Hateful or threatening messages. This includes name-calling, attempts to control someone’s behavior by threatening to expose embarrassing information, or threats of violence. Embarrassing or threatening images or videos. Multiple unwanted emails, instant messages, or texts, regardless of the content. Lies about the person to make them look bad.
Posting humiliating messages on a social media site, a blog, or another public space. Sharing pictures or videos that are embarrassing or explicit in nature on social media websites and through text messaging. Creating a website filled with defamatory images, insults, and rumors about the target.
In this case it is more difficult to identify the perpetrator. Report the impersonation to the website or your service provider.
If you don’t know who the bully is, or if you’re being bullied by a group of people, attempting to talk it out probably won’t work.
Also, don’t threaten the bully to get back at them. Sending a threatening message out of exasperation will only provoke the bully to keep up the bad behavior, and it may get you in trouble, too.
Having as much information as possible about the bully’s behavior will help you determine how to stop their behavior. You can also show this evidence to an authority figure to prove that you’re being bullied.
Delete the person from your email contacts and block instant messaging communication. Delete the person from your social networks and use the online privacy settings to ensure that the person can’t get in contact with you again. Block the person from texting your phone.
You might be tempted to let the bullying run its course instead of bringing attention to the problem, but if you do that the bully will get the message that there’s no penalty for harassing someone.
No matter what your school’s individual policy might be, it’s part of the administrators’ job to resolve the situation. If you’re a child or teenager, know that taking this issue to the school is the right thing to do. Other kids at the school may be experiencing cyberbullying, too. The school needs to be made aware of the problem to take steps to end it. If you’re a parent, set up a meeting with the school principal to address the problem head-on.
You may have to send your records of the cyber bully’s messages to the provider as proof you are being bullied.
Threats of violence or death. Sexually explicit photos or descriptions of sex acts. If the images are of a minor, this may be considered child pornography. Secretly-recorded photos or videos that were taken without the subject’s knowledge. Hateful texts or online messages that single out and harass the victim on the basis of certain features, such as race, gender, religion, or sexual identity.
For example, don’t post an explicit photo of yourself on a public Tumblr blog. Keep those pictures to private blogs. Anything typed into a public Facebook comment, Tumblr post, or Instagram comment could land in the wrong hands. Try not to discuss deeply personal information online.
If your friends start teasing someone online or via text, don’t participate. Ask them to stop, and let them know that cyberbullying has the same dangerous consequences as in-person bullying does.
If you’re a parent, then go ahead and install protective software—or turn on privacy apps—as a protective measure.
