Anonymous Perpetrators

By: Shenivel E. Bante

Bullying is an inherent issue in learning institutions, workplaces, and other areas.

Bullying tactics have evolved; teenagers are now bullied over the internet. Even though
teenagers use technology everyday because of its availability and affordability, with no adult
supervision, children and teenagers are exposed to several risks including. Parents are worried
about their children being bullied over the internet because they cannot easily detect the bully.
Cyber bullying is a recent form of aggression that students use to humiliate and attack their less
popular peers. It could be limited to posting rumors or gossips about a person in the internet
bringing about hatred on other’s minds; or it may go to the extent of personally identifying
victims and publishing materials severely defaming and humiliating them.

There are types of cyber bullying; (1) harassment – involves the bully sending offensive
and malicious messages to an individual or a group and is often repeated multiple times – cyber
stalking is one form of harassment that involves continual threatening and rude messages, and
can lead to physical harassment in real, offline world; (2) flaming – is similar to harassment, but
it is a type of public bullying often direct harsh languages, or images to a specific person; (3)
exclusion – is the act of intentionally singling out and leaving a person out from an online group
such as chats and sites which the group subsequently leave malicious comments and harass one
they singled out; (4) outing – is when bully shares personal and private information, pictures, or
videos about someone publicly; and (5) masquerading – is a situation where bully creates a fake
identity to harass someone anonymously where they create fake identities or even impersonate
someone else to send malicious messages to the victim.

According to the Philippine National Police-Anti Cybercrime Group (ACG), the cases of
cyber bullying have increased by 70.74% in the year of 2016. For the first quarter of 2017, ACG
has recorded 142 cases of libel, 41 online threats, 10 incidents of unjust vexation, and four cases
of child abuse. Gabrielle Molina, a 12-year-old Filipino-American from Queens Village in New
York, killed herself in her room after allegedly being cyber bullied by her classmates. She
experienced relentless online bullying and was branded as a slut because one of her classmates
uploaded a video on YouTube where Gabrielle was shown arguing with another classmate.

Boys and girls appear to be equally likely to be targets of cyber bullying. There
are some indications that girls may be more likely that boys to be targeted frequently. Older
teens seem to be more likely to be involved that younger teens, in fact, a recent national survey
of youth reports that the average age of a teenager involved in cyber bullying is 15 years old.

How much often does it happen? Depending of the type of cyber bullying, between 9-
34% of young people say they have been targeted for cyber bullying in the past years. About
16% say they’ve been targeted monthly or more often. 31% report being targeted by rude or
mean comments; 13% report having rumors, true or false and spread about them; 14% report
being targeted by threatening or aggressive comments; 9% report they’ve felt worried or
threatened because someone was bothering or harassing them online; 4% report someone has
used the Internet to threaten or embarrass them by posting or sending information for others to
see.

Cyber bullied kids experience anxiety, fear, depression, and low self-esteem. They also
may deal low self-esteem, experience physical symptoms, and struggle academically. But targets
of cyber bullying also experience some unique consequences and negative feelings. They often
feel overwhelmed, feel vulnerable and powerless, feel exposed and humiliated, feel dissatisfied
with who they are, feel angry and vengeful, feel disinterested in life, feel alone and isolated, feel
disinterested in school, feel anxious and depressed and other stress – related conditions, feel ill,
and feel suicidal.

Since cyber bullying issues are more likely to happen at schools, social networking, and
modern technologies like mobile phones and computers; teachers, parents nor guardians are
responsible to monitor, punish and prevent cyber bullying. But how can they help on preventing
other students, other kids, and other friends about being cyber bullied? While every situation is
slightly different, it helps to have some general guidelines on how to handle cyber bullying, and
more importantly get your friends, child, student on a path to overcoming the bullying. Don’t
respond – ignore the posts, comments, calls and texts. Print and keep copies of all the cyber
bullying – save all messages, comments, emails, blog posts, tweets, and so on as evidence.
Report the cyber bullying to your school’s guidance counsellor or principal – reporting this
incidents is especially important if the cyber bullying occurred on school grounds and if your
school is unable or unwilling to respond to the cyber bullying, consider contacting the police to
file a report. Report cyber bullying to the social media sited and your Internet Service Provider
(ISP) – if the cyber bullying occurs on your child’s personal accounts or happens at home, it is
important that you forward copies of the cyber bullying to your ISP. Contact the police
immediately regarding any threats and cut off communication – cancel current social networking
sites, change your phone number, then block the cyber bully from your new social networking
sites and cell phones. Be aware of the effects of cyber bullying and seek counselling and support
if needed.

In conclusion, it can be seen that cyber bullying is one of the biggest problems facing
youth in our society today. It has also been shown that there is insufficient legislation to combat
against it. Instead, parents and teachers should focus on prevention, and educating kids about the
effects of cyber bully. As awareness of the problem increases, hopefully cyber bullying will stop.