Cyberbullying - Yes, it's still a thing

[10cadrienne]

If you enjoy watching comedy on television, then you're probably familiar with Jimmy Kimmel's night show, along with his "Mean Tweets" segments. Here, celebrities, politicians, and other famous figures read mean tweets about themselves, and proceed to laughing about how silly it is.



However, what if students began doing the same exact thing? How would they react to reading harsh tweets about themselves? 

www.buzzfeed.com/candacelowry/kids-read-mean-tweets-and-it-was-super-upsetting#.bfbE2J01a

The Canadian Safe School Network brings this idea to life to show how cyberbullying truly impacts a teenager. 

The article says it all, and summarizes the video pretty well too. 

Here's the link to just the video itself: 

We've all gone over this topic more than once in our lives. We've all had those classroom conversations, lectures, and school assemblies based on cyberbullying. We get it, it's wrong.

So then why do we still do it?

[6kmeagan]

I completely agree. Technology nowadays has only allowed bullying to become a far easier task to accomplish. Many people would never have the courage to make cruel remarks directly to another person's face. To have the ability to hide behind the veil of a computer screen only multiplies the severity of this issue. This generation fails to realize that what is posted online can never be removed and blocked from the world's viewing. Social media posts are written in ink, not pencil. In addition to them remaining online permanently, people tend to forget how quickly such a harsh post can spread like wildfire. The first instinct people have out of regret for posting the first hateful words that come to mind about someone when anything goes wrong is to delete the post. However, the rate at which the post initially spreads is enough to show the amount of damage that had already been done. The only solution is to stop the posting of such negativity to ever move forward from this growing issue.

[6msherena]

To answer your question 10cadrienne, I believe that people still cyber bully knowing its wrong just so they don't have to face the fear of saying what they want in person. I say this because no one really wants to face the person they are saying bad things about. Being able to say what you want online gives a person a sense of safety and assurance that they don’t have to fear in telling the person face to face. Technology really has motivated people to say what they want any time of the day and whatever they want. for example, someone could say really mean things about someone on facebook and allow the world to see but that person. The next day, people will be laughing and talking about that person and the person will never know what was said and feel insecure and depressed. This can result to suicide or murder. There are many reasons to why people sitll cyberbully knowing it’s wrong, but i guess, people do it because its easier and faster to get people to know about it and agree with it.

[3rpamela]

Sadly, cyberbullying has become a routine for some people even if they don't realize it. However, people that usually work in talk shows, etc. are sometimes even justified by other people just because they continue this sort of entertainment. It happens everyday, where people post pictures or tweets and all of a sudden thousands of followers or people commment negative things against the person. The freedom of speech has changed to another level where we are witnessing bullying, even worse, threats,in which many famous people receive most of the time. These talk shows are only making this action okay. Even further, cyberbullying usually comes from people who are low in self esteem and feel the need to bring someone down with them. All they do is a continuity of criticism, disregarding the person's feeling or the idea of treating others the way we want to be treated. You can even say that people seem to forget their morals when on the internet. People say things on the internet as if the person receiving the information is not going to see it or feel anything about it. Therefore, I feel like they only do it to feel accepted and like everyone else "cool" doing it it.

[6djamila]

Many kids in and out of the United States experience cyber bullying on a daily basis. It is a traumatizing experience that stays with children for the rest of their lives. For bullies, who often do not have power in their own lives, it can be an empowering experience to bring someone down and not have to pay the consequences they would have to in person. Besides this, they do not have to watch the feelings of the victim being hurt. It is a lot easier for someone to rag on someone on the internet where they can take on any persona they want. People do it because they can.

[6djamila]

Many kids in and out of the United States experience cyber bullying on a daily basis. It is a traumatizing experience that stays with children for the rest of their lives. For bullies, who often do not have power in their own lives, it can be an empowering experience to bring someone down and not have to pay the consequences they would have to in person. Besides this, they do not have to watch the feelings of the victim being hurt. It is a lot easier for someone to rag on someone on the internet where they can take on any persona they want. People do it because they can.

[6qisabela]

There are even people who don't realize they're cyberbullying which I think is also a huge problem. Having a twitter' account, I see people retweeting posts that humiliate others all the time and they don't think there's anything wrong with it because it has hundreds of other retweets and hundreds of other favorites. I don't think people understand how influenced they are by their peers like even if one other person backs them up, they feel that it's okay that they're treating someone else this way. People seem to think that if they aren't doing anything "extreme," they aren't cyberbullying. But cyberbullying can be considered as any type of public shaming like posting rude comments and can be just as hurtful. I agree that the only solution is for people to stop encouraging this negative behavior.

[10avictoria]

OOH! My heart just died while watching this. Has anyone not heard the saying, if you have something bad to say, don’t say it at all? If it’s going to better someone else’s life then go ahead, but if it’s going to hurt someone like telling another person to bluntly say “go kill yourself”, that is f****d up man. I appreciate that as the video was continuing, the tweets were getting harsher and less of a joke, i think people are well aware of what they are saying to other, but don’t bother to think about how the other person will react to it. Someone may actually go and kill themselves. So people need to think about all consequences and effects of their actions. Even though some jokes may seem funny at the moment, some may react sensitively to them. So watch out what you put out. And don’t be a jerk.

