Are you a bully?

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 Cyberbullying is the use of technology for social cruelty, which can include harassment, impersonation, denigration, trickery, exclusion and stalking. Cyberbullies may use , chat rooms, discussion forums, instant messaging, cell phone text messaging or popular teen web sites such as MySpace.com.

 Flaming. Online fights using electronic messages with angry and vulgar language. Joe and Alec’s online exchange got angrier and angrier. Insults were flying. Joe warned Alec to watch his back in school the next day.  Harassment. Repeatedly sending nasty, mean, and insulting messages. Sara reported to the principal that Kayla was bullying another student. When Sara got home, she had 35 angry messages in her box. The anonymous cruel messages kept coming— some from complete strangers.

 Denigration. “Dissing” someone online. Sending or posting gossip or rumors about a person to damage his or her reputation or friendships. Some boys created a “We Hate Davon” Web site where they posted jokes, cartoons, gossip, and rumors, all dissing Joe.  Impersonation. Pretending to be someone else and sending or posting material to get that person in trouble or danger or to damage that person’s reputation or friendships. Shanika watched closely as Tasha logged on to her account and discovered her password. Later, Shanika logged on to Tasha’s account and sent a hurtful message to Emma’s boyfriend, Adam.

 Outing. Sharing someone’s secrets or embarrassing information or images online.  Derrick, an obese high school student, was changing in the locker room after gym class. Mike took a picture of him with his cell phone camera. Within seconds, the picture was flying around the phones at school.  Trickery. Talking someone into revealing secrets or embarrassing information, then sharing it online. Karen sent a message to Jeanine pretending to be her friend and asking lots of questions. Jeanine responded, sharing really personal information. Karen forwarded the message to lots of other people with her own comment, “Jeanine is a loser.”

 Exclusion. Intentionally and cruelly excluding someone from an online group.  Misha 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 Misha has been blocked from the friendship links of all of the girls.  Cyberstalking. Repeated, intense harassment and denigration that includes threats or creates significant fear.  When Michelle broke up with Sean, he sent her many angry, threatening, pleading messages. He spread nasty rumors about her to her friends and posted a sexually suggestive picture she had given him in a sex-oriented discussion group, along with her address and cell phone number.

 Cyberthreats are either direct threats or “distressing material”—general statements that make it sound like the writer is emotionally upset and may be considering harming someone else, harming himself or herself, or committing suicide.  You Can’t Take it Back You Can’t Take it Back

 A group of girls were fighting with one of their friends, Nicole. They created a “Rate Nicole” group on a social networking site. They posted embarrassing photos of Nicole from middle school and high school and invited their hundreds of “friends” to join the group to look at the photos, and tell Nicole how she stacked up. Cruel and crude comments were posted on the group’s message board. One message said that some girls were planning to beat up Nicole. At school, Nicole got text messages on her cell phone saying, “Take a look at what everyone thinks of you.”

 What emotions do you think Nicole felt when she saw the photos and read all the comments online?  How do you think she felt when she read that some girls wanted to beat her up?  How do you think this situation affected the learning environment of the school?

 Sometimes you need to go online in order to do homework assignments. You want to have portable electronic devices for networking with your friends. But the more you are online or connected to cell networks, the more likely it is that you will be involved in harassing situations. You may not have posted a single comment—or maybe you did. You may not be the person getting abused or threatened. Yet it is very likely that you have witnessed it. Not everyone reacts the same way, but many teens say that when these kinds of bullying behaviors occur at any time of the day or night, both online and face to face, it can be very depressing.

 What advice you would you give Nicole?  What advice would you give the girls who created the group?  What could you do if you witnessed a similar situation online that made you worried?

 CyberTips CyberTips  Broken Friendship Broken Friendship

 “You Can’t Take it Back”?:  What should the boy have done when his friends asked him to rate the website?