Addressing Cyberbullying

Sadly, there has been considerable news about cyber bullying and the devastating impact on its victims.

As a former Director of Security for MySpace, a former FBI agent addressing cybercrime and crimes against children and a former high school teacher I have spent a great deal of time dealing with bullying, bullies and their victims both on and off the Internet

The problem of bullying has been around forever and is not limited to one race, culture or geolocation. There are always those who feel the need to beat others down often in an attempt to build themselves up. Many considering dealing with the put-downs, taunting and jabs (both verbal and physical) as part of growing up and just has to be dealt with. Others disagree and feel major penalties should be in place for bullying. But neither side can say definitely what is or is not bullying.

This problem is compounded by the use of social media as the primary source of interaction between kids, teens and young adults. The nuances of face to face communication are lost in the online world, nuances that serve as filter on statements when we communicate in person. Compound that with the fact that online comments are not one to one put one to an infinite number of people and the belief that the bully has anonymity behind a computer screen and there is no stopping the mean, hurtful and degrading flow of bullying comments online.

At this point in time there are no laws that effectively address cyber bullying. The Internet and subsequently social media sites are seen as censor free zones where free speech is allowed and encouraged. But this does not mean there are not steps individuals can take to deal with cyber bullying.

1. Do not put anything online that you would not share with your Grandma. Everything you place online stays there forever and will be used against you if a bully decides to target you.
2. Limit access to your online world to true friends. There is no reason to befriend every person online. If you don’t know them in the real world you should not be sharing secrets with them in the virtual world
3. Walk away. When a bully starts attacking you online, do not respond, do not get mad, do not retaliate, report them via the online tools and walk away
4. Report it. If you are being bullied or you are aware of others being bullied report it. Every site has a way to report abuse online, in some cases you have to dig for the link but it will be there. Report them and get their accounts shutdown.
5. Tell a Trusted Adult. 99% of what bullies say is made up. And the 1% that is not, you should embrace as that is who you are. There is nothing so embarrassing in the world that will cause your life to be over. Talk to a trusted adult, they will help you through it

For the adults/parents, please do not discount those who report bullying. If they are hurt enough to bring it to your attention it means it is truly affecting them and they need your support and help. Do not judge the victim, whatever the reason for the bullying they are victims suffering through what most adults suffered through but at 1000 times the reach.

As for websites, namely social media sites, cyber bullying is real and you must be prepared to address it. It has been reported the Ask.fm will be placing a larger abuse button near postings rather than a button labelled with a “v” symbol. Sites must have an easy and simple way for users to report abuse. And they must know they are reporting abuse by having a button that says ABUSE

The website’s Abuse department needs to take every reported abuse posting, profile, comment etc. seriously with real penalties for abusive users, such as freezing the account, notification the account was used for cyber bullying and/or blocking that user, deleting the account and any new account they may create based on the IP addresses from which the abusive account was created and logged into from the most

Also sites need to create a FAQ (Frequently Asked Questions) page for cyber bullying so that when a user conducts a search for bullying the first result is the websites FAQ with a how-to for addressing the issue and staying safe online including links to outside resources for addressing the issue.

Most in the Geek community were the targets of bullies as we grew up. And many of us, have become successful in our fields in part to stick it to those bullies. Now the geek community is in a position to stop others from suffering through the humiliations we did.