Dealing with Cyberbullies

Statistics suggest that 40 to 50% of teens have been victims of cyberbullying/cyberbullies. To effectively prevent and combat this lethal form of bullying, you must understand how it works.

There are two broad and overlapping categories of cyberbullying/cyberbullies: “Direct” and “Proxy.”

Direct cyberbullying happens when cyberbullies directly attack the victim via texts, email, or posts on their own social media. For example, cyberbullies might send a death-threat instant message, send unauthorized pictures of the victim to hundreds or thousands of people, or post degrading information about the victim on the cyberbully’s Facebook page.

Proxy cyberbullying involves an unwitting (most of the time) third party whom cyberbullies set up to do the damage for them. For example, cyberbullies might copy information and pictures from the victim’s Instagram or Facebook account and upload the information and photos to a Web site that traffics children and teens. The traffickers and pedophiles who contact or stalk the victim become the unwitting co-conspirators in the cyberbullying/cyberbullies.

How Cyberbullying Works:

• Instant messaging
  • Cyberbullies send cruel, nasty IMs (instant messages) or texts, death threats, and compromising videos and pictures.
  • In collusion with other bullies, they send thousands of texts to the victim, resulting in huge cell-phone bills.
  • In collusion with others, they repeatedly report the victim to the victim’s service provider, resulting in the victim’s provider closing the victim’s account. The provider is especially likely to close the account if the victim has attempted to defend himself by retaliating.
  • They pose as the victim by creating a username almost identical to the victim and, posing as the victim, engage in cyberbullying
• Password stealing

Once they steal a password, cyberbullies can:

• Pose as the victim to engage in cyberbullying
• Lock the victim out of his or her accounts.
• Change the victim’s social-media profiles to make them inappropriate, obscene, racist, etc.
• Hack into the victim’s computer, cell phone, and other electronic devices.

• Blogs, Web Sites, Social Media

All of these online venues can be created and used by cyberbullies to malign another person and to post personal information, pictures, and videos of another person.

• Email and Texting
  • Cyberbullies obtain unauthorized, sometimes lewd or obscene, pictures of the victim, often from the victim’s own accounts, and send the pictures to everyone in the cyberbully’s address book.
  • They post unauthorized pictures of the victim to a Web site or file-sharing program from which anyone can download them. Sometimes cyberbullies photo shop legitimate pictures to degrade the victim.
• Junk Mail

Cyberbullies add their victim’s name to in appropriate mailing lists, such as porn sites, and the victim starts receiving thousands of emails from the site.

• Malicious Code

Cyberbullies can hack into a victim’s computer, control it, and stalk the victim, or they can destroy the computer altogether by sending viruses and other destructive codes to the victim.

• Posing as the Victim

Far and away, impersonating the victim is one of the most serious and damaging kinds of cyberbullying. Impersonation begins when cyberbullies gain control of the victim’s online accounts or gain access to the victim’s computer. Cyberbullies then have access not only to the victim’s accounts but also to personal information about the victim that can be passed on to unknowing, albeit dangerous, third parties.

• Cyberbullies pretend to be the victim and instigate attacks against the victim by attacking others, especially others who are potentially dangerous to the victim, such as a hate group. Cyberbullies attack from the victim’s email or social-media accounts, and the recipients of the attacks believe the attack is coming from the victim and retaliate.
• Cyberbullies send nasty, cruel, rude, or inappropriate messages and email from the victim’s email account to everyone in the victim’s address book.
• Cyberbullies change the victim’s passwords so that the victim has no access to his email or social-media accounts.
• Cyberbullies post profiles of the victim on prostitution sites frequented by child molesters and traffickers.

Protecting Yourself Against Cyberbullies:

• Keep the settings on social-media accounts as high as possible.
• Avoid sending intimate messages and photos (“sexting”). These messages can be hijacked by another person, or used later by a disgruntled ex, and be sent to thousands of other people.
• Don’t share compromising pictures, information, or messages online.
• Block cyberbullies from email, phone contact, video-conferencing software (like Skype), and social media.
• Never respond to cyberbullies. Not only does responding encourage cyberbullies; it also jeopardizes you in any legal proceedings that may result.
• Never delete the messages and attacks of cyberbullies.
• Always tell an adult you trust about any attempt at cyberbullying.
• Report to the police any threats to harm you.
• Report cyberbullying to the attacker’s Internet provider and / or social-media sites.

We are Advanced Bio Treatment. We are here for you 24 hours every day of the year. Should you need our services, please call us at 800-295-1684.

 

Cyberbullying Resources

http://www.stopbullying.gov/cyberbullying/what-is-it/

http://cyberbullying.us/

http://stopcyberbullying.org/what_is_cyberbullying_exactly.html