Cyber Woolly Bully - Examples
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By now, we've all heard of chat rooms, but have you heard of bash boards? They are online bulletin boards where teenagers go and anonymously post anything they want. They work basically the same as chat rooms and have the same vulnerabilities.
Short Message Service (SMS) is a service to send short text messages to mobile phones. The text is composed of just words and numbers. Enhanced Messaging Service (EMS) is the same thing but offers more features. Multimedia Messaging Service (MMS) has the capability to send text, sounds, images, and videos to a portable multimedia device. Take a look at how one cyber-bully might take advantage of a chat session:
TheSwizzler: Hey Kevin, I heard you mom is totally hot.
MagicFox23: How do you know my name? Who is this?
TheSwizzler: Ha ha ha ha! Nice font, you fairy!
MagicFox23: Ha, yea. So who is this anyway?
TheSwizzler: When I take your mom out on our date, I'm gonna tell her about how you came out of the closet over instant messenger.
MagicFox23: If you don't stop, I'm gonna have to block you.
TheSwizzler: Don't stop...that's what your mom is gonna say when I take her back to my place.
You can imagine where it goes from there.
Of course, cyber-bullies do use email to torment their victims by sending threatening messages. They do this when they want to take a more personal approach. It is possible to trace the email to a specific account, but it's nearly impossible to prove who sent the email.
When cyber-bullies want to take their tormenting more public, they usually create defamatory websites or troll Internet forums. An Internet troll is someone who purposely posts numerous contentious or derogatory comments about a person or group in order to bait them into conflict. For a defamatory website, the most logical response would be to contact the ISP so they can address the situation. However, this can be more difficult than you'd think because many ISPs do not have clear Terms of Use or Acceptable Use Policies (AUP), not to mention that many are just plain lazy.
Another tactic cyber-bullies use has to do with online voting/polling. There are some websites that give users the opportunity to create these online booths, which can then be used to create polls for the “Ugliest, Fattest, Hairiest, Dirtiest, Smelliest, Sluttiest, Scurviest kid at school.” A few of these websites do regulate this kind of behavior, but most of them don't and leave the overseeing to “volunteer” maintainers.
As the Internet grows, so will the opportunities for cyber-bullying. Luckily there are those working twice as hard to protect the potential victims from their ravenous claws. Read on to see some of the best methods for prevention.
Next: What Can Be Done? >>
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