What is cyberbullying?

Although some of the first cases of cyberbullying appeared in the early 2000s, cyberbullying has been happening since the dawn of the world wide web. At first, trolls would attack others using mainly textual means. Anonymity played a big part in that. With Web 2.0, the social web meant that pictures and videos started to be used in bullying others online.

Cyberbullying has been spoken about in the media now for almost 20 years, as it can contribute to negative and distressing consequences for victims. Many cases reported in the media involved suicide and a decline in mental health.

With the polarized nature of online conversations at the present time, trolling has become normalized and there are no laws that distinctly prohibit speech online on a worldwide scale. It isn’t the safest place to post a comment in spaces where your identity and photo are visible publicly.

You can consider “cyberbullying” an umbrella term that encompasses many different forms of violence in digital space. These types of violence take on many forms that lie on a wide spectrum of behaviours, ranging from sarcasm and jokes to inciting violence or uttering threats. Cyberbullying, then, is a term that includes behaviours that are somewhat harmful or are subject to misinterpretation, and other behaviours that are clear violations of the law in many countries.

Generally, cyberbullying is defined as a a potentially violent or harmful act (including posts or messages that are textual, audiovisual, visual, or exclusionary) towards an individual or identifiable group that intends to manipulate their reputation, undercut their achievements or status, harm them physically, incite violence towards them, stalk or harass them, or use derogatory or hateful language towards them. Thus, algorithmic bias is not a form of cyberbullying, but it is a form of systemic bias that is inherent to the design of technology. A public post that denigrates a person is a form of cyberbullying.