What is Cyber bullying?
Cyber bullying
Cyber bullying is a form of online intimidation. While this is done online there are common characteristics very similar to that of a “real world” bully. The overall majority of cyber bullying occurs among teenagers and younger children.
Essentially this means that a child can get on a web site, blog, chat room, or any other place that is common online activity and be picked on, harassed, and intimidated by one person, or among a group of peers.
There are several common areas of cyber bullying and they are as follows;
• Insulting jokes
• Threats of violence
• Creating lies to make fun of the victim
• Creating fake MySpace Accounts claiming to be the victim and shedding the victim in a negative light
• “Photoshopped” images of the victim posted online
• Claiming to be the victim in chat conversations and discussing things to humiliate the victim
• Signing the victim up for spam email
• Breaking in to their email address and holding it hostage
• Message boards (aka forums) are well known for group cyber bullying
• Uploading videos to places like Google video and YouTube intended with the sole purpose of harassing a person.
The above are only a few forms that cyber bullying is present, but as the internet continues to grow we will continue to see more and more new ways that cyber bullying can be inflicted.
Click Here to Stop a Cyber Bully
Talk to your children
Talking to your children about cyber bullying will greatly reduce the chances that they will be exposed or even participate in this kind of behavior.
Message Boards, Blogs and chat rooms.
Message boards have been around for a very long time. There are countless occasions when a group of friends start picking on someone for the sole purpose of humiliation. This kind of bullying can also spill over to other common online group activities, like blogs and chat rooms.
Learn what to do
There are many times when a child may not want to talk to his or her parents about cyber bullying because they do not want to make matters worse. Obviously no parent would want to make it worse, but the fact is that children are sometimes afraid to discuss issues like this.
Testimonials:
"When bullying is done over the Internet you think you can get away with it because you don't see the emotional reaction as if it were done face to face. You don't see the person crying and being upset. So it is much easier to be more mean and hurtful. When I received those e-mails It took me long to recover but thank to my Mom who found out right on time I'm back to being my self."
- Victim of Cyber Bullying
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