Cyberbullying is not a game

Cyberbullying is bullying that takes place using electronic technology. Electronic technology includes devices and equipment such as cell phones, computers, and tablets as well as communication tools including social media sites, text messages, chat, and websites.

Cyberbullying has become increasingly common, especially among teenagers. Harmful bullying behavior can include posting rumors about a person, threats and sexual remarks, disclose victims' personal information. Bullying or harassment can be identified by repeated behavior and an intent to harm. Victims may have lower self-esteem, increased suicidal ideation, and a variety of emotional responses, retaliating, being scared, frustrated, angry, and depressed. Individuals have reported that cyberbullying can be more harmful than traditional bullying.

Types of Cyberbullying:

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

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 disrupt either for their own amusement or because they are genuinely a combative person.

Why Cyberbullying is Different

Kids who are being cyberbullied are often bullied in person as well. Additionally, kids who are cyberbullied have a harder time getting away from the behavior.

• Cyberbullying can happen 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, and reach a kid even when he or she is alone. It can happen any time of the day or night.
• Cyberbullying messages and images can be posted anonymously and distributed quickly to a very wide audience. It can be difficult and sometimes impossible to trace the source.
• Deleting inappropriate or harassing messages, texts, and pictures is extremely difficult after they have been posted or sent.

Effects of Cyberbullying

Cell phones and computers themselves are not to blame for cyberbullying. Social media sites can be used for positive activities, like connecting kids with friends and family, helping students with school, and for entertainment. But these tools can also be used to hurt other people. Whether done in person or through technology, the effects of bullying are similar.

Kids who are cyberbullied are more likely to:

·        Use alcohol and drugs

·        Skip school

·        Experience in-person bullying

·        Be unwilling to attend school

·        Receive poor grades

·        Have lower self-esteem

·        Have more health problems

Which leads us to another topic called Online Shaming:

Online shaming is a form of Internet vigilantism in which targets are publicly humiliated using technology like social and new media. Proponents of shaming see it as a form of online participation that allows hacktivists and cyber-dissidents to right injustices. Critics see it as a tool that encourages online mobs to destroy the reputation and careers of people or organizations who made perceived slights.

Online shaming frequently involves the publication of private information on the Internet (called doxing), which can frequently lead to hate messages and death threats being used to intimidate that person. The ethics of public humiliation has been a source of debate over privacy and ethics.

Public shaming: The social networking tools of the Internet have been used as a tool to easily and widely publicize instances of perceived anti-social behavior. After some controversial incidents of public shaming, the popular link-sharing and discussion website Reddit introduced a strict rule against the publication of non-public personally-identifying information via the site (colloquially known on Reddit and elsewhere as "doxing" Those who break the rule are subject to a site-wide ban, and their posts and even entire communities may be removed for breaking the rule.

Types of public shaming:

Doxing

Doxing involves researching and broadcasting personally identifiable information about an individual, often with the intention of harming that person. This can often lead to extortion, coercion, harassment and other forms of abuse. On February 1, 2017, Reddit, a social news website, has banned two alt-right communities’ doxing and violating Reddit community guidelines.

Revenge porn

Nonconsensual pornography is a form of sexually explicit recording publicized on the Internet in order to humiliate a person, frequently distributed by computer hackers or ex-partners (called revenge porn). Images and video of sexual acts are often combined with doxing of a person's private details, such as their home addresses and workplaces. Victims' lives can be ruined as a result, the victims exposed to cyber-stalking and physical attack as well as facing difficulties in their workplace should their images become known as a result of routine checks by employers. Some have lost their jobs, while others have been unable to find work at all.

Negative reviews

Products frequently attract negative reviews on Goodreads, Amazon and other online commerce websites.

In many cases, users of Yelp write reviews in order to lash out at corporate interests or businesses they dislike. During the Chick-fil-A same-sex marriage controversy, activists encouraged a consumer boycott of Chick-fil-A and left negative reviews of the site's locations on restaurant rating websites after the founder declared that corporate profits would be donated to political causes opposing same-sex marriage in the United States. In 2015 an Indiana pizzeria was swarmed with negative Yelp reviews after the owner said it wouldn't cater gay weddings. Similar reactions have frequently followed bakers refusing to make cakes for gay weddings. After Cecil the lion was shot by an American recreational big-game hunter, his business was flooded with negative reviews.

Government shaming

Various governments have used "name and shame" policies to punish tax evasion, environmental violations and minor crimes like littering.

In the end don't be afraid of being cyberbullied and report them