“Transcarpathian students harassed their classmate on a social network to commit suicide.”
“In Chelyabinsk, an ex-girlfriend drove a guy to commit suicide by calling him gay on social media.”
“In the US, a 15-year-old girl killed herself when she received several bullying messages from a 16-year-old boy.”
“In Russia, a student murdered his own parents in cold blood. Shortly before the events described, he became the subject of active and prolonged harassment on the Internet.”
So what is this?
Internet bullying is coordinated actions on the Internet aimed at mentally beating a person, or, less commonly, a group of people.
Who does this?
Aggressive teenagers, often co-ordinating in groups.
Who is being bullied?
— insecure, people with victimized behavior
— people from a culture that is different from the culture of others
— acting too brazenly, “delivering” themselves
Goals?
— reduction/loss of poisoned activity, fencing off its “territory” on the Internet and the field of activity in reality.
Motives?
— entertainment
— self-affirmation
— profit through blackmail
— punishment for “inappropriate behavior” in reality or in the online community.
Methods?
— Direct insult, including writing offensive articles;
— “Trolling” (jokes, pranks bordering on bullying) is on the verge of acceptable; it can also be outright bullying, often manifesting itself in the form of humiliating comments under the victim's texts and photos;
— Prank (phone jokes). The pranker plays a prank on the victim on the phone, while recording the conversation, which is posted on the Internet;
— “Compulsive spam”: throwing messages of various content at the victim — advertising text or any meaningless set of words.
goal
— make the victim angry with a stream of intrusive messages;
— Deanonymization, that is, revealing a username in a situation of anonymous Internet communication, establishing the authorship of a text or drawing against the author's wishes, etc.;
— Creating groups against bullying on social networks or even websites;
— Creating pages and accounts on behalf of the person being bullied in various social networks and magazines; all sorts of compromising, rude texts are written, allegedly by the victim. This is called a “clone attack”;
— Hacking into the victim's account and account and sending out various information from her page;
— Dissemination of compromising evidence, rumors, gossip, including posting various personal documents, photos and videos (often fake) on social networks, etc.;
— The victim is secretly or forcibly filmed, usually in a humiliating position, after which the recording is uploaded to YouTube or another popular video hosting site.
What are the consequences?
Some people react very calmly to virtual aggression against them or ignore it, while others just get in a bad mood (which, of course, can't be discounted either). For some users, content published online has damaged their reputation. Tragic cases are known when cyberstalking ended in victims' suicides. In 2006, Meghan Meyer, a 14-year-old girl from a suburb of St. Louis, hung herself in the closet after being insulted on MySpace by her virtual friend “Josh” (who turned out to be the virtual of a 40-year-old woman, the mother of her ex-girlfriend)
Meyer's friends). Don't think that only impressionable teenagers can suffer: in early 2008, Paul Tilley, a forty-year-old American, jumped out of a hotel window, a successful businessman and creative director of DDB Chicago. According to one version, the advertiser's suicide was prompted by a wave of negativity in the blogosphere.
How can you protect yourself from cyberstalking?
The easiest preventive way to protect yourself is to be correct in cyberspace, to pay attention to and analyze the behavior of other Internet users. It is often easy to identify people who are capable of insulting other users: they behave aggressively, use obscene language and do not listen to the opinions of others. If you see such a user, it is better to limit communication with him or not communicate at all. Do not forget about your own behavior, behave with decency, and do not insult other users you encounter on the Internet. Even inadvertently offended people sometimes start acting aggressively and looking for ways to take revenge.
In addition, it is very important to remember to protect yourself when registering for certain services. Almost all social networks and blog hosting sites have so-called access levels. The user chooses who will see his posts, photos or published videos: a limited number of favorites or the whole world. If a person is not ready for the information they publish to be visible to everyone (including possible ill-wishers), it makes sense to restrict access to it (at least personal records and contact details).
You should pay attention to the child if:
1) They are trying to film him with a camera or mobile phone against his will.
2) He hides his electronic data (e-mail, phone number or ICQ).
When faced with cyber threats, a child will be afraid to leave their contacts even for a school magazine or to send out educational materials.
3) Unpleasant messages about it appear on a school or social network website or forum
What should I do if...?
The situation is often exacerbated by a lack of trust between adults and children and a lack of understanding of the seriousness of the situation on the part of adults.
“Well, what can this be on the Internet?! Don't pay attention!” — this is what adults often think and say.
Therefore, you should always strive to establish a trusting relationship with your child, be sympathetic to any signal of bullying (including virtual bullying), then there will be more chances that he will share alarming information with parents in a difficult situation. It is difficult for adults to learn about child bullying on the Internet — offenders are encrypted.
Only the child himself or one of his friends can give a signal. As with real bullying, dealing with online bullying begins with finding out what causes it. In the future, very tactful and thoughtful work is required with all participants in the cooperation, taking into account the positions of all parties. After all, victims often provoke their offenders themselves. In any case, a child who has been bullied should be helped to develop ways to behave without sacrifice, and offenders should be helped to understand the consequences of their actions and the inadmissibility of such forms of behavior. Of course, all fake pages and videos created must be deleted immediately.
A specialist can work with cyberbullying both in real life and on the Internet, communicating remotely with its participants. After all, live communication with the “victim” and offenders is not always possible: they may be in different cities (when it comes to cyberbullying that is not related to a particular school). Then the analysis of social media pages and network consulting will help you understand the cause of the conflict. A specialist can anonymously or on behalf of a “virtual person” support the “victim” on the Internet. As a rule, participants in negative networking are not ready for an open dialogue, and real people around the victim are not allowed into groups that are “against”. Here it is important for the specialist himself to “not play too much”, realizing that a negative virtual conflict can be extremely serious, and this requires professional intervention.
Parent Action Plan
-Block email and instant messaging services.
— Save mocking messages and images as evidence.
— File a complaint to the social network on whose website the bullying is taking place.
Usually, there is a link on the home page of any such network that allows you to contact the site administration.
— Discuss the situation with the school administration if the offender is at the same school as your child. Ask her for help.
— Call the police if the messages contain threats of violence or if the sender is unknown.
Useful internet resources
http://www.saferunet.ru/-Safe Internet Center in Russia. This site will be useful primarily for computer science teachers and parents. The resource details the current structure of the World Wide Web. It deals with all the variety of threats that a child can face on the Internet: spam, cyberbullying in its various forms, cyberstalking in forums, chat rooms and social networks, and information is presented in various forms: from reviews and articles to videos.
http://www.etika.ru/ — Parents will be able to find detailed advice on how to talk to their children about online threats.
On websites http://www.interneshka.net/children/index.phtml/ and Friendly Runet http://www.friendlyrunet.ru/safety/ The rules of safe Internet for children of different ages are described in detail: from elementary to high school.
Microsoft Online Safety for Kids Brochure — http://www.ifar.ru/libraru/book099.pdf
Global network: terms of use. Recommendations for parents from MTS http://static.mts.ru/uploadmsk/contents/1655/saferu/rules_for_parents.pdf
Kaspersky Lab. Safety lesson — http://www.kasperskyakademy.com/ru/is-lesson
A guide to child safety on the Internet. Google recommendations http://www.google.com/intl/ru/goodtoknow/femilysafety/
Based on materials from the Internet http://vml-vologda.ru/Psyholog/travlja_v_internete.pdf
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