Clicks and stones: Are cyber-bullies here to stay?
Post date: April 17, 2006
Article reproduced from FSA Magazine Catalyst: Ideas for Change, Fall/Winter 2005 issue
It used to be that a school bully would taunt you in the classroom, inflict bruises at recess and perhaps chase you to your driveway after school. Dropping your backpack by the front door brought relief and liberation; no bully could get to you.
But among today’s Internet and mobile-device savvy youth, there is no bully safety net. If you have access to the Internet or know someone who does, you are vulnerable to the whims of cyber-bullies.
Verbal and physical bullying in schools has received the lion’s share of preventative and penal action in school systems in recent years, no doubt propelled by extreme acts of violence seen at Columbine High School and in Taber, Alberta. With physical abuse heavily scrutinized, a new frontier has opened. Techno-teens and t’weens are now pointing and clicking mean-spirited messages and logging onto websites dedicated to humiliation, complete with message boards, chat-rooms and photo galleries.
The Internet has become such a daily essential that parents no longer vigilantly monitor its use. “Few parents are aware of what goes on in cyberspace and some are simply not that knowledgeable about the Internet,” says Anna Nosko, an FSA Toronto Counsellor who works extensively with parents and children in the COPE program. Finding a young internet user who hasn’t seen, written or been the subject of hate email or online degradation, however, is rare. Ninety-nine per cent of Canadian students have used the Internet, with nearly 60 per cent using chat rooms or instant messengers1.
Websites such as schoolscandals.com entice online antagonism. Students can log in under an assumed identity, select their school from a list, and begin to slander and smear the names and reputation of their peers. Anonymity is the lure. When there is low probability of being caught and few, if any, consequences for their actions, the tactics cyber-bullies employ can escalate to dangerous levels of racist, sexist and libelous remarks or threats of physical harm or death. “It is not unusual for gangs to use sophisticated online software to publicize their crimes,” Anna adds.
Research out of Saskatchewan indicates that children and teens subjected to online bullying suffer from severe anxiety, insomnia, depression and even mild agoraphobia. The symptoms of cyber-bully victims parallel those of physical bullying victims, indicating the frightening possibility of history repeating itself with bloodshed in schools.
Internet Service Providers’ (ISP) “Terms of Use” policies vary, but share a general rule that users cannot post harmful, threatening, abusive or otherwise objectionable material2. There is no legal obligation, however, to remove offending sites. The Canadian Association of ISPs’ position is that it is not the role of individual ISPs to elect what is admissible on the web—a position strongly supported by defenders of free speech.
Some victims have launched precedent-setting Internet libel cases, but they are also seeking formal policies and legislation that will protect citizens from online harassment. Unabated, cyber-bullying will only spread and may result in the tragedies that traditional bullying has wrought.
1 CBC News Online/
March 2005
2 Yahoo! Canada Terms
of Service
By Lynette Ashwood
