Cyberbullying on Social Media

Since starting in the early 2000s with MySpace, people start using social media on a daily basis. Not only to connect, communicate, and make new friends, social media can also be used for business. I remember when I’m in my teenage years, I would go to an internet cafe just to access my Facebook account. Over time, you shouldn’t have to go to an internet cafe anymore. You can access your account on your phone. Social media can be accessed easily in hand.

Besides all the glamor on social media, the platform also has a dark side. It is cyberbullying. According to Smith et al., 2008, “Cyberbullying describes bullying using mobile phones and the internet”. Based on the same research, cyberbullying happens less frequently than traditional bullying, but its impact can be much greater. The victim of cyberbullying may have mental health issues, like depression, anxiety, low self-esteem, and even leading to suicide. If the victim is a teenager, this can affect their school performance too.

Not only the mental health effect as stated before, but the victim also can be the bully itself. This is an interesting part of cyberbullying, as anyone can be the bully, even the victim itself. This raised another question. Why would a victim turn into the perpetrator when it comes to cyberbullying?

Before we get more deep about how a victim can be a bully in cyberbullying, I have mentioned traditional bullying. I will briefly describe what traditional bullying is. While cyberbullying can be done on mobile phones and the internet, traditional bullying can be done directly — verbal, physical, or social — and indirectly — like spreading rumors (Smith et al., 2008). This is another form of aggression toward others that we can call bullying.

Back to why a victim can be a bully, according to Ybarra and Mitchell (2004) on Smith et al., 2008, the victim of traditional bullying can turn into the bully itself on the internet as an act of revenge for what happened to them. They think cyberbullying is “not harmful” as the traditional bullying because they don’t have to attack face-on-face. Cyberbullying can be done anonymously, so the perpetrator identity remains unknown. Perhaps that is why they think cyberbullying is safe for them as they will not face the consequences directly.

A mindset like this does not help to reduce cyberbullying cases. There are so many cyberbullying cases that always pile up and do not seem to get better. In the 2000s, there were famous cases of cyberbullying, called The Ryan Halligan Case in 2003 and The Amanda Todd Case in 2012. Recently, a Korean YouTuber, Cho Jang-mi, took her own life due to malicious comments and rumors spreading. A day before, Kim In-hyeok, a volleyball athlete, also took the same action because of the online abuse he received. In Indonesia, based on The Conversation site, every day at least 25 cases were reported.

With the cases that I mentioned here, cyberbullying can happen to anyone. From a teenager to a famous grown-up celebrity, show that the bully must be dealt with firmly. Not only we must be aware of our surroundings, but the government also must have rigid regulations that arrange cyberbullying.

However, there are things that make cyberbullying complicated, at least for those of me who don’t have a related educational background. Perpetrators are usually anonymous and numbered more than one person. Even perpetrators who write malicious comments and messages can number in the hundreds and thousands. This is tough homework for rule-makers, but it’s still necessary to pay attention.

In the meanwhile, let’s be more aware and careful with the words we say to others on the internet. It’s not hard to be nice to other people on social media, right? To end this article, I will quote John Halligan, father of Ryan Halligan,

“that technology was being utilized as weapons far more effective and reaching [than] the simple ones we had as kids”.

References:

Ortiz-Ospina, Esteban. 2019, Sept 18. The rise of social media. Our World in Data. https://ourworldindata.org/rise-of-social-media#:~:text=Social%20media%20started%20in%20the,media%20as%20we%20know%20it.

Smith, P.K., Mahdavi, J., Carvalho, M., Fisher, S., Russel, S. & Tippet. N. (2008). Cyberbullying: its nature and impact in secondary school pupils. Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry, 49(4). 376–385. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1469-7610.2007.01846.x.

Anonim. n.d. The truth behind 6 disturbing cyberbullying cases that turned
into suicide stories….https://www.wtps.org/cms/lib8/NJ01912980/Centricity/Domain/745/The%20truth%20behind%206%20disturbing%20cyberbullying%20cases%20that%20turned%20into%20suicide.pdf

Min-sik, Yoon. 2022, Feb 9. Cyber scarlet letter: How online abuse drove YouTuber to death. The Korea Herald. https://www.koreaherald.com/view.php?ud=20220209000710.

Anonim. 2022, Feb 9. Youtuber Cho Jang-mi dan atlet Kim In-hyeok bunuh diri setelah jadi korban bullying di internet, publik Korea Selatan bikin petisi. BBC News Indonesia. https://www.bbc.com/indonesia/indonesia-60313501.

Putra, Eka Nugraha. 2019, Jan 29. Merunut lemahnya hukum cyberbullying di Indonesia. The Conversation. https://theconversation.com/merunut-lemahnya-hukum-cyberbullying-di-indonesia-110097.

Edwards, L., Kontostathis, A.E., and Fisher, C. (2016). Cyberbullying, Race/Ethnicity and Mental Health Outcomes: A Review of the Literature. Media and Communication, 4(3). 71–78. https://doi.org/10.17645/mac.v4i3.525.