What is a cyberbully and why

What exactly is a cyberbully?

That is a relatively easy question. A cyberbully is a person that harms or harasses a person in a repeat or deliberate manner. That is a relativity unique and easy to understand definition, but in order to fully understand what is cyberbullying, we need to take a slightly deeper look into the definition. The key words are harms, harasses, repeat, and deliberate. It is those four words that will help us determine the difference between cyberbullying and trolling. A troll is defined as a person who sows discord on the internet by starting arguments or upsetting people, by posting inflammatory, extraneous, or off-topic messages in an online community with the deliberate intent of provoking readers into an emotional response or otherwise disrupting normal on-topic discussion, often for their own amusement. 

So based on the two definitions above we should be able to identify cyberbullies from trolls. In most cases a troll just wants to watch something burn while a cyberbully wants to harm an individual. Trolls will often reply to comments in an effort to stoke chaos. Where as cyberbullies will target an individual for the purpose of hurting them or shaming them. Cyberbullies will also follow their victims to new threads or in some cases different websites. They will constantly attack and usually they will team up with other cyberbullies. Because as we all know bullies want safety in numbers.

Myth About Cyberbullies

There are a lot of websites that talk about cyberbullies. One common theme in those websites is that children, teens, and preteens perform acts of cycberbullying to each other and that it is similar to the acts of normal childhood bullying. Those websites give great advice to children and parents on how to handle this aspect of cyberbullying. While that does cover a portion of cyberbullying, it does not cover the totality. Adults cyberbully as much if not more than minors. This is not a phase that people will grow out of, this is not something that everyone has to deal with until they can move on. This is not an issue that only affects our children. This is a real issue that affects us all. It has real consequences.

Why do people do it?

This question is very easy to answer but is also very hard to fully understand. The easy answer to the question of why people cyberbully is because they can. It is just that simple. People do it because they can. The internet allows people to do and say horrible things to other people knowing that they are safe behind the protection of anonymity. They do it because they can get away with it and that is in some ways understandable. I am sure that there have been times in all of our lives where we have been out in public and got annoyed by someone and really wanted to tell them off, but the vast majority of us simply do not. The reason for that is that the juice isn’t worth the squeeze. The feeling that we would gain from verbally sparring with someone simply is not worth the consequences of public embarrassment, physical altercations or whatever it maybe. Now in the world of the internet those consequences are not there, the cyberbully is free to bully people.

How do we stop it?

Well cyberbullying can be stopped in ways similar to bullying and that means by taking the power away from the bully. To illustrate this, view the video below.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A2NxAhIPUfQ

So what did we takeaway form that video? Simple, right?! We find these bullies and we slam them! Well of course that is wrong. That is not what that scene is about at all. The bully was defeated in this movie not because Ralphie physically dominated him. No the bully was defeated because Ralphie took away this bully’s most important power. The bully was seen by the other children as to be too strong to challenge. Too big to defeat, but Ralphie showed that not to be true. The most important part is that Ralphie did it and the other children saw it. If that fight happens in a private setting sure Ralphie still wins but the bully would only stop picking on Ralphie in the future. Instead the bullies powers were taken in front of all of his victims. Now the other children have no fear of the bully. After all who is Ralphie? He is a nice kid that was not physically different from the boys.

So how does that translate to cyberbullies? What is their power? Their power is anonymity. So since their power anonymity let’s take it from them and take it from them publicly.

This website is dedicated to finding the real identity, true names of the cyberbullies out there. We will post a cyberbully’s information. It will have that person’s comments against a person or people in the internet community and their information.

This can not be done without the help of others. If you are a victim of cyberbullying please reach out to us at [email protected]