Cyberbullying - Internet Safety for Families - online courseHave you heard the term: “Don’t feed the trolls”? Trolls are online bullies who generally show themselves in the comments section of a website or blog. But they can just as easily be found within your own social media profiles.  In fact, younger users of social media may have a large percentage of trolls within their own “friends” and “followers”.

In a Cleveland, Ohio suburb a mother is mourning the loss of her teenage son. He was stabbed to death right outside his home after a feud over a girl which the mother says escalated via Facebook. The suspected murderer made specific threats on Facebook that he was “coming to get” the young man.

If what this mother says turns out to be true, then this is a case which involves cyberbullying. The interesting aspect is the chosen platform – Facebook. Facebook’s connection structure is synchronous. This means that in order for you and I to be “friends” on Facebook we have to agree. You send me a “friend request” and I agree. If we do not agree, there is no connection.

Very often I’m asked what parents should do when cyberbullying arrives in their lives. Using this heartbreaking situation as an example:

  1. Your children should only ‘friend’ those people who mom/dad know IRL (in real life) 
    If YOU do not know the “friend”, remove the connection
  2. Explain to your children the risks of TMI (too much information) 
    You give potential trolls ammunition to use against you (examples: problems at home, issues with school, illnesses, family deaths, personally identifying data, etc)
  3. If the cyberbullying is obvious and targeted – DO NOT FEED THE TROLLS
    Tell your children to NOT answer back when threats are made – they should tell an adult and step away
  4. BLOCK the cyberbully from your profile if possible
    Some social media platforms do not make “blocking possible” -but Facebook does
  5. Your child should take a break from social media for a significant amount of time – a week or two
  6. Report threats to local police and the school where appropriate

I have no idea if these tips would have helped this child, and I don’t know this family personally. All I know is that a child is dead and another one will likely spend a very, very long time in jail (which is appropriate). This tragedy might very well have occurred anyhow outside of the realm of social. In this particular case Facebook seems to have been a vehicle for communication of a threat and a continued festering of anger and cyberbullying.

Parents: have these conversations with your children so that they will recognize a threat when they see it or hear it.


 

Union High School Football Coach Suspends His Entire Team For Cyberbullying on Ask.fmIt’s not often that I offer a big “WELL DONE” to high school or college athletics in connection with a story about bullying of any kind. This might be the first time….hopefully not the last….

Matt Labrum, the head football coach at Union High School in Roosevelt, Utah found out that a non-football player at his school was being bullied via the (very popular among tweens and teens) social media site Ask.fm.

For those of you who might not have heard, Ask.fm has been in the news many times in connection with cyberbullying and teen suicides. ASk.fm has been linked to the suicides of four teens in the UK and one in the United States.

The premise of Ask.fm is quite simple. Here is a sample scenario.

  1. A user creates a profile (most kids use their real names and location – which is dumb, obviously)
    For this example we’ll call her Sally Smith from Topeka Kansas
  2. Another user can ask the first user any question at all anonymously
    Another user we’ll call Jenny Jones from Topeka Kansas
  3. Jenny goes onto Sally’s Ask.Fm page and posts a question – questions like the following are extremely common on Ask.fm
    * Why are you such a whore?
    * Why don’t you kill yourself?
    * Do your parents hate you as much as everyone else?
  4. Sally does not know who is posting the question

The real danger of Ask.fm is in the anonymity of its structure. You never really quite know who is posting the question, and therein lies the problem. Tweens and teens feel free to post whatever they like, safe in the knowledge that there will never be any consequences. Or so it would seem.

NOTE: Ask.fm is a really really bad idea for tweens and teens

In the Union High School example, once the head football coach found out that a non-football player was being bullied on Ask.fm he suspended the entire team. All 80 players on the team were forced to turn in all of their equipment and do a week’s worth of community service instead of practicing before a big game at the end of the week.

Yes the suspension only lasted one week, and yes they never missed a game. HOWEVER, I appreciate this coach for making it clear to these young men that bullying behavior would not be tolerated on his team.

This is really the bigger point:

Your children listen very closely when you make their lives stop on a dime. Monitor what they are doing online – learn what to look for. Then deliver the consequences…loudly and consistently.

I promise that it will make a difference.