Cyberbullying: The New Way Kids Are Hurting other Kids

By Brittany, Director, Teenangels

While we try to protect our kids and teens from the adult predators online, there is an equally important group of people to whom our kids are falling victim – other kids.

The Internet has enabled the youth to create their own Web sites, chat instantly with other kids, e-mail friends, and even read from each others’ diaries. But this technology also signals an opportunity for kids to hurt each other. Cyberbullying refers to these ways in which kids are using the Internet to hurt other kids.

Here are some examples of Cyberbullying:

1. Instant Messaging Harassment
a) Kids may send hateful or threatening messages to other kids, without realizing that while not said in real life, unkind or threatening messages are hurtful and very serious.
b)Warning wars – Many Internet Service Providers offer a way of “telling on” a user who is saying inappropriate things. Kids often engage in “warning wars” which can lead to kicking someone offline for a period of time. While this should be a security tool, kids sometimes use the Warn button as a game or prank.
c)A kid/teen may create a screenname that is very similar to another kid’s name. The name may have an additional “i” or one less “e”. They may use this name to say inappropriate things to other users while posing as the other person.

2. Stealing passwords
a) A kid may steal another child’s password and begin to chat with other people, pretending to be the other kid. He/she may say mean things that offend and anger this person’s friends or even strangers. Meanwhile, they won’t know it is not really that person they are talking to.
b) A kid may also use another kid’s password to change his/her profile to include sexual, racist, and inappropriate things that may attract unwanted attention or offend people.

3. Blogs
Blogs are online journals. They are a fun way for kids and teens to messages for all of their friends to see. However, kids sometimes use these blogs to damage other kids’ reputations or invade their privacy. For example, in one case, a boy posted a bunch of blogs about his breakup with his ex-girlfriend, explaining how she destroyed his life, calling her degrading names. Their mutual friends read about this and criticized her. She was embarrassed and hurt all because another kid posted mean, private, and false information about her.

4. Web sites
a) Children used to tease each other in the playground; now they do it on Web sites kids sometimes create Web sites that may insult or endanger another child. They create pages specifically designed to insult another kid or group of people.
b) Kids also post other kids’ personal information and pictures, which put those people at a greater risk of being contacted or found.

5. Sending Pictures through E-mail and Cell Phones
a) There have been cases of teens sending mass e-mails to other users, that include nude or degrading pictures of other teens. Once an e-mail like this is sent, it is passed around to hundreds of other people within hours; there is no way of controlling where it goes.
b) Many of the newer cell phones allow kids to send pictures to each other. The kids receive the pictures directly on their phones, and may send it to everyone in their address books. After viewing the picture at a Web site, some kids have actually posted these often pornographic pictures on Kazaa and other programs for anyone to download.

6. Internet Polling
Who’s Hot? Who’s Not? Who is the biggest slut in the sixth grade? These types of questions run rampant on the Internet polls, all created by yours truly – kids and teens. Such questions are often very offensive to others and are yet another way that kids can “bully” other kids online.

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