Trolls. They used to lurk under bridges and in caves but the internet gave them the power to spread their bilious negativity all over community pages. Online bullying ranges from playground taunts to death threats and being the victim of online bullying can be the cause of misery, depression and in very isolated cases has led to suicide. A survey of 4,600 children was carried out by the charity Beatbullying and the National Association of Head Teachers and it found that one in four children are targeted by cyberbullies.
My 5 top tips for dealing with online bullies:
- Speak out – don’t stay silent. If you are young tell your parents or teachers, if you are an adult tell your partner, friends and family. If you really feel you cannot speak to any of these please consider your GP or a counselling service. There also other organisations such as Bullying UK or Cyberbully Help who can offer support.
- Seek help – similar to above but I wanted to add more. Involve the online community; like any other ecosystems an online community will regulate itself. In some cases this may be negatives for example a mob mentality is easily generated on social media, but more often it will overwhelmingly positive and others will stand up for you.
- Be the change you want to see in the world – a misquote of Gandhi’s is appropriate here. Too often, especially in the young, our online behaviour lacks the responsibility we take for our actions in the real world. We say things we would never dream of saying face to face. The illusionary distance the technology creates enables people to be aggressive in our communication that can begin as humourous but can slide to heckling to bullying. Remeber Netiquette and remember that online communication doesn’t have the non verbal cues you would use in real life to judge if someone is sincere or sarcastic.
- Keep evidence – create a folder and dump it in there for proof if required and for ritualistic burning at later stage.
- If it’s serious enough, i.e. any threat of harm, report to the police.
An amazing account from Leo Traynor – The day I confronted my troll.
Gemma Finnegan 