Cyber-bullying: why it happens and how to prevent it

Cyber-bullying: why it happens and how to prevent it

It should be done rather soon

These days, everyone who can afford a computer and an internet connection can come online. The greatest strength of the internet, the largest WAN (wide area network) existent on the planet, is that it gives everyone the opportunity to express himself or herself freely online. But this 'strength' is simultaneously a tremendous weakness. Even the most incompetent can use these facilities to vandalize the net. And one of the more serious crimes that has gradually evolved over decades is cyber-bullying.

REMEMBER, THEY CAN START IT, BUT YOU CAN STOP IT!

Cyber-bullying can be anything from throwing direct insults to a newcomer to deliberately impersonating him or her. Another way, of which I myself have been the victim many a times, is deliberate and non-stop leg-pulling by others. Usually the more mature users (on the basis of age) like to bully others. And sadly enough, I couldn't initially counter it well.

So, let me share my own experience first, following which I will share with you all some cool ways to protect yourself from cyber-bullying. If you don't have time and would just like to see the ways, you're free to scroll down and get them. :)

My story

As I've experienced, cyber-bullying can be
mentally damaging

Well, so I'm rather unsocial, and I like to keep it to myself. And since I'm a great advocate of Linux and open-source, the 'learning curve' of Linux took me to IRC, or Internet Relay Chat. It is one of the earliest facilities provided by the internet, that is still used by advanced users for communicating easily across continents. Nowadays, because of the rising popularity of social networks such as Facebook, Google Plus etc., IRC has become a bit shadowed. Still, it continues to be there, and is a great place to ask for help if you face any problem regarding pretty much anything. One of the 'cleanest' servers providing IRC facility is Freenode. I especially liked it, because it harbored chatrooms and support channels for some of the most commonly used open-source software and systems such as Ubuntu, GIMP, Fedora, Gentoo, OpenSuse etc. It also consists of many chatrooms where you can discuss important topics such as philosophy, physics, mathematics etc. Often with like-minded folks from all over the world. However, I'd say concealing your true identity is a must if you enter the IRC. Unfortunately and most stupidly, I did not give it a thought at the beginning, and revealed a lot about myself, ranging from the country I'm from to my age and even my tastes, personality and interests. And one of these channels, whose name however I'd prefer not to reveal, became my favourite destination, because it was more or less active all the time, and many of its members became my good friends.

However, there were some real bullies there, usually the sort who actually are failures in their daily lives and wish to get some degree of influence or 'power', or popularity, online. Many of these people were from Europe, and a few from the USA (I'm not saying that all Europeans and Americans are like that, it's just a fact that the Europeans especially stayed rather 'united' there). And one of their most favourite ways of starting a flame war out of nothing was to twist my statements, exaggerate their meanings and finally, for no apparent reason, start name-calling, such as "I don't wanna talk to you, you're foolish!", or "Stupid, I wasted my time talking here", or maybe "Anyway, I'm afk. God, these annoying fools!". IRC provides us with the facility of ignoring others (hiding their comments from being seen), and yet these apparent bullies never ignored me. While I tried to reason with them politely, very few of them actually stopped.

So I wasted many, many hours trying to reason with them, and the only result it yielded was exhaustion, both mental and physical. It almost drove me crazy at times, seeing the same process being followed by them to corner and harass me, and yet not being able to resist it. In a typical conversation, I'd discuss a certain topic with one or two of my friends, and they'd immediately step in and try their best to exaggerate my statements, and then start the name-calling part. And almost all of them are 10-20 years older than me, so they were definitely more mature, emotionally. Using their vast 'intellect' (read 'Google searches') about almost everything, they'd try their best to keep me disturbed. Ultimately, the one of the operators (although in my case only one of the ops supported these bullies) would step in, and ask me to 'stop whinning about it). In fact, these operators are just a couple of users with additional rights, such as allowing or refusing access to a channel or room and so on. And yet, some of them really consider themselves mighty indeed, and re befriended and 'worshipped' by their 'followers'.

