Cyberbullying

Cyberbullying Defined

Cyberbullying is defined as the use of communication-based technologies, including cell phones, e-mail, instant messaging, text messaging, and social networking sites, to engage in deliberate harassment or intimidation of other individuals or groups of persons using online speech or expression. Student bullying and harassment are considerably more common at the elementary, middle, and high school levels. Even so, a recent study of bullying on college and university campuses reveals that more than 60% of students indicate that they have personally observed a student bullying or harassing another student.

The online cruelty and harassment uniquely associated with cyberbullying has recently become popular among college students due largely to the virtual anonymity of online communication, which makes it extremely difficult to identify bullies or instigators of online bullying or harassment. Also, the limitless reach of the Internet allows the online content of cyberbullying to well surpass the confines of college and university campuses when compared to traditional bullying, with which the impact is considerably more controlled.

One of the most popular and publicly accessible online venues for cyberbullying in college and university communities was a Web site called Juicy Campus. Until it was officially shut down in February 2009, this popular Web site was designed exclusively for students in higher education for posting online, anonymous, and uncensored gossip [Page 114]about their classmates and instructors. Advocates of the Juicy Campus Web site argued that it fostered student free speech and expression. However, critics of the Web site maintained that it actively encouraged cyberbullying against other students and faculty members in the form of negative smear campaigns, threats, and racist and sexist remarks targeting other students. During its short existence of less than two years, the Juicy Campus Web site was the subject of numerous instances of violent, online threats.

Nancy E. Willard, executive director of the Center for Safe and Responsible Internet Use, has identified the following seven major types of cyberbullying activities:

In the wake of recent school shootings on the college campuses of Virginia Tech University and Northern Illinois University, researchers and college officials have begun to reexamine legal and policy issues surrounding cyberbullying and disciplining students who engage in online bullying and harassment behaviors; it is hoped that such discipline will prevent cyberbullying from escalating into violent physical behavior.

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