CASE STUDY : CYBERBULLYING
When we think about Cyber bullying, it is such a vast subject that we don’t always realize all the ways it can be expressed. In fact, cyber bullying can take different forms. As an exemple, people can be sending mean messages or threats to a person’s email account or cell phone. Also, it can be about sexting, or circulating sexually suggestive pictures or messages about a person. Cyberbullying can also appear in spreading rumors online or through texts, posting hurtful or threatening messages on social networking sites or web pages, taking unflattering pictures of a person and spreading them through cell phones or the Internet, stealing a person’s account information to break into their account and send damaging messages. To finish, cyber bullying can also be pretending to be someone else online to hurt another person.
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People should be aware that cyber bullying can cause depression, anxiety and even suicide. As internet has been developed since few years, nowadays, something that is posted on social network will never been completely deleted. Many cyber bullies think that bullying others online is funny. Cyber bullies may not realize the consequences for themselves of cyberbullying. In order to make you, as a reader, realize how cyber bullying is important and expanded in internet, here is some statistics. First of all, over half of adolescents and teens have been bullied online, and about the same number have engaged in cyber bullying. Then, well over half of young people do not tell their parents when cyber bullying occurs. Over 25 percent of adolescents and teens have been bullied repeatedly through their cell phones or the Internet, and also, more than 1 in 3 young people have experienced cyberthreats online. (i-SAFE foundation). To finish, about 1 in 5 teens have posted or sent sexually suggestive or nude pictures of themselves to others, and only 1 in 10 teens tells a parent if they have been a cyber bully victim.
There is some solutions to try to reduce cyber bullying consequence. In fact, teenagers have to talk a lot with adults, especially with their parents as it might be easier to them to talk to a person of their family. Thus, if teenagers are not comfortable talking to their parents, they can talk to psychologist, or even to their school counselor. But first, parents need to talk more about cyber bullying, explaining that it is wrong and can have serious consequences. Make a rule that teens may not send mean or damaging messages, even if someone else started it, or suggestive pictures or messages or they will lose their cell phone and computer privileges for a time. Teenagers need to understand that it is not funny to diffuse fake informations and rumors on internet, but also that it is not a shame to be a victim.
Cyberbullying can affect everyone, at any age, every nationalities, gender, social class (even if boys are more likely to be threatened by cyber bullies than girls - The Cyberbullying Research Center).
Remember that Cyberbullying and suicide may be linked in some ways. Around 80 percent of youth that commits suicide have depressive thoughts. Cyberbullying often leads to more suicidal thoughts than traditional bullying. (Source: JAMA Pediatrics)
Bullying is something that has been present for centuries. The act of demeaning someone for their actions or who they are. Bullying has always been done by people who feel superior to another human being for whatever reason. Bullies will act when they feel they are in a situation where nothing can happen to them in return. Bullies usually have personal issues on the side that make them keen on being mean to someone else to feel better. They feed off of the pain of others.
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With the upcoming of social media in the 21st century bullying has taken a new turn. Since being on social media is only behind a screen it is much easier for the bully to feel like nothing can happen to him. Having a username and just leaving hateful comments is much easier because the bully doesn’t feel like it can be attacked back.
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Bullying on social media today is called “cyber bullying” and is very present nowadays. There are different forms of it. It can be mean comments on pictures or posts of friends and not be considered hateful because they weren't said to the person’s face. It can be a group of people against someone else and seem “fun”.
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The people on the internet that are the most affected by bullying on social media are celebrities and young teens.
Celebrities and influencers will have to deal with hundreds of people leaving hate comments on their posts. Since there are so many comments the bullies feel they are just being funny or that it doesn't matter because there are so many comments but these people can see the comments and all the while be affected by these comments.
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For example BlondJude a Youtuber who, as an influencer, also suffers from hateful comments, she believes that it is important to ignore the comments because they can affect you physiologically.
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Young teens are the category of people that are the most affected by this problem. They are at an age where they don't realize the impact of their words on human beings.
Many young teens have sadly committed suicide because of bullies. This is a serious issue that cannot be forgotten about.
As we all know, social media are a big part of the young generation’s lives, millennials wake up by checking their social media accounts, eat while checking their social media accounts, share their daily activities with their followers and go to bed with their smartphones next to their bed waiting for notifications to pop up. This constant use of social media isn’t massively dangerous for the young people using them. However, this addiction to social media led to a new form of aggression called cyber-bullying.
