A shocking number of children and youngsters are increasingly affected by often public bullying on the internet and in the digital world. Termed cyberbullying, it can have grave consequences and lead to serious psychological problems. Read on to learn about the different forms cyberbullying can take and what you can do about it. Also discover how to protect your kids from cyberbullying as well as how you can generally strengthen their digital defenses with Avira Free Security.
What is cyberbullying?
In a traditional sense, bullying involves someone inflicting psychological violence that’s systematic, repeated, and ongoing against a specific person usually at school or at work. The affected person is regularly harassed, excluded, shamed, humiliated, embarrassed, or tormented, although the degree can vary greatly.
Nowadays, bullying is increasingly shifting online, and sometimes takes on completely new dimensions there. If the bullying continues online or begins there, it’s called cyberbullying or internet bullying. Since cyberbullying mainly takes place on social networks, in chat rooms, and on messaging platforms, it’s also referred to as social bashing.
Cyberbullying is usually directed against peers and most commonly affects young students since they in particular are heavy users of social media platforms. Just like in the schoolyard, groups can gather on the internet and bully someone, such as in closed groups on social networks or in chat groups in messaging services. Compared to traditional forms of bullying, though, cyberbullies have a completely different reach and technical means to terrorize their victims — and can make embarrassing content accessible to a wide public audience.
In the case of cyberbullying, bullies can attack their victims whenever they want, wherever they want, and as often as they want — so targets no longer feel safe even at home. On top of that, they can hide behind pseudonyms and fake online identities to remain anonymous. This lowers their inhibition threshold, so cyberbullies tend to go further than they would face to face.
An extreme example of bullying and cyberbullying
While traditional forms of bullying are usually directed against people you know personally, even complete strangers can be targeted in the case of cyberbullying. Bullying can even begin on the internet and continue in real life, as the most well-known and striking case in Germany has shown.
An ever-growing group of haters had formed against the YouTuber “Drachenlord” (Dragon Lord) on the internet, initially bullying him online and then going on to gather regularly outside his home, causing trouble. The YouTuber was threatened, made to look a fool in a live stream, and also attacked — with violence perpetrated by both parties.
Drachenlord’s general behavior and way he responded only fueled the haters, with events escalating further and further. This resulted in the police having to intervene, sometimes up to five times a day. A hater even called the fire department to Drachenlord’s house because of an alleged fire. It arrived with over 100 emergency personnel — an act also known as swatting, which is when someone makes a hoax call to the emergency services.
Previously, the hater community had coordinated their efforts via online platforms and launched a large-scale bullying campaign called “Drachengame”, which lasted over a decade. Videos were filmed and posted, dedicated websites with “Drachennews” were created, and fake news about the YouTuber was spread. Those around him were also harassed with hate mail, prank and threatening phone calls, and unwanted deliveries — even his father’s grave was desecrated. As if that wasn’t enough, a young woman feigned interest in a relationship, resulting in the YouTuber proposing to her in a livestream — and you guessed it, the haters ridiculed him.
Although bullying doesn’t always escalate to this extent and usually occurs mainly between young people who know each other, cyberbullying can take similar forms and make life hell for the victims.
Types and methods of cyberbullying
Cyberbullying is a form of digital violence that can take various forms and be carried out anywhere in the digital space. Possible hotspots include social networks — like Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, Snapchat, and YouTube — online forums, chat groups, communities, online games, and the metaverse. You can also get bullied via private messages made by phone call, email, text, or messaging service. This is known as non-public cyberbullying.
Some social media platforms such as X are increasingly becoming places where hate and incitement are spread — with some not holding back with insulting, threatening, and defamatory comments. Known as hate speech, there can be different motivations for these attacks, including political or racist ones, and they’re usually directed at people from certain groups or communities. The attacks typically use derogatory and inflammatory language and are often carried out by people known as trolls.
These trolls spread fake news and engage in inflammatory, disruptive, or offensive behavior on social media platforms to vent their anger, stir up controversy, cause unrest, or influence public opinion. Trolls either act independently or are organized and used strategically by certain interest groups or even states for political propaganda.
By contrast, cyberbullying is systematic and occurs repeatedly over a long period of time against a specific person to cause them emotional harm. It usually is a result of conflicts in real life and often has a long history. Cyberbullying also tends to occur more frequently in closed groups, such as WhatsApp chat groups. However, since hate speech and cyberbullying use similar channels, it’s not always easy to tell the two apart.
The reasons for cyberbullying are many and varied, ranging from pure boredom to sheer malice and personal hostility to envy and revenge. Peer pressure, the strengthening of the sense of community, and the desire for attention and recognition can also be causes. Some bullies also want to enhance their own status, strengthen their social standing, and feel powerful — or are looking for an outlet to vent their own frustrations and insecurities. In some cases, they go to extreme lengths to achieve this, no matter how long it takes or what effort’s involved.
Cyberbullying methods
- Fraping: Fraping is internet slang where a cyberbully hacks their victim’s social media account or creates a fake profile — or clone — in their name. The bully can then embarrass their victim by posting inappropriate content or inflammatory comments.
