CYBERBULLYING

1
CYBER-BULLYING

• COULD IT HAPPEN TO YOU?
• ARE YOU A PART OF IT?

2
PROGRAM GOALS

• Realize that people we first meet on the
  Internet should never be considered our friend
  
• Recognize the dangers on the Internet along with
  safe ways to use the Internet
  
• Act in ways to prevent cyber-bullying
• Be aware of what to do when bullied through the
  Internet

3
Introduction

• THE STORY OF MEGAN

4
BACKGROUND

• How many of you have access to e-mail at home?
• How would you feel if you didnt have Internet
  anymore?
  
• How many of you feel like youve been bullied
  through the Internet?
  
• How many of you feel like you are an Internet
  bully (Cyber-bully)?
  

5
ARE YOU A CYBER-BULLY?

• Often, people who are victims are also bullies.
  Before you feel too bad for yourself, take this
  quiz to find if you, too, are part of the
  cyber-bullying problem.
• Give yourself 0 points if youve never done it
• 1 point if you have done it 1 or 2 times
• 2 points if you have done it 5 to 6 times
• 3 points if you have done it more
  than 5 times
  

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Calculating your score

• 0-5 Cyber Saint - Youre a Cyber Saint! Your
  online behavior is exemplary! Keep up the good
  work!
  
• 6-10 Cyber Risky - Chances are you havent done
  anything terrible and were just having fun, but
  try not to repeat your behaviors, since they are
  all offenses. Keep in mind the pain that your
  fun might be causing others!
• 11-18 Cyber Sinner - Your online behavior needs
  to be reproached! You have done way too many
  cyber no-nos. Keep in mind that these practices
  are dangerous, wrong, and punishable. Try to
  clean up that cyber record!
• 19 Cyber-Bully - You are headed in a very bad
  direction. You qualify, without a doubt, as a
  cyber-bully. You need to sign off and think
  before serious trouble results for you and/or
  your parents.

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Peer to Peer (P2P) Networking

• Over 150 million people world-wide use P2P
  software - 41 or these are ages 12-18
  
• How P2P networking is dangerous
• 1. Can include Illegal, unethical, immoral
• 2. Can be the cause of Viruses
• 3. Spyware
• If MySpace were a country, it would be the 11th
  most populated country in the world.

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Cyber-bullying (also known as online social
cruelty or electronic bullying) involves

• Sending mean, vulgar, or threatening messages or
  images
  
• Posting sensitive and/or private information
  about another person
  
• Pretending to be someone else in order to make
  that person look bad
  
• Intentionally excluding someone from an online
  group

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Children and youth cyber-bully each other through

• E-mails
• Instant messaging (IM)
• Text or digital imaging messages sent on cell
  phones
  
• Web pages
• Web logs (I.e., blogs)
• Chat rooms or discussion groups
• Other information communication technologies

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Cyber-bullying Terminology

• Flaming
• Harassment
• Denigration
• Impersonation
• Outing and Trickery
• Exclusion
• Cyber-stalking
• Bystander

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Flaming

• Joe and Alec have gotten into an on-line
  argument about an incident that occurred at
  school. Each message has gotten angrier and more
  vulgar. Insults have been flying. In the latest
  exchange, Joe warned Alec to watch his back at
  school the next day.

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Flaming - defined

• Angry, rude arguments
• Heated, short term argument between two or more
  protagonists
  
• Generally includes offensive, rude and vulgar
  language
  
• Sometimes threats are made
• Flame war
• Short term event between participants of
  generally equal social power

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Harassment

• Joanne saw some girls bullying Jessica at school
  and
  
• reported the bullying to the office. By the time
  Joanne
  
• got home from school, she had 35 angry messages
  in
  
• her e-mail box and even more angry text messages
  on
  
• her cell phone. Most of the messages were
  anonymous.
  
• Some appeared to be from strangers living in
  other parts
  
• of the country. Now on a daily basis, Joanne
  gets many
  
• e-mail and text messages using vulgar and
  insulting
  
• language.

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Harassment - defined

• Repeated offensive messages to a target
• Personal communication channels
• Lasts longer than a flame war
• Targets are constantly receiving hurtful
  messages
  
• One sided cyber-bully sending messages to a
  target
  
• Harassment by proxy (starts from buddy list)

15
Denigration

• Unknown middle school students created a web
• site all about Raymond. On this site, they
• posted Raymond stories, Raymond jokes, and
• Raymond cartoons. They posed questions
• about Raymond, inviting anyone visiting the site
  to
  
• submit their own comments. They had an e-mail
  link
  
• for people to send comments directly to Raymond.

