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Tyler Luu

Mrs. Hatefield

ENGL-1302-SCHS3

March 31, 2020

Causal Argument

Cyberbullying has been present ever since the first public online chat room was created.

Unlike traditional bullying where the bully would mess with the victim face to face,

cyberbullying allows bullies to hide behind a screen while they viciously torment their victim.

However, over the years many different social media platforms, and other websites that have a

commenting system (like newspapers and such) have implemented a reporting system that allows

people to report hateful comments, get them deleted, and issue some sort of penalty towards the

cyberbully or harasser. Even though this reporting system exists and has significantly helped

remove the mean comments, some obviously hurtful comments still go untouched simply

because the bully did not use a curse word or use a phrase that the reporting system could pick

up on. This means that there could still be improvements made to the reporting system and

community guidelines in social media platforms. Because cyberbullying causes negative mental

effects (such as depression and anxiety) and negative physical effects (such as stomach aches and

headaches from nervousness), social media platforms (like Instagram) should regulate or update

their comment restriction guidelines and reporting system.

Cyberbullying causes negative mental effects such as depression and anxiety. In fact,

almost ninety-three percent of cyberbullied victims reported to have these mental effects

according to the National Institutes of Health (Nixon N.P). Majority of the victims also report to
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the National Institutes of Health that they have feelings of “-​sadness, hopelessness, and

powerlessness.”(Nixon N.P) The feeling of sadness and the depression that children receive

when they get bullied online are important to prevent. They are important to prevent because

according to the article ​The Moderation of Empathy in the Longitudinal Association Between

Witnessing Cyberbullying, Depression, and Anxiety ​by Michelle Wright, “Both depression and

anxiety are important to study because these disorders can negatively impact the short-term and

long-term functioning of adolescents.”(Wright np)​ ​These, however, are not the only negative

mental effects or feelings that need to be prevented. For example, according to the Cyberbullying

Research Center, almost twenty percent of these tormented victims have reported that they had

suicidal thoughts when they were bullied online (Duverge N.P). These negative mental effects of

cyberbullying especially have their toll on adolescents as thirty-eight percent of them reported to

be emotional distress after being harassed online. The toll of cyberbullying is so great that it can

make victims lose their appetite, or make them become bothered by things that do not usually

bother them (Wright n.p.). In order to stop the negative impact of these effects from happening to

other adolescents, cyberbullying should be stopped. Not only the mental effects of cyberbullying

should be stopped, but also the physical effects.

Victims can be physically affected by cyberbullying. For example, according to Touro

University Worldwide, victims can experience physiological symptoms such as headaches and

stomach pains that are often associated with the nervousness they get from cyberbullying

(Duverge N.P). These physical effects are not only physiological, but they can also be life

threatening effects. For example, victims can cut their skin with razor blades to act as a coping

mechanism against the bullying (Duverge N.P). Some victims also resort to suicide as an escape
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from their tormentors. According to a research study done by Sameer Hinduja and Justin Patchin,

nineteen percent of their subjects reported about attempting suicide because of the cyberbully

attacks they have experienced (Hinduja and Patchin N.P.). Sometimes the victims actually go

through the suicide. For example, in the article ​Current Perspectives: the Impact of

Cyberbullying on Adolescent Health ​by Charisse Nixon, there was “a 12-year-old girl from Polk

County, FL, USA who jumped to her death after experiencing relentless acts of cyberbullying.”

In order to prevent the negative physiological effects of cyberbullying and attempted (and actual)

suicides from happening, readers should know what can be classified as cyberbullying.

Cyberbullying is the harassment of others through an online source like social media.

This harassment can be anything that negatively affects a person. The article ​Bullying,

Cyberbullying, and Suicide ​by Sameer Hinduja and Justin Patchin more specifically define

cyberbullying as “​willful and repeated harm inflicted through the use of computers, cell phones,

and other electronic devices.”(Hinduja and Patchin n.p.) ​Hinduja and Patchin also gives an

extensive list of examples of what cyberbullying can be, and states that cyberbullying can be

“​Posting something online about another person to make others laugh, sending someone a

computer text message to make them angry or to make fun of them, taking a picture of someone

and posted it online without their permission, posting something on MySpace or similar site to

make them angry or to make fun of them, Sent someone an email to make them angry or to make

fun of them…”(​Hinduja and Patchin N.P.) Cyberbullying should be prevented, so social media

platforms should do something about this.

