“thank you soo much you don’t know how much this has helped me” – Chelley, 16


Cyber-bullying is any harassment through technology.
It is unprovoked and unwarranted.
It affects at least 10% of Aussie kids*.
It can be 24/7, compounded by an audience watching, and can be viewed over and over again.
But this constructed world also offers unique possibility of evidence, and intervention.
The human motivations won’t change, but with action the damage, and behaviour can.

Kids

Keep in mind, it is not your fault, and sometimes people don’t really mean what they say, sometimes things get lost in translation. Don’t let the emotion of the moment guide your actions, step back, think for a while, maybe give it a day, and work through the steps below to resolve the situation so you can use the computer happily again. Finally, if you see someone else being bullied online, don’t be a silent bystander, but report the abuse yourself (but don’t intervene in the argument!), and it might really help someone who might not know they can do that.

Adults

Do not dare overreact or punish a child if they experience harassment online. 78% of kids are worried if they tell an adult; they will be disconnected from the computer, hence stopping them from sharing it. Kids also worry that it’ll complicate the situation, by having worried adults adding to the trauma and kids often think adults mightn’t be able to help. So firstly, don’t appear to be bothered (even if you are), and don’t disconnect a child. Let them know this. Let them know they haven’t done anything wrong, and you’ll talk to them about it, and work through the steps below to peacefully resolve the issue so they can use the computer happily again.

Schools

Make a cyber-safety policy, and endeavour to implement student involved education programs with a cyber-bullying component comprised of something like my guide below. If students are cyber-bullied by other students, in school time or not, you have a legal duty to intervene, do whatever necessary to support the victim, deal the perpetrator, remove the content and contact authorities if necessary. Also, the terminology ‘Cyber-Bullying’ can be perceived as corny and not taken seriously, so perhaps use online/internet bullying/harassment instead.

To Prevent – Tips

• Be extra sensitive about what you say online – what you intend may be perceived differently
• Don’t incite abuse, by arguing, flaming or annoying someone
• Consider it might not mean what you think – things can be perceived not as they were meant online
• Don’t Share Passwords with friends – they fight!
• Make hard-to-guess secret questions so people can’t get into your accounts
• Turn on comment moderation to stop offensive comments from being published
• Tell your friends if a joke goes too far
• Only get Formspring profiles etc. if you can take abuse
• Ask them to stop harassing you, and if they don’t…


To Resolve – 5 Steps

1. Don’t respond AT ALL (It will make it worse)
2. Save the evidence for future reference (Instruction Below)
3. Block and Delete the perpetrator from the website or service (Instruction Below)
4. Report Abuse to the Admins of the website or service, to remove the content and punish the perpetrator (Instruction Below)
5. Tell People you Trust – friends, adults, teachers, parents to support you, and help deal resolve it, and police if necessary – especially if it’s anonymous – as it can be a criminal offence


Saving the Evidence

Make a folder on your computer to save all the evidence in. To save text, highlight it (press Ctrl-A, or Apple-A on Macs to highlight it all), and copy it into a notepad or word document. To take a screenshot (a picture of your computer screen), search for the ‘snipping’ application. On Windows XP and older and press the print screen button (above the arrow keys, top right of the keyboard), then go into the start menu, programs, accessories, paint, press Ctrl-V (copy), and click file and save. On Macs you can press apple-shift-3 to save a screenshot to the desktop. To save an image on a webpage right click on it (or control-click on Macs) and select ‘save image’. To save a YouTube video or other online video, visit – http://vixy.net/ – post the ‘web address’ of the video into the ‘URL’ box, and then click start. It will convert the video into the .avi file type that can play on Windows & Macs, and then let you download it onto your computer.

Deleting, Blocking and Reporting Abuse to the Administrator


Facebook

Log in, visit a profile and select ‘unfriend’ at the bottom left to remove a person. You can select ‘Report/Block This Person’ there too and follow the steps if you want to block them too. To report abuse, click ‘Report/Block This Person’, and follow the steps. Sometimes there are report links accompanying posts.

YouTube

You need an account, to get one click ‘Create Account’ up the top right, and register. If you have a Google account you can sign in with that too. Login to your account, when watching any video click the flag icon, which will give you an option of selecting why you want to report it, probably ‘bullying’ under ‘Hateful and Abusive Content’, or otherwise if it’s something else, and click ‘Flag This Video’.

Formspring

To report people click ‘Help’ at the bottom, ‘Submit a Request’ at the top and fill in the details. To block a user
select ‘Block Their Name’ at the bottom right of their profile.
To make your Formspring private click ‘Settings’, ‘Privacy’, and select ‘Protect
My Account’. In the same section you can disallow anonymous questions from people who
aren’t logged in, or disallow anonymous questions completely.

MSN

Log in, right click on contact in your contact list and select ‘Delete contact’. When the dialogue box pops up, select ‘Also block this contact’ as well and click ok. Click the ‘Help’ menu (Alt-H if it doesn’t appear), and click ‘Report abuse’ – Type your name, email in – the bullies email – what type of abuse, and then paste the evidence in the box. You could also turn message history on to ensure the evidence is recorded. To do this, click ‘tools’, ‘options’, ‘messages’ and tick the box that says ‘automatically keep a history of my conversations’. If you want to, you can download Messenger Plus here – which has a function of recording your message history with password security.

Bebo

Login, click ‘Friends’, click the cross icon on the perpetrator to delete the perpetrator. Now visit the perpetrator’s profile, and click ‘Block’ and click ‘Report Abuse’, then click ‘Report Abuse Only’. Make your profile private by clicking on ‘Profile’, ‘Edit profile’, ‘Privacy Settings’, select ‘My friends only’ and ‘Update Privacy Settings’.

MySpace

Log in, select ‘Friends’, select who you want to delete, and click ‘Delete’. Visit their profile, click on the arrow next to the clog wheel icon, and select ‘Block User’. To report abuse visit the perpetrators profile, click on the arrow next to the clog wheel icon, and select ‘Report Abuse’. Put in your name, email, type of abuse, detail the relevant evidence, provide links and click ‘Report’. To make your profile private, hover over ‘My Stuff’ up the top, select ‘Privacy Settings’ and selection ‘My Friends only’ and save the changes.

Email

Right click on message or open the options menu and click ‘view source’ or ‘headers’, and copy and save that. Block the perpetrator’s address in settings if you can. Notify your ISP, notify the perpetrator’s ISP if you want.

Games

Runescape, click the report abuse button down the bottom right. For others, Google search the games name and report abuse. Eg. Runescape report abuse.

Mobiles

Only some phones can block numbers, go into the settings and select block caller – put the perpetrators number in. Contact your service provider, report it to them. Contact the perpetrator’s service provider (if known) and report it.

Random websites/forums

Click contact admin button, send them an email or message and most likely they will take action against the perpetrator. For services/website’s you’re not sure about visit abuse.net’s web lookup page to see if they have an email address, or try emailing it to abuse@thewebsite.com oradmin@thewebsite.com etc.

Finally, contact your local police if you need more help, or want to take it further.

New South Wales
Victoria
Queensland
South Australia
Western Australia
Tasmania
Northern Territory
Australian Capital Territory – 131444
Federal Police – 131444, (02) 6131 3000 in Victoria and Queensland

You can also call Kids Helpline on 1800 55 1800 or access web counselling if you want personalized support.


* http://www.couriermail.com.au/lifestyle/parenting/cyberbullying-hits-1-in-10-australian-teenagers/story-e6frer7o-1225852147677

This guide may be reproduced free of charge as long as I am notified and author details are included.