to prevent cyberbullying and keep students safe from online threats. Some argues it has violated privacy of students.
Student free speech in schools has long been a subject of intense debate, it's hard to walk a fine line between monitoring potential threats and violating students’ free speech or privacy rights.
