Also known as online bullying it has become increasingly common especially amongst the youth.

Cyber bullying is when someone typically a teenager harasses, embarrasses or bully’s someone on the internet or in other digital spaces and particularly on social media sites.

Some examples of harmful bullying behaviour are threats, derogatory remarks, sexual remarks, hate speech and racism.

Victims of cyber bullying can experience a variety of negative responses such as depression, anger, being scared, frustrated, hampered ability to learn and in some cases even suicide.

Internet Trolling

An internet troll is a member of an online social community who deliberately tries to disrupt, attack, offend or generally cause trouble within the community by posting certain comments, photos, videos, GIFs or some other form of harmful online content.

You can find trolls all over the internet, on Facebook, YouTube, LinkedIn, Twitter, Instagram and anywhere else that has an open area where people can freely post and express their opinions.

Controlling them can sometimes be difficult, but the most common ways to get rid of them include either banning or blocking the individual user account or IP addresses or reporting them to the authorities or closing off comment sections entirely from a blog post, video page or topic thread.

Cyberstalking

Cyberstalking can be defined as threatening behaviour or unwanted advances directed at another using the Internet and other forms of online and computer communications.  This can include email; social networking sites such as Facebook, Twitter, Instagram amongst others.

Cyberstalking takes many forms such as, threatening or obscene e-mail, live chat harassment or online verbal abuse, leaving improper messages on comment sections, sending electronic viruses, sending unsolicited e-mail, tracing another person’s computer and Internet activity, and electronic identity theft.

Like stalking off-line, online stalking can be a terrifying experience for victims, placing them at risk of psychological trauma, and possible physical harm. Many cyberstalking situations do evolve into off-line stalking, and a victim may experience abusive and excessive phone calls, vandalism, threatening or obscene mail, trespassing, and physical assault.

Potential Effects of Cyberstalking

Just because cyberstalking does not include physical contact with the perpetrator does not mean it is not as threatening or frightening, Victims of cyberstalking often experience psychological trauma, as well as physical and emotional reactions.

Some of these effects may include changes in sleeping pattens, learning and eating patterns, nightmares, anxiety, helplessness, and fear for safety.

What to do if you are a victim of Cyber Bullying

 If you are under the age of 18 you must tell your parents or another adult, you trust about any harassments and/or threats.

Where the perpetrator is known, victims should send the stalker a clear written warning. Specifically, communicate that the contact is unwanted, and ask the perpetrator to cease sending communications of any kind. Victims should do this only once. Then, no matter the response, should under no circumstances ever communicate with the stalker again.

As soon as individuals suspect they are survivors of online harassment or cyberstalking, they should start collecting all evidence and document all contact made by the stalker. Save all e-mail, postings, or other communications in both electronic and hard-copy form. Record the dates and times of any contact with the stalker.

You may wish to file a complaint with the stalker’s Internet service provider, as well as with your own service provider. Many Internet service providers offer tools that filter or block communications from specific individuals.

We suggest start a log of each communication explaining the situation in more detail and document how the harassment is affecting your life and what steps you have taken to stop the harassment.

You may want to file a report with local law enforcement. Victims should save copies of police reports and record all contact with law enforcement officials.

You may want to consider changing your e-mail address, Internet service provider, a home phone number, or consider using encryption software or privacy protection programs. Any local computer store can offer a variety of protective software, options and suggestions. You may also want to learn how to use the filtering capabilities of email programs to block e-mails from certain addresses. See CyberAweh.

Finally, under no circumstances agree to meet with the perpetrator face to face to “work it out,” or “talk.” No contact should ever be made with the stalker. Meeting a stalker in person can be very dangerous.

Doxing

Doxing is the internet-based practice of researching and publicly broadcasting identifiable information especially personal identifiable information about an individual or organization.

The methods used to acquire the information include publicly available databases like Facebook, LinkedIn and other social media websites.

Doxing may be carried out for various reasons including inflicting harm. blackmailing, harassment, online shaming, extortion or harassment.

Doxing is therefore a standard tactic of online harassment and has also been used by people associated with vaccine controversies.

Vaccine hesitancy or Anti Vax is a reluctance or refusal to be vaccinated against contagious disease and is identified by the WHO as one of the top 10 health threats.

Legal Remedies

Cyber Bullying is part of the reality of teachers and learners all over the world. While other forms of bullying are limited to the time when learners interact face-to-face, cyberbullying follows learners via their electronic devices wherever they go. The consequences of bullying are severe and include depression, anxiety, panic attacks, insecurity, low self-esteem, unassertiveness, poor academic performance, aggression, high truancy rates, school drop-out and in severe cases, antisocial personality disorders, substance use disorders and suicide.

Despite the commonness of the problem, many teachers and parents do not know how to deal with bullying and cyberbullying.

Some children are of the opinion that their parents will not know what to do about cyberbullying and they do not even tell their parents or teachers about it

 Furthermore, some parents and teachers are convinced that bullying is a harmless rite of passage or a normal part of growing up and thus believe that intervention is unnecessary

There are various ways to address the problem, albeit with varying levels of success.

One way of dealing with bullying is to seek legal remedy.

Within the South African context, there is no all-encompassing legal solution to address bullying. Existing legislation does, however, allow for ways to prevent, report and penalise bullying and cyberbullying.

Human Rights, which form the cornerstone of the South African legal framework, is at the heart of countering any form of victimisation, and South African law explicitly protects the rights of children.

Cyber security education teaches children what to look out for and how to prevent attacks on their computers, tablets or smart phones.