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Good point PT.
As adults I'd say most of us won't tolerate idiots well, but as kids, the online rep thing could be the most important thing in their world. Hence the suicides. Kids are cruel naturally, combined with the inability to think clearly and logically can make the net a very dangerous place.
I think it makes it more intense than traditional bullying since the person being bullied is online 24/7 instead of just at school/work. Clearly, it's some of the person being bullied's fault too since the could block the bullies, delete the account and take up a productive hobby. I also blame society for putting such an emphasis on having as many friends as you can. It's about QUALITY not quantity. Had I learned that earlier in life, it would have saved me a lot of dark times in life.
It's not as simple as "block a few users" and "delete your accounts". In any case no victim blaming should ever be done even if it were that simple.
A lot of the time it's not just one or two bullies. It's several bullies. Ten, twenty, or more. And even if you block them, they get another account. Not to mention that you still see the messages they post, which are far worse than what someone might say in real life.
Then you have cases where it's not as simple as blocking or deleting an account. People can post information about you, videos, or photos that you don't want others to see to THEIR account, for those in your social circle to see. So it's not as simple in many cases as deleting an account, because you can't stop other people from seeing things you don't want them to.
Some might say "Don't do anything that would embarrass you on camera, simple as that."
Except when someone is filming you without your permission with their webcam. Or someone you think is a friend is talking to you, and you feel open about talking to them only to find out later they were only pretending to be your friend to get the information in the first place.
It's not all about online Rep. A lot of the time it's about real life reputation as well, and online life can often carry into real life.
I guess I've been extremely lucky over the years or I'm just an expert at avoiding cyber bullies then. I have been online daily - excluding internet connection losses - for 15 years since the age of 12 and I have never ever been cyber bullied one bit. Is this an achievement? Does this mean that whatever the secret to avoiding cyberbullying is I have it? Or am I just very very lucky?
Interaction doesn't typically start out with the bullying... it's usually something present piecemeal, that can later develop further and further until by the time a victim of cyber bullying knows what's going on: they're tied into a scenario which has no positive end for them. This is especially true of teenagers, and.... children.... but they're far from the only ones susceptible. .... They're just the... 'easiest'...
In its worst forms, cyber bullying is a mechanism by which predators can get worm inside a head, suggest what a head ought think, tell a head what's real... endgames range from simple powerplay (blackmail, public humiliation, friend-dictation, driving someone to self harm, general orders, and suicide)... to physical/offline continuance (mailing threats and demands, stalking, kidnapping (trafficking), <meeting someone you don't know what looks like in person in a place far from home... hehheh... you can imagine>).
It is far more commonly performed by groups of peers, endgames include social disenfranchisement, role restructuring, hazing, monkey's truth slander, gangrape, blackmail, competition cleansing, and, well, 'service'.
Most commonly by far... it is performed in a mass scale by disconnected persons (plenty of whom are likely to be anonymous or strangers) who each leave plays upon a person, often enough unintentionally and typically devoid of an endgame, the combined effect of a thousand papercuts to self-worth, reputation... a feeling that the entire world hates them, which leads to a plethora of self-harm and self-negligence, typically results in depression (at the best), and can certainly crush a person's, ahh... good humor.
....
You uninstall your accounts, they find you again with the information they already have... you run, they chase you without taking a step... cyber bullying, at its most effective: can effectively force a person to abandon everything they know and 'who' they are, and still live their life paranoid that they've been found and that it's never going to stop... the only way out... some feel... and are encouraged to feel... is death.
Please try therapy, and if it gets real bad and you're contemplating suicide... get the police involved. Please. If you have a best friend who stands by you, *in the flesh*: now's a good time to talk to them. Remember to get to therapy. 1 (800) 273-8255 also, call that if you can: the person on that line can direct you to effective help.
ignoramus Wrote:What about boys?
Usually have fewer social protections, and are often enough assumed able to handle their own problems.
... 2 traits that can make them ridiculously easy to target.
Teenaged transgirls... can be incredibly vulnerable.
Quote:If someone's gonna get depressed over fb, maybe they got bigger problems to begin with?
Not necessarily... but facebook tends to leak into your physical realm, particularly at work, with your family and (hah) friends, and at school.
Previously perfectly psychologically healthy people can find themselves experiencing considerable stress and depression, particularly when inclusive of blackmail, and social disenfranchisement. Pull a person's support, isolate them... and then you're the only one left whom 'they can trust'... their only 'pillar of support' left... manage that, and you can right fuck with any person's head real good.
Quote:What about as adults? Are adults immune to this sort of childish behavoir?
Adults and older teenagers are typically responsible for the 'more egregious' forms of targeted cyber bullying... but no. <Workplace politics> is the most common formset towards adults, that and familial politics, in particularly brutal cases.
Also, post-breakups can be messy... and if two people were mutual friends with a group, it is fairly common that the friendships split, often enough into an all opposed to 1-2 scenario.
Quote:Talk to me or I'll tell everybody you have invisible friends in the sky!
Not necessarily a good thing to say when it comes to cyber stalking, hehe...
It's not a good subject for me, so... I'm not going to be 'contributing' anything else in this thread. I'm sorry.
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