- Doxing and outing: This involves collecting someone’s sensitive private data from public sources and publishing it (doxing — short for dropping or “dox”) or sharing confidential information (outing).
- Swatting: With swatting, the bully fakes an emergency or a crime (bomb threat, hostage-taking, robbery, etc.) and sends the fire department or police to another person’s address to cause trouble and chaos for them.
Types of cyberbullying
Shaming and dissing
In the case of shaming, victims are humiliated based on their physical appearance or figure (body shaming, fat shaming, skinny shaming), devalued because their sexual behavior or what they like to wear seemingly doesn’t conform (slut shaming), or belittled because of their age (age shaming).
Someone can also be dissed — meaning devalued and insulted — because of their sexuality or gender identity, ethnic or social origin, religion, opinion, political views, illness, or disability. The list goes on, since someone can be dissed for virtually anything — even for not having any friends.
Defamation
Defamation is the malicious act of gossiping about or slandering someone intentionally. Untrue claims can be made or lies, rumors, and manipulated content can be spread deliberately. These can include fake images, videos, and audio recordings with embarrassing or degrading content, whereby the perpetrators can take full advantage of all the latest technological advancements.
In the case of deepfakes, for instance, AI (artificial intelligence) tools are used to replace one person’s likeness with that of another, where their face is inserted into an image or video, usually in degrading situations or sexual acts.
Embarrassment
Cyberbullying can also involve spreading actual compromising photos or videos. Such an example is where the victim and perpetrator previously had a close relationship and exchanged intimate messages, photos, or videos. It’s also referred to as revenge porn. The perpetrator can also obtain photos and videos of the victim in other ways or take the pictures themselves, such as at school.
Threatening and harassing
Cyberbullies can also target their victims by threatening physical or sexual violence or harassing their victims by stalking them. In the case of cyberstalking, for example, the perpetrator follows, harasses, or threatens someone through digital means or via digital communication channels. The perpetrators are often ex-partners who, following the separation, send unwanted messages with sexual content or pornographic material, terrorizing their victims.
Potential consequences of cyberbullying
Bullying and cyberbullying can have serious impacts on the victim’s mental health, causing depression, anxiety, and stress disorders — and in the worst case, even leading to attempted suicide. However, those affected are often too ashamed and afraid to talk to anyone about it, and are fearful of making their situation worse through possible outside intervention.
That makes it all the more important for parents to recognize when their child is affected by bullying and/or cyberbullying. Parents should watch for warning signs such as a drop in performance, behavioral changes, and mood swings. Difficulty concentrating, headaches and stomach aches, lack of motivation and interest, loss of sleep and appetite, frequent bouts of anger or depression as well as alcohol and/or drug use can also be signs of cyberbullying.
Parents should also take it seriously if their child suddenly no longer wants to go to school or play sports — or generally avoids activities that they used to enjoy, becoming increasingly withdrawn, even from friends and family.
What can victims do against cyberbullying?
Victims of bullying and cyberbullying should definitely confide in someone, such as a parent, a teacher, or another trusted person. Fortunately, awareness of cyberbullying has increased and there are now many advice centers, help services, and information websites on the internet where both parents and those affected can get advice. The services offered range from help with how to deal with bullying to support with pursuing perpetrators through civil or criminal courts.
Whether cyberbullying is a criminal offense in a legal sense varies from country to country. However, some types of cyberbullying are considered criminal offenses almost everywhere and should always be reported, such as threats of violence, stalking, or sexual harassment of minors.
In any case, it’s important to defend yourself against any form of cyberbullying and stop the perpetrators.
Steps to take against cyberbullying:
- Get help and advice in dealing with cyberbullying.
- Discuss the next steps in detail with your child and do not do anything without informing them or obtaining their consent.
- Inform the school or institution where the bullying is taking place or where the cyberbullying originated.
- Report bullying content using the designated channel on the social media platform, block the cyberbully, and remove them from your child’s friends list.
- Document the incident, for example by taking screenshots, and report it to the police if necessary.
How to protect your kids from cyberbullying
Unfortunately, bullying and cyberbullying cannot be avoided or prevented. That said, parents can clue themselves up about cyberbullying and other cyberthreats to children like cybergrooming and talk to their kids about it. Among other things, they can talk to their kids about how to generally behave online, make them more aware of certain topics, and agree on rules for internet use.
Tips and steps to protect against cyberbullying:
- Explain to your child the importance of being careful about what content they share or post. That’s because once something is on the internet, it can spread quickly and is difficult or impossible to remove permanently.
- Review the privacy settings on social networks such as Facebook with your child and determine which information is made visible to whom.
- Install child protection programs to limit usage times and block certain apps, websites, and services on your child’s smartphone or computer.
- Generally, educate your child about online dangers, cybersecurity, and privacy on the internet, and install a free all-in-one protection solution such as Avira Free Security on your kid’s computer. Such a solution includes many features that can enhance online security and privacy, and improve the protection of your child’s digital life.
- Protect your kid’s mobile devices too, such as with Avira Antivirus Security for Android or Avira Mobile Security for iOS. Among their many features, with the AppLock feature for Android you can block access to certain apps or groups of apps. With the iOS app, your child can block unwanted callers and messengers.