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| Introduction |
| History |
| Bullying Technologies |
| Bad-side of Tech |
| Journals |
| Websites |
| Useful Links |
| Social Utility |
| Bibliography |
Cyber-bullies are like the playground bullies of the past. They enjoy embarrassing people and pushing them around only it’s now done on a computer. It is not known when exactly cyber bullying started but their tactics have been expanded to include the technological tools of the Age of Communication (ciao.co.uk).
According to ciao.co.uk Cyber bullying is one of the fastest-growing forms of harassment affecting both children and adults. An Internet bully is constantly in demand for personal information and their repeated attempts to embarrass and intimate those who resist revealing such information.
Below is a real life victim of cyber bullying. This is just one example of cyber bulling and how severe it can get (e.g. sending death treats). This extract was taken from ciao website, the author wished to remain anonymous.
“
I've been active on the Internet for almost two decades, and I have experienced
enough grief caused by cyber-bullies to develop a toolkit for recognizing
and surviving this type of terrorism. In the early days of the Internet,
I served as a monitor on message boards focused on the history and politics
of the Middle East. I have experienced cyber-bullying up to and including
death threats sent to my personal e-mail account. More recently, I have
been one of several targets harassed by much more petty bully determined
to hone his/her skills across sites” (Unknown author).
Comparison to Traditional Bullying
“
Certain characteristics inherent in online technologies increase the
likelihood that they will be exploited for deviant purposes” (bebo.com).
Electronic bullies can remain almost anonymous using temporary email accounts,
different identities in chat rooms, instant messaging programs, mobile-phone
text messaging, and other Internet venues to camouflage their identity. This
more than likely, frees them from normative and social control on their behaviour
(bebo.com).
Cyber-bullies might be encouraged when using electronic means to carry out
their aggressive agenda because it takes less energy and ‘Courage’ to
express hurtful comments using a keypad or a keyboard than with one’s
voice.
Electronic forums in a chat room etc can and dose
often lack supervision. Chat hosts regularly observe the dialog in
some chat rooms, in an attempt
to keep watch over conversations and evict offensive individuals; personal
messages sent between users (such as electronic mail or text messages)
are viewable only by the sender and the recipient. Therefore parents,
higher authorities and other people cannot read them, but unfortuntly
not every chat room has supervision (bebo.com).
Teenagers often know more about computers and mobile phones than their
parents or guardians do, that’s how most parents and guardians
are in the lurch for a long time whether their son/daughter is a victim
or bully.
The history of Cyber-bullying
in schools
Schools and bullies have a long and intertwined, if unfortunate, history.
Society may have become more violent and aggressive over time, but
at the same time it is ever less tolerant now of such behaviour and its
consequences (teachingexpertise.com).
The myth that bullying is ‘character-forming’ and ‘a
part of life’ is rubbish and is no longer acceptable.
An enlarged media spotlight on bullying, plus a growing tendency for
bullies to end up in the courts, is seeing schools increasingly held
accountable in law for their actions and over sighting in this area. “But
new technology brings new ways to bully, muddying the waters” (teachingexpertise.com).
Protect your pupils and the school.
For schools today to deal with the growing legal
challenge of cyber bullying, they need an accurate characterization
of what constitutes
bullying. This is so that they can clearly understand when their legal
duty of care comes into effect (teachingexpertise.com).
The following, Legal Definitions, Policies and Strategies, New Ways to
Bully and the Bully’s Armoury were all taken from teachingexpertise.com.
Every school today should have a copy of these regulations not only to
protect the schools but also to protect the victim.
A series of cases in the courts has over time clarified the limitation
of what represents bullying in a legal sense:
•
A case in 2001 brought against Isle of Wight Council provided an objective
assessment of bullying, which gave rise to the DfES advisory pack ‘Don’t
Suffer in Silence’.
•
A further action against Enfield Council a year later established that
behaviour needed to be ‘deliberately targeted and persistent’ in
order to constitute bullying.
A school’s duty toward bullied pupils was recognised in a case
against West Sussex County Council, also in 2002, which established
that a school can owe a duty of care towards a child being outside
the school
gates (teachingexpertise.com).
POLICIES AND STRATEGIES
“
Under the School Standards and Framework Act 1998, state-maintained schools
have specific duties to combat bullying, and must have anti-bullying
procedures in place. Independent schools have similar obligations under
the Education (Independent Schools Standards) Regulations 2003”.
•
All children and teachers are asked to sign up to the Government’s
Anti-Bullying Charter for Action.
•
Meanwhile, other government initiatives such as ‘Making the Difference’ and ‘Don’t’ Suffer
in Silence’ work alongside organisations such as Kidscape,
the Anti-Bullying Alliance, Bully Free Zone and Ofsted to produce
strategies
aimed at reducing bullying, supporting victims and dealing those
children who bully.
• The profile of bullying as a problem is further highlighted every year
through anti-bullying week.
As the years go on and in particular the last couple of years there
has been a rapid rise of this new type of bullying (Cyber Bullying)
one that
controls the modern technologies all teenagers use, mobile phones,
email and web-based chat rooms (teachingexpertise.com).
Collectively known as ‘cyber-bullying’, this type of aggression
is defined by Childnet International as the ‘sending or posting
of harmful or cruel text or images using the internet or other digital
communication devices’ (teachingexpertise.com).
This is reflected in the DfES definition of cyber-bullying as ‘an aggressive, intentional act carried out by a group or individual, using electronic forms of contact, repeatedly over time against a victim who cannot easily defend him or herself’ (teachingexpertise.com).
Police experts and children’s charities are extremely concerned
at the increase of cyber-bullying. Bullying claims the lives of at
least 20 teenagers pre year, despite the fact that thousands more suffer
physical
and psychological torment. Charities are voicing concern that this
new phenomenon is ‘growing like wildfire’ (teachingexpertise.com).
According to children’s charity Kidscape, In 2001, mobile phones
were among the most popular Christmas present for children, and over
the next two years, cyber-bullying rose by 30 per cent.
At the same time an explosion of social networking websites such as Bebo
, MySpace and facebook where teenagers meet and chat virtually. In recent
years these websites have built up a huge following. For example MySpace
alone, claims to have more than 80 million users.
“
Taking a picture or video clip of a fellow pupil, and sending this to
others to make him or her feel threatened or embarrassed, or much
worse, filming and sharing physical attacks (a practice known as ‘happy
slapping’), are now part of the bully’s armoury” (teachingexpertise.com).