Cyberbullying is a Growing Concern for Social Media users

We have been hearing the term “cyberbullying” for years now and it was generally understood as electronic communication carried out through social media and used for the purpose of bullying. In the recent past, cyber bullying emerged as more evident trend than physical bullying, and especially in major cities where access to Internet and social media has become almost unlimited.

In 2015, Intel Security released its Teens, Tweens and Technology Study which revealed that 81 percent of Indian children between the age of 8 and 16 were active on social media networks and of these 22 percent reported being bullied online. This was the highest when compared to Australia, USA and Singapore being part of the survey.

With the rising number of connected devices, be it PC, laptop, tablet or just a smartphones, India children and teens are spending more time on the Internet than ever before. And many issues and conflicts that were once at the classroom or a playground, are now converting into online bullying. Despite for years cyberbullying has been discussed in relation to children, it is quite clear that not only kids fall victims to online harassment. Celebrities, politicians, sportsmen, businessmen and ordinary people – no one is immune.

Much talked about 2014 Pew Research Center report revealed that seventy-three percent of adult witness online abuse, while forty percent were victims of virtual attacks. Pew Research asked respondents about six different forms of online harassment. Those who witnessed harassment said they had seen at least one of the following occur to others online:

* 60% of internet users said they had witnessed someone being called offensive names

* 53% had seen efforts to purposefully embarrass someone

* 25% had seen someone being physically threatened

* 24% witnessed someone being harassed for a sustained period of time

* 19% said they witnessed someone being sexually harassed

* 18% said they had seen someone be stalked

In broad trends revealed by the research, men are more likely to experience name-calling and embarrassment, while young women are particularly vulnerable to sexual harassment and stalking. Social media is the most common scene of both types of harassment, although men highlight online gaming and comments sections as other spaces they typically encounter harassment.

What makes it more disturbing about cyberbullying both in case of children and adults is that the nature of cyberbullying is often such that it prevents the victim from revealing the information about being bullied to their families or friends which certainly delays getting the professional help. Emotional damage caused by cyberbullying is just as painful for an adult as it is for children. And in case of cyberbullying against adults, especially ones involving sexual harassment,  victim’s reputation in the society and at workplace could also be damaged making the case all the more difficult to deal with.

Although cyberbullying is not limited to social media, it is the most common instrument used by cyber bullies.

Bullying through social media  platforms can include Posting negative comments on pictures, Posting abusive posts on a user’s wall, Using pictures or videos to make fun of another user, Using social media to stalk, Hacking an account or fraudulently making posts posing as the real account holder. It is important to remember that cyberctiminal canuse social meida to infect victim’s system spyware and another maware in order to spy on a vactim or get access to senssistive data.

A significant amount of social media bullying takes places on Facebook due to many factors including its widespread popularity and its capacity to share photos, videos and other personal information. However, it is not limited just to Facebook. In fact, the more social media accounts a potential victim of cyber bullies has, the more are the chances that bad guys will use all of them to reach their goal.

To prevent cyberbullying targeted at children, parents and teachers should first of all educate the kids about using social media, communicating with friends and strangers over social media and especially about sharing personal information with others. Protecting their social media accounts and information available of them is another important step while in general teaching children to respect others and to take a stand against bullying of other children can be the best possible preventive measure.

Where common sense is not enough technology helps. Parents should monitor what their kids are doing online, which websites their kids are visiting and which mobile applications they’ve downloaded.  Tracking kids’ computer usage through monitoring software that records browsing history and other PC activity can help as well, however, parents should let their kids know their activity is being monitored.

Parents need to make sure that they protect all devices accssible by children . A product like System Mechanic Pro can help prevent malware and viruses from being installed, even if your household doesn’t always deploy the best browsing habits. A security solution that uses both signature-based reactive and behavior-based proactive detection strategies will work best to protect your computer.  Such professional  security software will always have a set of features that helps parents protect children from unsuitable content, set limits around the  usage of the device and social media, establish healthy habits of being online while potentially protects them cyber bullies.

All these measures could and should be used by adults as well to protect themselves and their families from becoming victims of cyber bullying. Education, again, comes in the first place, although in case of adults it should not be limited to safe usage of social media. One should understand Research what constitutes cyberbullying, as well as how and where it is most likely to occur. Learning about protecting your accounts, especially e-mail accounts, social media accounts and access to banking and financial apps is essential for any online user.

Sharing personal information, including passwords, financial details or, for example, nude photos and provoking videos in chat applications, messengers or over email should be done with extra precautions. You need to make sure that your device, be it a PC, laptop or a smartphone s absolutely virus free and that the person with whom you are sharing these details is known to you and acting on behalf of himself or herself. There is always a change of these sensitive details becoming public, and that’s where the cyber bulling often starts.

Having professional security software can unsure your device is safe and secure, but your responsibility doesn’t end there. Your behavior online can often save you better from online threats than some of the best software. To make sure you do not fall victim to spyware and other malware that can be used by cybercriminals for various purposes, including spying and cyber bulling, never open unidentified or unsolicited messages (emails, text messages, Facebook messages, etc.) from people you don’t know and think twice before clicking any link you get in messengers.

Passwords can often become a reason of all your troubles online, and many researchers conducted in India and abroad revealed that users do maximum possible mistakes while setting passwords for their social media accounts and emails. To prevent cybercriminals from harming yourself online, keep passwords strong and in secret, do not save them in form fields within web sites or your web browser for convenience, and don’t stay logged in when you walk away from the computer or cell phone.