User:Milliem92/Cyberbullying

"Cyberbully" redirects here. For other uses, see Cyberbully (disambiguation).

For the Wikipedia guidance essay, see Wikipedia:Cyberbullying.

Cyberbullying or cyberharassment is a form of bullying or harassment using electronic means, 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 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). Bullying or harassment can be identified by repeated behavior and an intent to harm. Victims of cyberbullying may experience lower self-esteem, increased suicidal ideation, and various negative emotional responses, including being anxious, frustrated, angry, or depressed.

Overview

Cyberbullying is in many cases an extension of already existing traditional bullying. Students who are bullied via the Internet have, in most cases, also been bullied in other more traditional ways before (e.g., physically or verbally). There are few students who are bullied exclusively over the Internet; these cyber victims are often physically stronger students, which causes bullies to prefer online confrontations over face-to-face contact at school.

Awareness in the United States has risen in the 2010s, due in part to high-profile cases. Several US states and other countries have passed laws to combat cyberbullying. Some are designed to specifically target teen cyberbullying, while others extend from the scope of physical harassment. In cases of adult cyberharassment, these reports are usually filed beginning with local police. The laws differ by area or state.

Research has demonstrated a number of serious consequences of cyberbullying victimisation. Specific statistics on the negative effects of cyberbullying differ by country and other demographics. Some researchers point out there could be some way to use modern computer techniques to determine and stop cyberbullying.

Other research has suggested an uptick in cyberbullying during the COVID-19 pandemic when many youth and adults were quarantined at home and, as a consequence, online more often than before the pandemic. For example, a study of adults published in the Journal of Social Psychology identified statistically significant increases in pro-cyberbullying attitudes, as well as in cyberbullying offending behavior. However, another study involving over 6,500 Canadian youth in grades 4-12 did not find higher rates of cyberbullying involvement. The authors speculated that this might be a result of closer monitoring and involvement of online activities by parents while their children were at home.

Internet trolling is a common form of bullying that takes place in an online community (such as online gaming or social media) in order to elicit a reaction or disruption, or simply just for someone's own personal amusement. Cyberstalking is another form of bullying or harassment that uses electronic communications to stalk a victim; this may pose a credible threat to the victim.

Not all negative interactions online or on social media can be attributed to cyberbullying. Research suggests that there are also interactions online that result in peer pressure, which can have a negative, positive, or neutral impact on those involved.

Definitions

Spam

Spamming is the act of creating multiple accounts, and sending mass amounts of messages to a target-especially despite being blocked. A common situation where spam can occur is after a breakup. If one partner is obsessive, they may send their ex multiple messages through multiple means. This can include social media, email, and fake accounts. This is often despite being blocked. The article What Can Police Do About Harassing Texts? states, "Keep in mind that harassment of any kind is illegal and includes in person, over the phone, via text messages, through social media, or any other method. Some laws are in place about cyberbullying that are designed to protect the public from this happening."

Impersonation

Impersonation is the act of pretending to either be the victim or another person. If the offender pretends to be the victim, they may say or do things to hurt the victim's reputation. This can include hacking into a Twitter account and posting harmful tweets. One famous example is when Sony Music's Twitter account was hacked and posted the following statement: "Britney spears is dead by accident! we will tell you more soon. #RIPBRITNEY." Britney Spears was, in fact, alive and well.

Doxing

Doxing is the act of disclosing a victim's personal data, which can include their home address, phone number, real name, and other things that are private. Doxing can happen when fans in fandoms with large fanbases often go too far when protecting their idols and enter the realm of cyberbullying. Extreme fans of the music genre "K-pop" sometimes dox fans of rival music groups. This specifically was shown in an incident where fans of the group BlackPink doxed the owner of a Twice fan account, sending him to a hospital. This is allegedly because a member of the group Twice disrespected a member of the group BlackPink.

Sexual Harassment

Online sexual harassment, using means of cyberbullying, typically is committed by men targeting young females. Sextortion, a form of sexual harassment, is the act of coercing a person into sharing intimate images before threatening to release them unless money is paid. It is a specific type of blackmail. The line between sexual harassment and cyberbullying is blurred.

Aldyn C (only identified by his first name due to Dutch privacy laws), a 38-year-old Dutchman, harassed 39 people in the context of sextortion. 34 were women and five were gay men. One victim, 15-year-old Amanda Todd was blackmailed by Aldyn to send pictures of her chest. She committed suicide after he published the pictures. Aldyn threatened he would send his victim's explicit pictures and videos to family and porn sites if they did not comply to his demands. Aldyn was arrested and sentenced to 11 years. He pleaded not guilty to 72 charges, many of which were sexual-related.

Often, teenage boys will blackmail their girl classmates for nudes, threatening to release embarrassing information. They also use revenge porn and release nudes of girls to get payback. This was the case when a 16-year-old student of W.F. West High School in Chehalis exploited more than 100 victims, many of which were his classmates. He owned over 900 photos and videos of victims.

Cyberstalking

Cyberstalking is a form of online harassment in which the perpetrator uses electronic communications to stalk a victim. This is considered more dangerous than other forms of cyberbullying because it generally involves a credible threat to the victim's safety. Cyberstalkers may send repeated messages intended to threaten or harass, and they may encourage others to do the same, either explicitly or by impersonating their victim and asking others to contact them.