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Denigration - defined

• Dissing someone on-line by spreading rumors or
  posting false information.
  
• Harmful, untrue, or cruel
• Posted on-line or sent to others
• Interfere with friendships
• Damage reputations
• Target not the direct recipient
• Digital altered images
• Used by students against school employees

17
Denigration

• May constitute defamation or invasion of privacy
• Free-speech protection
• Fine line between legitimate critical speech and
  defamatory speech
  
• Seek legal advice

18
Impersonation

• Sara watched closely as Emma logged on
• to her school Internet account and was
• able to determine Emmas password.
• Later, Sara logged onto Emmas account
• and sent a scathing message to Emmas
• boyfriend, Alex.

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Impersonation - defined

• Impersonates the target.
• Post material that reflects badly on the target
  and/or damages the targets reputation
  
• Can occur on the targets personal webpage,
  profile, blog, or through any other form of
  personal communication.
  
• Exchange of passwords is considered true
  friendship between teens, especially girls.
  
• The speech can take on other types of
  cyber-bullying and cyber-threats.
  
• Target could be falsely accused of serious
  actions.

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Outing and Trickery

• Outing
• Greg, an obese high school student, was changing
  in the locker
  
• room after gym class. Matt took a picture of him
  with his cell phone
  
• camera. Within seconds the picture was flying
  around the phones at
  
• school.
• Trickery
• Katie sent a message to Jessica pretending to be
  her friend and
  
• asking lots of questions. Jessica responded,
  sharing really personal
  
• information. Katie forwarded the message to lots
  of other people
  
• with her own comment, Jessica is a loser.

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Outing and Trickery - defined

• Disseminating intimate private information or
  talking someone into disclosing private
  information, which is then disseminated.
  
• Outing
• Publicy posting, sending or forwarding personal
  communications or images
  
• Intimate personal information or potentially
  embarrassing
  
• Trickery
• Can occur as part of outing.
• Target tricked into thinking that a communication
  is private.
  
• Disseminated to others or used as a threat.

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Exclusion

• Michael beat another boy in an on-line game.
  Several of the boys friends threatened Michael.
  Now, when Michael tries to play on the site a
  group of other players gang up on him and
  restrict his activities so that he can not
  participate.
• Millie tries hard to fit in with a group of
  girls at school. She recently got on the outs
  with a leader in this group. Now Millie has been
  excluded from Buddy Lists of all the girls.

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Exclusion - defined

• Intentionally excluding someone from an online
  group
  
• Designation of who is a member of the in group
  and who is an outcast.
  
• Can occur in on-line gaming environment or any
  other on-line communication environment
  
• For teens, exclusion from a buddy list
  constitutes the ultimate rejection.

24
Cyber-stalking

• When Annie broke up with her boyfriend, Sam, he
  sent her many
  
• angry, threatening, pleading messages. When
  Annie blocked his
  
• e-mail account, Sam continued to send messages
  either through
  
• anonymous e-mail or text messages. Sam also sent
  messages to
  
• people he know were Annies friends, describing
  her in offensive
  
• language. Sam also posed as Annie in a
  sex-oriented discussion
  
• group, giving out her e-mail address and cell
  phone number.

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Cyber-stalking - defined

• Creating fear by repeatedly sending offensive
  messages and engaging in other harmful online
  activities
  
• Repeated harmful messages
• Includes threats of harm, intimidation, offensive
  speech
  
• Dissing the target
• Harming friendships and reputations
• Line between harassment and stalking is not
  clear
  
• Indicator target begins to fear for his/her own
  safety and well being
  
• Frequently linked to the termination of a
  relationship.

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Bystanders

• Bullies crave an audience. By paying attention
  to their bullying, you are encouraging their
  behavior. YOU ARE A PART OF THE PROBLEM!
  
• Be there for your friends - report Cyber-bullying
  and be a part of the solution.

27
The Cyber-bully characteristics

• Cyber-bullies think
• they cant be punished because they are invisible
  or can take steps to become invisible.
  
• there is no tangible feedback about the harm they
  cause, so it seems like a game to them.
  
