Types of Cyberbullying﻿

Cyberbullying is digital harassment done online. It is also known as online bullying and this surprisingly common among teenagers and adults. In an ever-increasingly digital world, it is becoming hard to avoid bad online experiences. Some people use social media accounts to anonymously harass, blackmail, or bully people. Cyberbullies spread rumors, sexual content, threats, and private personal information. Furthermore, it results in the emotional responses like being frustrated, angry and even suicide. Cyberbullying fall into multiple categories described below;

Harassment

It is the deliberate and repeated abusive or threats to a person or a group of people. The cyberbully sends messages to someone he wants to humiliate to make him feel frightened or intimidated. The message can contain private details related to someone’s personal life, that was obtained via hacking or people search engines. The cyberbully may solicit help from other people in order to increase the amount of harassment towards the person or group. Moreover, in its response, the individual who is being harassed can be thought to do any extreme actions on this; it could be an emotional act like suicide.

Outing

Releasing peoples private information, such as real names for online personas or sexual orientation.

Cyberstalking

The cyberbully uses social media accounts or text to repeatedly message the victim with violent or sexual messages. The victim blocks the user, but the Cyberstalker creates new accounts to continue unwanted contact with the victim. Cyberstalking often leads to stalking in real life.

Hacking

The Cyberbully gains access to someone’s social media accounts and posts inappropriate content that can damage one’s reputation.

Digital Impersonation

It refers to creating a fake social media account, in order to pretend to be someone else. The Cyberbully then posts disturbing things, in order to harm someone’s reputation.

What to do when you are getting cyberbullied?

Relax

Take a deep breath and do a relaxing activity such as walking or meditation. You can’t control how other people behave, don’t take it personally, because some cyberbullies have mental health issues.

Never Retaliate

Responding to Cyberbullying in kind will make things worst. The cyberbully will use your actions against you. So be clear and confident to yourself that you are not wrong. Retaliations would turn into the series of reactions, silence will help de-escalate the situation.

Social media platforms have ways to block people from contacting you, so block liberally.

Save Evidence

If someone is cyberbullying you, the best thing you can document the abuse and capture or screenshot the message and keep it as evidence. Write down the dates and print out the screenshot and make sure it is unmodified. In this way, you will have proof if the matter escalates.