Elizabeth Cook

Mr. Pope
IT Fundamentals
Feb / 26 / 2023
Cyberbullying - Project
Cyberbullying has been an issue since the early 2000´s introduced as a new, anonymous way of
putting others down, Some further and some closer. Social media was first introduced in 1997 on a
platform called Bolt. Bolt was made for the purpose of exchanging emails, voice mail, voice call,
message boards, and instant messaging. In most social media this is the case, Bolt started the trend and
though not getting a lot of attention, Bolt was the originator of modern social media and plenty of other
cyber bullying issues. In this piece of writing I'm going to attempt to make others aware of how to act
when getting cyber bullied.
Instead of saying something to someone's face the general public of our society found it easier, as
well as amusing to say things they didn't have the balls to say to someone's face. In most cases it is found
for bullies to be neglected or not loved like other children at home, instead of facing their insecurities in a
way that does not affect other people they choose to take out their personal issues, insecurities, and home
life on people on the internet, usually mimicking their parents behavior. In other cases cyberbullies lack
the self respect most were taught as a child and find empowerment or a way to stay socially relevant in
attempting and sometimes succeeding to hurt others.
According to ¨Social Media, Apps, and Sites Commonly Used by Children and Teens”
Cyberbullying is harmful and claimed to be used in multiple types of ways. One can be location sharing
and the issue of ¨doxxing¨ which is crime to describe leaking a person's personal information in hopes of
harm coming to that person. Another case of cyberbullying can display on your digital footprint and can
sometimes ruin opportunities, college and job applications. In these cases someone's explicit images could
get leaked by an anonymous source and most times parents cannot see this activity due to password
protected social media platforms that are conveniently perfect for cases of cyberbullying and child
trafficking. Sometimes cyberbullying can go so far as to pushing someone to suicide, which can be
displayed live on different social media platforms.
It may be common knowledge to most that cyberbullying truly can be harmful but that knowledge
is likely to not affect the amount of bullying. The consequences on the other hand can affect the point of
view of the perpetrator. Some acts of cyberbullying can leak up to 2.5 thousand dollar fines, and up to 1
year and jail. This is claimed by ¨The Law Dictionary” in different displays of cyberbullying there are a
ton of different ways to spread hate and negativity. Such as general hate speech, spreading personal or
false information, and death treats. Death threats are a term to describe when someone goes far enough to
tell someone to kill themself or tell someone that they will have someone come to them to kill them. Both
of these situations are pathological ways to manipulate someone into feeling useless or worthless, or fear
of their own safety.
Through reading through these different sites made for different causes, one of the main key
differences being that the first city mentioned, ¨Social Media, Apps, and Sites Commonly Used by
Children and Teens'' seems to be dedicated to explaining how cyberbullying and what social media
platforms users can be targeting for cyberbullying. However in ¨The Law Dictionary” This website is
more so consequences of cyberbullying which shines some light on one of the biggest questions asked
when researching this topic, ¨is cyberbullying illegal?¨ This website breaks down that question into real
life situations of cyberbullying.
Although their differences these sites both explain the key issues of bullying and both have quite
a few of the same examples, a couple things specifically stand out to me. Both cites list different kinds of
cyberbullying and through mentioning a lot of the same things, harassment, cyberstalking, hate speech,
doxxing and ect. These two lists make me wonder if victims of cyberbullying often not recognize
immediately if they are being cyberbullied. It seems like these two websites were both for the purpose of
spreading awareness to shine light on these situations. It certainly wasn't a thing taught in school the
dangers of being harassed online. It seems like there's almost an uncertainty on what and what is not
cyberbullying and this can definitely lead to victims of this cause feeling emotionally distressed and
confused. This drew me to the conclusion of why there isn't a whole lot of set in stone laws made for
cyberbullying.
In my conclusion it seems that cyberbullying will most likely be a problem for as long as the
internet exists but it's really up to you how you let cyberbullying affect you. These sources stated the
different kinds of harassment and legal precautions to take during these issues. There's always going to be
someone who doesn't like you but you have to show yourself your own validation instead of seeking it
from other people. Once you stop being insecure, harsh words won't bother you, especially coming from
people who don't know you. So to sum it up, if you ever are truly affected by words on a screen, turn off
your phone and work on yourself. Stop letting people that are no more or less then you affect you in such
a negative way. Skimming through the suicide rates for overall bullying is mortifying but at some point I
think people need to realize that nothing is going to change anyone, so change yourself, be the difference.