A recent case started with one of my articles, which you can find on this blog. I advocated using English as the sole language for educating the people of my country, India. It was actually meant for Indians, because non-Indians usually don't have much need to concern themselves with India's internal affairs. Most foolishly, while discussing the matter with an Indian friend of mine, I provided him with the link to my post, right in front of all others. And immediately the otherwise inactive bullies stepped in, reading my whole post, twisting its meaning, taking individual sentences and exaggerating their implications. For example, I've written that people like Ram Singh, one of the culprits in the New Delhi  rape and murder case of Dedember, 2012, would possibly have less chances of committing such heinous crimes had they been exposed a bit more to proper education, and English language. This had been written entirely from an Indian viewpoint, because in my country, the official language is English. It also is the medium for higher education. Lack of a proper English-speaking environment causes many people to stay unsuccessful in getting jobs. And lack of education definitely contributes to such crimes.

One of the worst practices of the internet

Naturally, one of the main bullies used his main tool, 'exaggeration', and said "English-speakers don't rape, cool logic bro!". And all the other bullies immediately formed an alliance with him, each entering the conversation gradually and throwing random accusations and insults at me. Sometimes these things occurred rather indirectly. For example, I've argued that to develop India, we need to be more united. I did not mean any offence to any other country, and my sole objective is to develop mine. So immediately, one of the bullies asked me "Why on Indians? Why not the entire humanity as a whole?". I politely replied "They'll be considered eventually". And my main point is, every nation is a part of the world. Thus, benefiting my own nation (without harming others) is definitely one of the ways of benefiting humanity. The people of India are part of humanity. Yet, the bullies exploited this simple 'flaw' in my argument, and combined their otherwise inactive brains to cook up words to vitally wound my sentiment. One of them accused me of being a troll, and gradually another called me a lunatic. An Indian lady, who currently stays in the UK, is actually heavily 'respected' by these folks, because women are rather rare to come by when you're on IRC. Naturally, they worship women, or those pretending to be women. So, she, for no apparent reason, entered a comment once made by famous German philosopher Schopenhauer:

"“Every miserable fool who has nothing at all of which he can be proud, adopts as a last resource pride in the nation to which he belongs; he is ready and happy to defend all its faults and follies tooth and nail, thus reimbursing himself for his own inferiority.” "

This can definitely be used in the case of people like Hitler, but I doubt I am that evil anyway, to have advocated our duty toward our motherland and learn better English. Thus, she accused me of being a fool who intentionally used 'nationalism' as something to be proud of. I gradually settled the matter with her, though. One of them even went as far as calling me a Nazi, and compared me to a north-Korean. Why? Just because I tried to raise patriotic feelings in Indians toward India, in order to make them understand the true worth of English. Gradually, when I asked an operator for help (one of their devoted friends, and another workless, worthless guy), he retorted back by asking me to 'stop'. And since he is the mighty (almighty?) operator there, obviously rivalling President Obama for supremacy allover the world, everyone fell silent. Hence, I eventually decided to leave the channel for well and good. There are thousands of other places for me to discuss my points rather peacefully, and listen to those made by others.

This marks the end of my own recollections. And hence, let us now hop on to understand why bullying occurs and how to protect yourself from it online.

Ways to stop cyber-bullying

Ths primary weapon deployed by the bullies,
name-calling!

First of all, if you've already read my case (no problem if you haven't), you will see that one thing is common among all these cyber-bullies. Like the bullies of classrooms, these are the folks who have a tremendous feeling of insecurity. What however makes most of these cyber-bullies (at least those of the IRC) different from offline bullies is that, most of these people are grown-ups, 25-45. As such, they have more emotional maturity. They rarely contribute to the discussions prodictively, and chances are, they're failues in their normal lives. As such, they've taken to these practices, pulling the leg of any newcomer far younger than them.

As usual, Wikihow lists some very effective ways to counter these bullies. Here are two of the guides which can really help you deal with cyber-bullying:

http://www.wikihow.com/Stop-Cyber-Bullying (a fantastic collection of points, definitely worth reading)

http://www.wikihow.com/Heal-After-a-Cyber-Bullying-Experience (if you've been a recent victim, it can definitely help you heal).

