Cyberbullying in our country has raised its ugly head once again, affecting the young and the old alike. With peers and guardians failing to wean off their beloveds away from the mobile phones and computers, the cons of the digital universe have slowly started to engulf the best of us. These cons, that arise from the cyberspace slowly start taking effect and can alter a person’s perspective towards life and at times renders them psychologically ill.
|| Nikita Bararia
Even though Cyber bullying might seem like something that can never happen with us, various reports have emerged from across the world, proving us wrong.
When it comes to India, the masses have slowly and steadily started taking Cyberbullying and its effects on a serious note. Earlier this month we saw a Bollywood actress launch an Anti-Cyberbullying campaign, while an educational institution has helped build a curriculum on cyber safety that heavily deals with Cyberbullying and would be effective in other schools across the city.
So what is Cyberbullying?
Even though there is no official definition for Cyberbullying, we see it as an act which is aggressive in nature and is committed repeatedly by an individual or a group, using electronic mediums of contact, against an individual who is unable to defend himself/herself, easily against the act.
Different kinds of Cyberbullying includes spreading negative content through SMSs or Text, causing humiliation through malicious and hateful comments across online platforms, sharing nasty or false information about a certain individual or organization and more.
The Internet is a public platform, viewed as an open, transparent, democratic and equal platform used by all sections of society. Social media forms a large part of our professional and personal lives but with it, comes digital harassment and targeted abuse. The same protection we employ to keep our surroundings safe and safeguard our civic society is also required for our digital neighbourhood.
Today content creators, stand-up comedians, storytellers and actors, as well as, all women who voice their opinion strongly, are constantly targeted with vulgar memes, abusive sexual comments, bullying, name-calling and graphic images. Death and rape threats are the new normal for most women on social media. Silence and inaction towards curtailing these have only further fed into the rape culture where threats of abuse have become matters of everyday occurrences.
Around 9.2% of 630 adolescents surveyed in the Delhi-National Capital Region had experienced cyberbullying and half of them had not reported it to teachers, guardians or the social media companies concerned, a recent study by Child Rights and You, a non-governmental organisation, found.
Vulnerability rose with internet use: 22.4% of respondents, aged 13-18 years, who used the internet for longer than three hours a day were vulnerable to online bullying, while up to 28% of respondents, who used the internet for more than four hours a day, faced cyberbullying, concluded the study titled Online Study and Internet Addiction, released on February 18.
What can be done?
The study suggested a campaign to create awareness about cyberbullying among children and adolescents. Conducting focused training programmes for teachers, and sessions with students on internet safety and guidelines that are included in the school curriculum could be effective, Existing cyber laws should be revised for child safety issues, and portals, where cyber-crime can be reported, should be set up.
