Cyber bullying is when a person is targeted, tormented and electronically harassed. This sort of torment is usually carried out over social media but it can also be done on mobile devises and on most digital tech. This has only happened since the creation of social media following the creation of the internet.
In most places there are laws against cyber bullying and it is often seen as a criminal offence to bully someone over the internet.
Not only has the internet brought a platform for people to bully each other but it has also brought a torrent of other ways in which people can be victimized.
Thank fully there are people out there helping to get cyber bullying recognised. Ditch the label is a site run by Liam Hackett, after being bullied for 10 years of his life he decided to do something about it, that is when he set up the website.
His research shows some interesting statistics that I think you guys will be interested in. Some of his findings from his cyber bullying study were quite interesting. He found that the majority of insults on Twitter related to intelligence (33%) and appearance (20%) as well as this he found that sexual orientation, religion and gender were also used as hate speech throughout the medium.
Quite surprisingly politics was found to be the topic that was most likely to receive bullying remarks as well as topics related to sport and food. I don’t know about you but I was shocked to see that people have been cyber bullied over food, something so simple yet people feel it’s ok to victimize people over it.
He also backed up one of my tips from a previous blog post by suggesting that responding and retaliating to the bullies usually only makes it worse. He found that exactly this happens in 44% of cases, with only 3% leading to positive outcomes.
You can find a link to Ditch the Label at the bottom of this blog post. There are loads of facts on their that I have not mentioned, so go and have a look. There is also a blog that is constantly updated on the site that features all sorts of different stuff. There is also light-hearted blogs that can take your mind off bullying for a bit. It is all very interesting stuff so make sure you go and have a look.
Links:
www.ditchthelabel.org/research/
criminal.findlaw.com/criminal-charges/cyber-bullying.html
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