Ladies and Gentlemen, the topic of current interest I am going to talk to you about is cyberbulying. Cyberbullying is when a child or teenager is tormented, threatened, harassed, humiliated or otherwise targeted by another child or teenager using the Internet, interactive and digital technologies or mobile phones. There are two kinds of cyberbullying, direct attacks which are messages sent to people directly and cyberbullying by proxy which is using others to help cyberbully the victim. Because cyberbullying by proxy often gets adults involved in the harassment, it is much more dangerous. Examples of direct attacks used would be instant messaging, stealing passwords, blogs, websites, sending pictures through E-mail or mobile phones, internet polling and many other ways. When it comes to cyberbullying, the offenders are often motivated by ...view middle of the document...
Additionally, electronic forums often lack supervision and in my opinion that should not be allowed. Research had demonstrated a number of serious consequences of cyberbullying victimization. For example, victims have lower self-esteem, increased thoughts of suicide, and a variety of emotional responses, retaliating, being scared, frustrated, angry, and depressed. One of the most damaging effects is that a victim begins to avoid friends and activities, often the very intention of the cyber-bully and I really think this should not be happening to young teenagers. Cyberbullying campaigns are sometimes so damaging that victims have committed suicide. This shows how serious cyberbullying is and I think it is just unbelievable that so many young teenagers have taken their own lives due to bullying. A recent example of this is Erin Gallagher who was found after telling online friends she was going to take her life due to the abuse she was suffering on ask.fm. The website hit the headlines after the death of another young, 15-year-old Leitrim girl Ciara Pugsley, who also received messages from other members of the site, ask.fm. While ask.fm was set up for innocent purposes, to allow people to ask any member questions and seek advice on various topics, the latest tragedy has led to calls for it to be banned and I certainly agree with this. Both Ciara and Erin had suffered online abusive messages from other ask.fm members, an issue which the website’s developers never intended to see happen. The deaths of these victims should not have occurred and they were a terrible tragedy. In order to prevent cyber bullying, victims shouldn’t respond to anything, retaliate, and they should always save the evidence and talk to someone about it.
To Conclude Ladies and Gentlemen, cyberbullying has become a major issue recently but more people are aware of it and schools are also educating students on it which will hopefully prevent it as it is a serious issue.