As stated right in the first point in the second link, your age doesn't matter when it comes to cyber-bullying. And it is definitely a danger, because it can make you anxious, revenge-seeking and certainly disturb your normal workflow. People may even go as far as planing to commit suicide, because of cyber-bullying.

Although invidiaul bullies can be dangerous, a group of them is even worse, as it happened in my case. There's a common story, perhaps you may have even heard it many a times. Once a person was going through a forest carrrying a goat. He intended to host a feast at his home, and his relatives fancied red-meat. And he had clearly examined the goat perfectly before buying it, and it was perfect. Now, a bunch of ruffians wanted to snatch the goat away from him. But seeing that the person was quite well-armed, they decided to abstain from attacking him directly, and took to resort to psychological warfare instead. So the first ruffian came and said "O hey mate, why are you carrying that dog with you?", to which the person replied "Hey, it's not a dog! It's a goat!". The ruffian just smiled and moved away, clearly uttering the word "fool". The person was a little bit disturbed, but he continued walking. Now, after a while, the second ruffian came around and said to himself "Huh, this fellow is really weird! Carrying a dog like that as if it's a goat!", and walked on, without pausing to hear the reply. The person was a little bit concerned then. Gradually, the third and fourth ruffian came by and repeated the same trick, each accusing the person of being a fool and carrying a dog instead of a goat. Repeating the same procedure again and again, they made the person disturbed enough to leave the goat and move away. This satisfied their purpose, and the ruffians immediately took the goat, made a great feast and enjoyed its meat.

Quite the truth!

This is the point of cyber-bullying as well. They plan to make your judgements clouded, thus they might continue to call you 'idiot, lunatic, stupid!'. And since they're part of a group, you can hardly get enough time to reply properly to an insult before another steps in and repeated the same process, ultimately leaving all at a time, and leaving you devasted, exhausted and unhappy with yourself for not having been able to handle the situation. But here;s the catch, there's no way you can handle a situation like this! Cyber-bullies don't understand the meaning of honour, and they don't give a damn about humanity or reasoning. So, no point in arguing with them. They want you to doubt yourself, simply because they're trying to hide their own insecurities. Some people are naturally like that, deriving pleasure from insulting, harassing and bullying others. But thankfully, here are some ways you can use to stay safe from bullies:

1. Never reply to any comment made by a bully: This is important. Most of the time, bullies derive great pleasure if and only if you're giving them enough importance. No matter what their degree of insulting is, abstain from commenting. Replying to a bully is like adding more wood to a fire.

2. Use methods to ignore the bully: If you're on IRC, you can use /ignore command to stop his/her comments from being visible to you.

3. Do not reply to their questions: They'd want to riddle you with a stream of endlessly many questions, but be sure not to reply to them.

4. Conceal your identity: This is important. Rather idiotically, I had revealed a lot about myself, and the bullies cuccessfully used the contents of my posts, my words etc to assault me verbally. This is to be avoided.

5. Never reveal your age: This is very important if you're a minor. I was one till a couple of months back, and the bullies often used to cry "He's a teenager! So he's definitely an idiot, lol". Unless and until you know the person very personally, it is best not to reveal your age.

6. Talk with the authorities: If only a single person is bullying you, this might work. But usually it doesn't work in the case of group-bullying, as I've personally seen.

7. Leave the community: If nothing works, it is best to leave the community altogether, as I've done in my case. There are thousands of other places on the internet where you can exchange your views, so why should one stick to only a single place?

Most importantly, never doubt yourself. This is very important. Because of evolution, competitive mindset among manals has evolved. And these bullies are some of those worthless fools willing to exploit your mental faculties, wanting you to doubt yourself, your wisdom and your worth in the universe. Rememeber, that there are people who will always support you in your positive endeavours, and certainly internet is not everything. If someone bullies you, remember that he's only revealing his own weakness, not your's.