What is Cyberbullying?

Cyberbullying occurs when a person uses the Internet or other electronic means (a.k.a. cell phones) to persistently harass, humiliate, or intimidate another.

Cyberbullying can be anonymous or not. It can take place in chat rooms, instant messengers, e-mail, social networking sites, text messages, blogs, and websites.

It can range from posting mean comments on someone’s social networking site, to stealing a password and sending out an embarrassing message or photo, to creating a hate site dedicated to berating an individual, to stalking.

Here are a few examples from an excellent cybersafety resource, Nancy Willard:

Flaming
– Online “fights” using electronic messages
Harassment
– Repeatedly sending offensive messages
Denigration
– Sending or posting material about a person to damage his or her reputation or friendships
Impersonation
– Posing as a person and posting material to make the person look bad, get in trouble or
danger, or damage that person’s reputation or friendships
Outing and Trickery
– Sharing someone’s secrets or embarrassing information or images online or tricking
someone into revealing such information and then sharing
Exclusion
– Intentionally excluding someone from an online group
Cyberstalking
– Repeatedly sending threatening and intimidating messages or engaging in other online activities that make a person afraid for her or his safety