The 14th – 18th of November is Anti-Bullying Week where parents, guardians, schools and other organisations should all help raise awareness of the consequences and damaging effects of bullying. Bullying can be online and in-person, so it’s important to highlight these harmful actions and how to combat them.
Cyberbullying in particular is on the rise and can be seen increasingly getting worse year on year.
Below are some facts from ‘Editor’s Choice’ around children and cyberbullying from last year in 2021.
- “Out of 12,238 UK students, 27% identified their bullying experiences as cyberbullying in 2021, online bullying facts confirm.
- 19% of victims said that cyberbullying in UK schools happened entirely during school hours.
- Swearing and offensive messages were the top forms of cyberbullying in 2020.
- In 2017, Childline received 24,000 cyberbullying complaints.
- Appearances (47%), interests (30%), and clothing choices (17%), are the three main reasons for cyberbullying.
- A 2017 survey of 1,000 students found that 82% of bullying happens in schools.
- 91% of cyberbullying victims in Scotland reported knowing the bullies.
- 39% of cyberbullying victims kept quiet about it because they were embarrassed, and 38% were scared it would get worse.”
These shocking statistics are why we are recommending cyber security advice on dealing with cyberbullying. This is to help victims and how you can support them.
Of course, it isn’t just children who suffer cyberbullying. Adults can be cyberbullied too, and the tips we offer here are just as valid for adult victims of cyberbullying.
What is cyberbullying?
Cyberbullying is intimidating someone, threatening them, or coercing them into doing something they wouldn’t normally do, online. This could be by using social media, email, texts or any other digital communication channel or device (including games consoles). It could be via a social network site, gaming sites or forums—anywhere that people can send messages to each other.
Cyberbullying could include sending insulting messages, sexual harassment, sharing someone’s personal information without permission to perhaps embarrass them or to cause harassment. bullying can also be spreading rumours, gossip, telling lies, taking and sharing photos or videos without consent, blackmail, stalking, grooming, and more.
The bully could be one person or many. They could be using one channel, or several. They normally use simple text messages or something more complex, such as creating and sharing (or threatening to share) faked photos or deepfake videos of you in embarrassing situations.
Whatever it is, if the messages are making you uncomfortable, if you are being threatened or blackmailed, it is almost certainly illegal. There are helplines you could contact (see below), or you could go straight to the police.
7 tips on dealing with cyberbullying
Evidence
Ensure you take screenshots of the messages or acts against you but don’t reply or engage in these actions. This is for proof that this person or account has behaved towards you in a negative way for when you want to report them.
If you decide to go to the police, they may be able to use forensic techniques to get evidence from your laptop or mobile phone. While screenshots are good, the forensics team won’t be able to get as much evidence from screenshots as from seeing the originals, so (if possible) don’t delete the messages.
Report
Each social media platform will have a report button where you can send negative comments, inappropriate images or videos and accounts to their security team. This is to investigate the situation and hopefully remove the perpetrator from the platform.
Block
The best way to immediately stop online bullies is to block them from your account so they can’t message you, follow you or interact in any way. Some apps also allow you to select ‘block any other accounts X creates too’ so that they can’t make up a backup account and still harass you.
Talk to someone you trust
After you have put immediate security controls in place, you should now discuss the situation with a parent, guardian or teacher that will support you and help this situation further.
If you’re an adult being cyberbullied at work or in your personal life, consider talking to your HR department, your manager, your union rep, or someone else you trust.
Privacy settings
To ensure these situations don’t occur again, if you haven’t already, you can change your account to a private account that only allows access to people that you have confirmed to follow your account or be friends with. This gives you control as to what people have access to and what they can see, you can hide pictures and information from people who aren’t in your trusted network.
Friend/Follow requests
To help avoid strangers or fake accounts having access to your information, you should only accept people you actually know and trust. For example, relatives and close friends, so nobody with bad intentions can be harmful towards you or even hide behind fake accounts. Some people use fake accounts pretending to be somebody they are not, so they aren’t identified and punished for their actions.
Remember to log out
If you are using a shared computer or other smart device—anything that can connect to the internet and send messages—for example, at a library, at work or at a friend’s house, remember to log out of any web service that you use. That way, no-one can use your account and impersonate you, or use your information (perhaps your photo library) to cause you problems.
Summary
Cyber bullying affects both children and adults, either it being at school or at work, and even in your personal life. If you are being cyber bullied, follow the 7 steps above, and ask for help from someone close to you that you trust. For more advice and support, contact one of the helplines listed below for expert advice and resources.
Resources
- Bullying and cyberbullying | Childline
- Bullying on social media | Childline
- 27+ Shocking Cyberbullying Statistics for the UK in 2021 (markinstyle.co.uk)
- Deepfakes and Cyberbullying – Cyberbullying Research Center
- National bullying helpline – Call: 0300 323 0169 or 0845 22 55 787
- Find help and support (anti-bullyingalliance.org.uk)
- Bullying and cyber bullying helplines | This Morning (itv.com)