[10solivia]

I will honestly never understand how people can say such hateful things over the internet. It's not cool, it just makes you look like a coward and a terrible person. I guess some people think that it's funny, or they're trying to fit in with a certain group, but they don't realize the effects they have on their victims. Cyberbullies are just extremely insecure. Having the ability to hide behind a computer screen and tear other people down may make them feel empowered. Since cyberbullying is the result of such internal issues, there is no way to really prevent this from happening. What we have to do is stop commending, tolerating, and overlooking it. If you see that someone posted a rude comment on Facebook don't just like it and keep scrolling. Call them out for being a jerk!! Once people realize that what they're saying is not okay and has a much great impact than they might imagine, hopefully cyberbullying will not be as much of an issue.

[3bsaya]

Cyber-bullying is just a way for those who are afraid to say disgusting thing about people. Cyber-bullies don't want to be called out on their actions so they hide behind a screen. That's another thing, that technology has made it so easy for people to make fake identities and imply things about others that may or may not be true. It's almost astonishing how one can be such a coward to actually go out of their way to create fake profiles and post crap about people. If you have beef with someone, either SAY IT TO THEIR FACE or GET OVER IT! There is no reason why you have to be such a wussy and hide behind a screen! It's ridiculous, and once people find out it's worse for you because everyone will know who you are! Also, most people do not deserve the public shame and humiliation that they get. People don't deserve to have their personal life spewed all over the internet.

[6pwallis]

Thats such a good point. Everyone gets that cyber bullying is wrong and you shouldn't do it. However i don't think anyone actually thinks about why people feel motivated to hurts others through social media. After thinking long and hard about this I came to the conclusion that people do it because it is a way to make them feel better about themselves. By putting someone down on social media, you are exposing horrible attributes of people for the public to see. Bullies must think that this is a great way to boost their self esteem with out having to deal with direct confrontation. It's an easy way for people to make themselves seem more superior. We've all heard someone say "oh it will never happen to me." Bullies think that their words won't cause someone to hurt themselves. Except 38% of regular cyber bully victims commit suicide. Is a rude text, worth the guilt you will carry around for the rest of your life, that you killed someone?

[6bmatthew]

Even more disturbing is the tools available to the modern day cyberbully. With only moderate expertise, anyone can launch attacks such as DdoS attacks, d0xxing, or even the most destructive, swatting. D0xxing involves the release of personal information into the public domain, including victims' addresses, phone numbers, email addresses, and even social security numbers. This information can be used by the attacker to do a variety of things. The victim might awake to several hundred pizzas at his/her door. Even worse, he or she might discover that bank accounts have been created in their name. This form of attack can literally destroy someone's life. The most violent and morally reprehensible method of attack available is known as swatting. This is when the attacker uses software to spoof his or her phone number in order to call the police on the victim. The attacker tells the police that the victim has taken his or her family hostage. The police, unwilling to allow the possibility of such a situation, immediately dispatches a SWAT team to the victim's home. The team then breaks into the house like its any other hostage crisis. In this situation, people's lives are in danger. Roughly 20 heavily armed men are now running through the victim's house, ready to meet armed resistance. All of this is possible for even the least technologically savvy bully.

[10mcope]

Cyber bulling as I see it is when one individual harms another individual by the use of technology. This technology is generally in the form of messaging. Messaging now has evolved to more than mare plain text. The social media and entertainment platform has allowed many messaging platforms to coexist. It is actually quite simple, many people cyber-bully thinking that because they are typing on a computer and not saying the things they type to the persons face, it will not cause any harm or it couldn't be considered bullying. In certain instances cyber bullying is simply done as dark joke - “for fun”. However, this is not always the case; cyber bullying is often intended to emotionally harm an individual. In summation, I completely agree. There is no reason for cyber-bullying, or any mistreatment of others for that matter.

[6REmily]

Cyberbullying has been going on for years, mainly because this is a new generation full of new and improved technology, which enables people to access the entire internet and web with just one click and one search. Even though this topic is commonly conversed and lectured about many times in schools and public-awareness organizations, cyberbullying is still taking place in contemporary society. "Why do we still do it?" you ask; Although is has been talked about throughout the news and articles, and brought to our attention through movies and videos, most teenagers still cyberbully because they feel like they are "achieving" something that they wouldn't or couldn't "achieve" through reality, or real life. For example, some teenagers are occasionally bullied in school, and they suddenly have a sense of revenge towards their enemy. Since they are not able to bully their bully back in real life, they are able to bully them on social media by simply creating a fake username and profile photo. This is how the cyberbullying would begin, in order to get revenge. This only pertains to some teenagers, just to reiterate. Another example is that some teenagers bully many people at their schools physically and verbally, and they would intensify the bullying by doing it on social media. This could enable them to get popularity and get the victim noticed and ostracized. Most of the time, bullies at school get caught by authoritative people, such as the principle, important staff, or teachers. This would cause them to stop the bullying and not have a chance to "finish off" their victim. Therefore, they would divert towards online bullying to, again, intensify and continue the bullying even further, while "finishing off" their victim. These are some of the reasons why cyberbullying is still going on today. As the amount of technology grows and as technological devices advance into something that is even more complicated and even more convenient for humans to use, cyberbullying would continue on and on, bringing even more attention to it.


Another though that I didn't mention is that social media is becoming more and more advanced, allowing people to share, comment on, like, dislike, and favorite posts and messages. This is why some cyberbullies prefer bullying online, since it spreads the news more rapidly. This opens the doors to more attention and more popularity. Bullies think that they wouldn't be able to get caught quicker than if they were to bully their victims face to face.