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Cyber-bullying is a form of harassment that also mocks and humiliates, but unlike the "classic" harassment of playgrounds, it is done via the Internet, and often anonymously. The appearance of cyber-bullying is extremely serious because of the proportions that it takes within the youth. Indeed, it is known that kids can be hard on each other, and even without the cyber-bullying, the classic bullying is very present at their ages. Therefore, the fact that social media enable people to bully others through anonymous accounts, under unknown pseudonyms, and where they can gather all together to process grouped harass mentor humiliation. These humiliations and cyberbullying in general is an act of cowardice as they do not confront the victim, they do it through their screens, and sometimes do not measure the extent of their actions, and how much their words can destroy a person.
Cyberbullying is often thought as mean texts send to some other person, but it can go far beyond simple texts. Sometimes, texts transform into death threats, or incitement to suicide. But also, some use private pictures of some people and diffuse them in order to humiliate. All of these attacks against other users of social networks lead to tragic actions: lose of self-esteem, becoming de-socialized, anxious, self-restrained, but also a tendency to depression for victims, it might go as far as committing suicide for some of them.
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It was the story of Phoebe Prince, who was a 15 years old girl. She was from Ireland and had just moved to Massachusetts with her family. After being a victim of cyberbullying from school classmates for many months, she committed suicide on January 14, 2010. Her death brought international attention to the problem of bullying in American schools. A law has been passed in the Massachusetts State after her death to prevent such tragic events to happen again.
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However, we ask ourselves how sharing tools such as social media can lead to tragic events like suicide for some teenagers ! How is it possible that new cases of cyberbullying are discovered nearly everyday, and that nothing changes and no measures are taken to prevent it in other places of the world ?
On a legal way, many countries are taking measures against online bullying. For example, in France, cyber bullying is punished the same way as “classical” harassment, the article 222-33-2 of the French legislation penal code says « le fait de harceler autrui par des agissements répétés ayant pour objet ou pour effet une dégradation des conditions de travail susceptible de porter atteinte à ses droits et à sa dignité, d'altérer sa santé physique ou mentale ou de compromettre son avenir professionnel, est puni de deux ans d'emprisonnement et de 30,000 € d'amende. » Harassing in France is punished by two years of prison and fined 30,000 € and sometimes even more when harassment is committed on minors, husband, wife, or ex-husband and wife and when the aggression is related to the sexual orientation of the victim.
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In the UK, Cyber bullying is not a specific criminal offense. However, there are some criminal internet bullying laws such as the Protection from Harassment Act 1997 and the Crime and Disorder Act 1998 that may apply as cyberbullying laws in terms of harassment or threatening behavior. Besides, the Communications Act 2003 makes it a criminal offense to send: “…by means of a public electronic communications network, a message or other matter that is grossly offensive or of an indecent, obscene or menacing character”.
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In the United States, there are bullying laws called “anti-bullying laws” are laws that aim to prevent bullying or address it when it happens. So far, there are only state laws about bullying, but people have suggested a national law. In October 2010, 45 states had bullying laws.
Besides, there are also some associations such as Act Against Bullying (https://actagainstbullying.org/) or E-Enfance (www.e-enfance.org/) that fight against harassment (online or classical).
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However, on of the best ways to act against harassment is prevention. Indeed, direct testimonies help children and teenagers to realize the impact that their words and actions can have.
Netflix has released a show called “13 reasons why”, about a girl who commits suicide because she’s been bullied at school and on the internet. Although the series received major backlash for its “dark and harsh” portrayals, it resonates with an important message and purpose. This show is realistic and we follow the story before and after she dies. We see the parents, the bullies, the friends, and we see that a lot of lives have been ruined. Each episode is a “tape” recorded by the main character, Hannah Baker, who explains the reasons why she committed suicide.
The tapes are circulated through a specific group of students. We see all of the things the girl faces at school and on the internet and I think that everybody can put himself in her place and truly understand what she lived because it’s a really explicit show and we see a lot of difficult scenes. I think this tv show can help the cause of bullying and cyber bullying because some people don’t realize what’s happening in the life of someone who’s being bullied. Some people also judge too quickly other people while they don’t know what’s happening in their lives.
In this show we also realize that some people are participating to the “bullying” without wanting to do this, just by actions that they don’t think will be mistaken. Sometimes, parents are not totally aware of what could happen and how far this could go. Parents are the best people to talk and discuss about bullying with their kids. The tv show created a gap between the audience. Indeed, some considered the attract for the show was unhealthy and that the show was glorifying suicide. The second season of 13 reasons why was released on the 18th of may.
Each episode is a part of the trial made by the parents of the girl who commit suicide, against the school. On the first episode, they made a disclaimer, the actors of the show tell the viewers to not watch alone if they are victims of bullying.
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