This can be a combination of most of the other methods in order to stalk someone using electronic means. This can include finding the victims location, harassing them with spam, or using sextortion. An example of this situation occurring is when Paris Deshaunte Evitt, a 30-year old from Tulsa cyberstalked one of his former partners. A news article on it states, "Between October 2018 and continuing until October 2020, Evitt used email, Facebook, and text messages to control and threaten the victim. However, his abuse of the victim had started years before. Between 2012 and 2019, Evitt was convicted on 5 different occasions for physically abusing the victim including strangulation, assault, and interfering with reporting. Evitt was also on state supervision at the time of the current offenses.""(The unidentified victim) explained that Evitt had destroyed her sense of security and became emotional when she discussed Evitt’s statement that he would rather see her dead than happy. She also stated, 'the longer he is away from my children and I, the more time we have to try and heal and move on with our lives, if that is even possible.'"

Trolling

Internet trolls intentionally try to provoke or offend others in order to elicit a reaction. Trolls and cyberbullies do not always have the same goals: while some trolls engage in cyberbullying, others may be engaged in comparatively harmless mischief. A troll may be disruptive either for their own amusement or because they are genuinely a combative person. Trolling can include insults, false news, or in this case, terrorist threats.

An example of this is when the Infamous Roblox troll, Ruben Sim (real name Benjamin Simon), has been banned from the popular game Roblox. This ban was court ordered, and Sim was ordered to pay Roblox $150,000 before the case was settled. "The court’s judgement 'permanently restrains the Defendant (Simon)' from 'Making, publishing, or re-publishing false threats of terrorist activity relating to Roblox; Knowingly making false statements of fact about Roblox; Glamorizing or encouraging violence against Roblox, its employees, or facilities;' and more." "Simon is also barred from 'accessing the Roblox Platform other than those public portions of the Roblox website that do not require an account to access,' and must stay 100 feet away from any Roblox office or facility, as well."

Famous Cyberbullying Cases

There are many famous cases of cyberbullying online. Although most people may not realize it, these internet "memes" actually show cyberbullying in action.

Greatest Freakout Ever Videos

Although it is not clear on whether the videos were faked or not, this YouTube series made a big impact on YouTube and the internet as a whole. The first and most famous video of the series aired on May 9th, 2009. It shows 15-year-old Jack Quire (username "wafflepwn") secretly filming his older brother, Stephen, have a temper tantrum after their parents cancelled Stephen's World of Warcraft account. Stephen does many embarrassing things, including taking his shorts off and attempting to stick a tv remote up his butt. According to tvtropes.org, "Over the span of twelve years, the series is now over 40 videos long and has garnered over a total of 551 million views." Stephen is now known exclusively for his temper tantrums.

Star Wars Kid

Uploaded in 2003, the star of the video, Ghyslain Raza (a 9th grader at the time) is shown messing around and waving around a golf ball retriever as if it is a real Jedi lightsaber. He was helping his friend parody the movie "Star Wars". The video was uploaded to YouTube a few months later by Raza's classmates without his knowledge or permission. The video blew up and because one of the first viral internet memes. The video accumulated 900 million views.

Despite trying to protect his privacy, Raza was mocked both online and in real life. He was body shamed, doxxed, and told to commit suicide, among other things. Students at school leaped onto tables to mock him, and his video was parodied on multiple shows including South Park. Raza had to move schools multiple times, and became homeschooled. He was harassed for years over a video he did not upload. Today, he is working on a documentary talking about his internet fame and the harassment that came along with it. He wants to focus on internet privacy and consent.

Ethical Cyberbullying

Controversially, some internet users use cyberbullying for "ethical" means. Some reasons include justice for victims, activism, and persuading/scaring politicians. Committing moral actions for immoral causes is commonly seen in the realm of activism.

Anonymous Hacker Group

see: Anonymous (hacker group)

The Hacktivist group "Anonymous" uses cyberbullying tactics for activism. Its users are anonymous, even to each other. They have doxed numerous politicians and vandalized numerous governmental websites. Recently, they have doxed Supreme court justice Clarence Thomas, who was instrumental in overturning Roe v Wade (protecting rights to abortion). His Pornhub account has been posted on the database Doxbin.

The announcement posted on Anonymous' TikTok account (which is now banned) on April 11th, 2023 stated as follows, “This is a message to the GOP from Anonymous. We gave you warnings. We gave you time to adjust your actions to meet the wants and needs of the people. In that time you have used the majorities you hold in states to expel members of Congress. You passed laws to inspect transgender children’s genitalia. You have overstepped, and now we can share what we did with that time. Anonymous has a dark web database where information is posted to the world and the collective…. We are going to call this dark web database ‘the bin'...Remember, human rights and civil rights are not negotiable.”

Vigilantism

YouTube account "Scammer Payback" creates videos hacking into scammers' web cameras and doxing scammers. He posts the videos to YouTube, exposing them, revealing their identities, and humiliating them. He uses some cyberbullying methods to get justice, such as doxing and trolling. His bio reads, "Scammers are ruthless, and that is why I am here. My channel is all about bringing awareness to this critical problem with humor and fun. We will learn a lot of things along the way and if I help one person through this, it will be worth it."

Predator Catchers

Some internet users pose as children online in order to catch online predators, child sex trafficking rings and pedophiles. One such user is Roo Powell, who poses as a 15-year-old girl online in order to catch sex offenders targeting children. She is the star of the show "Undercover Underage," which documents her experiences exposing pedophiles and working with law enforcement. She is the founder of the nonprofit organization SOSA (Safe from Online Sex Abuse). Powell educates children on the dangers of online predators and talks to them about how to practice online safety.