Social media platforms should update their community guidelines and reporting systems

in order to prevent cyberbullying. Social platforms, like Instagram, have a reporting system and
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community guidelines that do help go filter through these hurtful comments, but it does not sift

through all of them. There are many users that still go through harassment on Instagram, but can

not do anything about it, even with Instagram’s reporting system. There is even an article called

Instagram Has a Massive Harassment Problem ​by Taylor Lorenz that talks about the flaws of

Instagram’s anti-harassment system. Lorenz addresses one of the problems of the reporting

system by stating, “While Instagram does auto-filter certain words from comments, users say

trolls simply add an extra letter or symbol to escape the filters.”(Lorenz n.p) In order to combat

these flaws in the system, Instagram needs to update their reporting system. Instagram could

make the reporting system not only take down comments with curse words used in a derogatory

way, but also have hired users look at words that are not in the dictionary and determine if they

are derogatory or not. They could also hire users to look at comments that the reporting program

has problems with deciphering, and determine for themselves if the comment goes against

community guidelines. The community guidelines could also be made stricter in order to close

down more loopholes to the system. This may seem like a great plan, but to others it might not

be.

Some people might be against this particular way of updating the reporting system. For

example, someone might ask, “How do we know if the hired users are being fair about taking

down comments?” In order to combat this particular scenario, Instagram could make the system

in a way that multiple people can vote on if a comment goes against the guidelines or not, and

deal with it through a majority vote. At least, this way it becomes a lot more fair as to if one

employee was to take down the comment due to their biases. If the voting system ends up in a

tie, or ends up in some sort of predicament, the employees could send the comment to another
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team for them to review it. Another opposition to this proposal is Instagram themselves.

Instagram might not want to use most of their money just to regulate the comments to this extent,

especially if they could use the money to further promote their product. However, if Instagram

were to hear that their users want this change to their reporting system, and if there was enough

of an uproar about the unfairness of the system, Instagram would find themselves considering

these changes. Instagram would not want to lose its followers and users, so this could potentially

work. If these changes were to happen, Cyberbullying would certainly go down. However, the

problem with this proposal is how possible it is.

The proposal of updating the reporting system, and preventing most cyberbullying is very

feasible. Instagram has already been promoting that they are trying their best to make

anti-harassment filters. For example, in ​Instagram Has a Massive Harassment Problem b​ y

Taylor Lorenz, she states that “Last week, Instagram announced a set of new features to limit

bullying and “spread kindness,” including comment filters on live videos, a “kindness camera

effect to spread positivity,” and the deployment of machine-learning technology to better detect

bullying in photos.”(Lorenz n.p) Instagram is already trying to make this cyberbullying

prevention possible, the only problem is that Instagram is not putting enough resources into this

system. Lorenz further proves this point by stating that, “many of the efforts to reduce

harassment were oriented toward PR, but very few engineering and community resources were

put toward actually decreasing harassment.”(Lorenz n.p) Cyberbullying is very close to being

mostly prevented on at least one social media platform, this idea only needs more time and

resources put into it to become possible.

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Cyberbullying needs to be stopped in order to prevent the negative mental and physical

effects that are associated with cyberbullying, which social media platforms could help to

prevent by updating their reporting system. This is all possible if enough resources and time was

put into this matter. If more support was given into this subject, and if there were more

fundraisers to raise money for this issue, Cyberbullying could be reduced. This dream could

become a reality.

.
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Work Cited Page

“Digital Threats: The Impact of Cyberbullying.” ​Touro University WorldWide​, 17 July 2015,

www.tuw.edu/health/impact-of-cyberbullying/.

Nixon, Charisse L. “Current Perspectives: the Impact of Cyberbullying on Adolescent

Health.” ​Adolescent Health, Medicine and Therapeutics​, Dove Medical Press, 1 Aug.

2014, ​www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4126576/#b42-ahmt-5-143​.

Hinduja S, and Patchin JW. “Bullying, Cyberbullying, and Suicide.” ​Archives of Suicide

Research,​ vol. 14, no. 3, July 2010, pp. 206–221. ​EBSCOhost,​

doi:10.1080/13811118.2010.494133.

Byrne, Elizabeth, et al. “Cyberbullying and Social Media: Information and Interventions for

School Nurses Working With Victims, Students, and Families.” ​Journal of School

Nursing​, vol. 34, no. 1, Feb. 2018, pp. 38–50. ​EBSCOhost​,

doi:10.1177/1059840517740191.

Wright, Michelle F., et al. “The Moderation of Empathy in the Longitudinal Association

between Witnessing Cyberbullying, Depression, and Anxiety.” ​Cyberpsychology,​ vol. 12,

no. 4, Dec. 2018, pp. 1–14. ​EBSCOhost​, doi:10.5817/CP2018-4-6.

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Lorenz, Story by Taylor. “Instagram Has a Massive Harassment Problem.” ​The Atlantic​, Atlantic

Media Company, 22 Oct. 2018,

www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2018/10/instagram-has-massive-harassment-problem/5

72890/.