What can you do about online bullying?
I’ve been blogging now for more than six years and during that time, I think I’ve seen examples of just about every kind of online behaviour.
Unfortunately, this means I’ve seen my share of bullying, too. I know that bullying can happen to anyone, of any age – and I’m already thinking about how to educate and protect my daughter in case it happens to her.
Bullying isn’t just someone disagreeing with you, or not liking you – that’s just part and parcel of life. Bullying is a sustained personal attack that may or may not be triggered by a specific event.
Online or cyber-bullying might be abusive text messages or calls to a mobile phone, or anonymous emails. It can take the form of someone inviting users to post abuse about people on message boards or forums. Bullying can also take the form of anonymous, abusive or threatening comments left on blogs and social network pages.
It’s important to teach children that this behaviour is bullying – when you’re dealing with virtual environments, some young people may not recognise that what they are doing is bullying, or even when someone is bullying them.
The most powerful weapon we have against bullying is breaking the silence, and that means talking to young people about the online world, and encouraging them to talk to you about their experiences. If you discover that anyone in your family is being bullied online, here are some simple steps you can take.
Have you talked to your children about acceptable online behaviour? We’ll be producing a guide to bullying (which can happen to parents as well as their kids!) in the next few weeks, and we've love to share some of your tips on protecting young people, and coping with Internet bullying.
Unfortunately, this means I’ve seen my share of bullying, too. I know that bullying can happen to anyone, of any age – and I’m already thinking about how to educate and protect my daughter in case it happens to her.
Bullying isn’t just someone disagreeing with you, or not liking you – that’s just part and parcel of life. Bullying is a sustained personal attack that may or may not be triggered by a specific event.
Online or cyber-bullying might be abusive text messages or calls to a mobile phone, or anonymous emails. It can take the form of someone inviting users to post abuse about people on message boards or forums. Bullying can also take the form of anonymous, abusive or threatening comments left on blogs and social network pages.
It’s important to teach children that this behaviour is bullying – when you’re dealing with virtual environments, some young people may not recognise that what they are doing is bullying, or even when someone is bullying them.
The most powerful weapon we have against bullying is breaking the silence, and that means talking to young people about the online world, and encouraging them to talk to you about their experiences. If you discover that anyone in your family is being bullied online, here are some simple steps you can take.
- If bullying happens via a mobile phone, make a note of phone numbers involved and keep copies of text messages. If you send these to your mobile phone company, they may be able to block the numbers involved, and all mobile phone companies are able to trace people they suspect of texting and calling anonymously.
- Similarly, if someone is being bullied by email, keep copies of all the emails. Contact your ISP and they will be able to use information within the messages to identify the sender. Abuse and threats can constitute harassment and this is illegal, so you can report the issue to the police.
- Most social networks also have clear procedures for reporting abusive and threatening messages. It should then be possible to block the owner of that account from contacting your child in future.
- If bullying is happening via a website or blog, then consider using a simple stats package such as Sitemeter or Statcounter. These are very easily installed, and capture information about every visitor to your site, including their location, the sort of computer they use and their IP address. This last piece of information is very important. An IP address identifies the specific computer or router someone uses to connect to the Internet and an ISP can usually use an IP to identify the specific person or account responsible for bullying.
- If young people use Twitter for social networking, encourage them to make their Tweets private, so they can't be seen by people they don't know. Encourage them not to use personal information in their Twitter ID, or name.
- If you or your child receive abusive emails, forward them to the relevant address for the sender's service provider - this could be abuse@hotmail.com or abuse@btinternet.com, for example. Don't reply to the email or delete it but do put it in a folder where you don't have to look at it.
- Don't reply to abusive comments on blogs or forums. This will often encourage the bully to post further abuse, and the problem may get worse.
- If you need any advice on bullying, or want advice on how to respond to specific incidents then contact Bullying UK, which can help families report bullying and put a stop to online abuse.
Have you talked to your children about acceptable online behaviour? We’ll be producing a guide to bullying (which can happen to parents as well as their kids!) in the next few weeks, and we've love to share some of your tips on protecting young people, and coping with Internet bullying.
Views: 2
Tags: bullying, cyber-bullying, etiquette, harassment, internet, online
Comment
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Comment by Sally Whittle on July 7, 2010 at 4:38pm -
What's a noob? ;-)
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Comment by Alex Walsh on July 7, 2010 at 3:41am -
It would certainly help a lot of the n00bs out there ;)
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Comment by Matt Hicks on July 7, 2010 at 1:47am -
Hi Alex,
Would it help if we produced a guide to online lingo, including bullying?
Thanks,
Matt
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Comment by Alex Walsh on July 5, 2010 at 9:11am
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I think part of the problem is there is a separate language involved in this: online bullying is full of trolling, flame wars, sock puppets and so on. By giving it its own lingo, it seems somehow less like traditional bullying.
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