• online social norms support cyberbullying On
  the Internet I have a free speech right to post
  whatever I want, regardless of the harm I cause.

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The Harm

• Messages can be widely disseminated and
  impossible to ever fully remove
  
• Teens are reluctant to tell adults for fear of
  overreaction, restriction from online activities
  and possible retaliation by cyber-bully
  
• Youth suicide and violence (remember Megan?)
• Emotional harms

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Possible Unsafe Internet Habits

• Using personal identifiers in your username
• Responding to flames
• Responding to or attempting to retaliate against
  someone who is harassing you
  
• Continuing to visit a chatroom where bullying
  occurs
  
• Deleting e-mails, responding to e-mails, or
  turning off e-mails that are harassing or
  bullying
  
• Not telling an adult what is happening
• Trying to handle situation on your own

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Safe Behaviors for Internet Usage

• Username doesnt give information about real
  name, age, or location
  
• Ignore flames (on-line arguments)
• Decide when/if the time comes to discontinue
  going into the chatroom
  
• Turn off computer monitor without deleting
  harassing e-mails
  
• Tell parents/adults what has been happening
• Parent calls law enforcement

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CHECKLIST FOR CYBERCOMMUNICATIONS

• Start by making sure you are sending things to
  the right place, that it arrives, and that the
  right person gets it.
  
• Make sure your e-mail is worth sending. Dont
  waste peoples time with junk, chain e-mails and
  false rumors.
  
• Proofread and spell-check your e-mails and make
  sure the receiver knows who you are.
  
• Dont attack others online, say anything that
  could be considered insulting or anything
  controversial. And remember, the receiver will
  not know for sure the tone of the e-mail.
• Dont forward other peoples e-mails without
  their permission and dont share other peoples
  personal information.
  
• Are you angry when you are writing this message?
  Again, remember the receiver wont know for sure
  the tone of the e-mail.
  
• Dont reply to span, even to ask to be removed
  from their mailing list.
  
• Is the message youre sending private? Are you
  willing to have others read this message and/or
  forward it to others without your permission?

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Safe Zone Checklist

• Chat Rooms
• 1. Change your password often.
• 2. Dont share your password with anyone.
• 3. Do not use sexy screen names.
• 4. If you are in a public chat room like Yahoo or
  MSN, DO NOT
  
• communicate with someone you dont know and
  have never met.
  
• 5. Do not reveal real name phone address
  school
  
• after school job team name where you hang
  out
  
• 6. Trust your instincts - if someone is really,
  really interested in this information and keeps
  asking for it, tell your parents.

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Safety Zone Checklist

• E-mail
• 1. DONT open any attachments unless they are
  run through an antivirus program.
  
• 3. DONT reply to spam, harassing, or offensive
  e-mail.
  
• 4. Tell your friends not to give out your e-mail
  address or IM screenname to anyone.
  
• 5. NEVER attach a picture of yourself to a group
  e-mail address.
  

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Safety Zone Checklist

• Instant Messenger (IM)
• NEVER give out personal information to a new
  person when
  
• I-ming.
• 2. Only allow messages from people on your buddy
  list.
  
• 3. Some IM software encourages you to post a
  profile ----LEAVE this option off.
  
• 4. DO NOT list your screen name in public chat
  rooms or in public profiles.
  
• 5. DO NOT respond to any messages that are rude
  or annoying (no matter how much it bugs you).

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Safe Zone Checklists

• Web Cams
• 1. If you have a web cam, use common sense.
  DONT joke around and reveal yourself in any
  way.
  
• 2. Only use web cam with close friends, NEVER use
  it with an open IM list.

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Do you know what this means?

• LMIRL

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Please understand.

• People you meet on the Internet should NEVER be
  considered your friend.

38
ONE LAST THING

• When sending e-mails, texting phone messages, or
  creating a facebook, blog, Xanga, chatroom,
  MySpace or games account, remember that employers
  google prospective employees prior to hiring.
  Keep that in mind when deciding what to include
  in your account, e-mail, or text.

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Where to find Cyber-bullying Help

• School administration, counselors, teachers
• (Mrs. Hunt has specific guidelines for situation
  review process)
  
• Police, if threatened
• www.WiredSafety.org
• www.2smart4you.com
• www.netSmartz.org
• www.stopcyberbullying.org
• www.isafe.org