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Cyberbullying Items

You may see these terms in the news related to cyberbullying. Having a clear understanding of what these terms mean will help you to spot cyberbullying in your everyday life and take immediate action.

Catfishing：stealing someone’s profile or setting up fake profiles to lure people into starting online relationships.

Cyberstalking：sending repeated and frequent messages that include real threats of physical harm.

Dissing: sending or posting information that’s intended to damage someone’s reputation.

Exclusion: deliberately excluding someone from online conversations, games and activities.

Flaming: sending angry, abusive online messages to intentionally provoke someone into starting an argument.

Fraping: logging into someone else’s account, impersonating them or posting inappropriate content in their name.

Baiting: to intentionally make a person angry by saying or doing things to annoy them.

Griefting: abusing and angering people through online gaming.

Harassment: targeting an individual or group with persistent and offensive messages which could develop into cyberstalking.

Masquerading: creating a fake identity or impersonating someone else online to harass an individual anonymously.

Outing: publicly sharing personal, private or embarrassing information, photos or videos about someone online.

Roasting: ganging up on an individual online and sending offensive abuse until the victim is seen to ‘crack’.

Trolling: deliberately posting provocative and insulting messages about sensitive subjects or inflicting racism or misogyny on an individual.

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Strategies Youth Can Use to Prevent Cyberbullying

  • Never accept a friend or network requests from unfamiliar people.
  • Use the “mom” principle: Do not post or share photographs or movies that you would not be willing to share with your mother, father, or another important caregiver.
  • Follow the “forever” principle: Assume that everything you put online will be there forever.
  • Follow the “no privacy” principle: Assume that everyone can access information about you in cyberspace.
  • Follow the “ex” principle: Would you be okay with your ex-boyfriends or girlfriends having access to content that you are planning to share?
  • Block threatening or questionable people from seeing your profile and personal information.
  • Do not post provocative, scandalous, or inflammatory remarks online.
  • Do not reply to or retaliate against incidents of cyberbullying.
  • Regularly change passwords to sites and applications, and immediately delete profiles that have been hacked.
  • Avoid sites, networks, and applications that have poor security, provide easy access to personal information or encourage interactions among strangers.
  • Ensure that information is approved before it is posted or shared socially.
  • Limit involvement in social networking to a few familiar sites.
  • Avoid joining sites that do not have adequate privacy settings.
  • Never engage in sexting (sharing pictures or messages that have private sexual content).
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Specific Strategies Youth Can Use to Deal with Cyberbullying

  • When a potentially threatening situation occurs, seek assistance from an adult, friend, or classmate. Be tactful (not aggressive, battle or tease back).
  • To deflect a potentially threatening situation, use humour.
  • Before a potential cyberbullying incident happens, avoid unsafe places or leave immediately.
  • Avoid to walk alone, walk with friends or a small group of peers who are friendly.
  • To preserve positive self-esteem during an incident, use positive self-statements.
  • When cyberbullying happens, avoid getting emotionally upset, as this may embolden the bullying person.
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How to Deal with “Haters”?

What is a “Hater?”

“Hater” is a label used to refer to people who use negative and critical comments and behaviour to bring another person down by making them look or feel bad.

These offensive comments can happen not only on public social media but also in one-on-one text messages. Typically, this content will spread more and more widely over time. Haters are usually anonymous (especially online) but take off the mask and they could just as easily be someone close to you. For example, classmates, acquaintances, neighbours, exes, and even good friends you once had. Typically, haters seek out people who are different from them and use that difference as an entry point for slander or personal attacks. These negative, critical comments can upset people and trigger feelings of anger, hurt, and confusion. Such negative news is often spread by one hater but eventually spread by many people. At this point, the hater will get out of control of the situation. This situation may cause some teens to become overwhelmed, cancel their social media accounts, become distrustful of people around them and gradually developing psychological problems.

How to Deal with Haters

Ignore it. Walk away and don’t respond to their verbal attacks or negative comments. If it rises to the level of a threat, you can talk to your teacher, your parent, or a trusted adult. In more serious cases, you can also choose to call the police.

Take screenshots and Block online haters. If someone makes abusive or defamatory comments on your social media platform, you can take screenshots at first to preserve the evidence, and then block them. If they make threatening words against you, you can ask teachers and parents for help, and report the screenshots to the platform.

Be kind and respectful, even to haters. It shows that you’re in control of your emotions and that you aren’t letting negativity bring you down.

Stick with supporters. Keep in touch with friends and keep in mind that they are your supporters. With their support, you will be less likely to fall into self-doubt or be in negative emotion.

Remind yourself that comments from a hater are not the real you. What they say is not true. Don’t put yourself down because of that.

Understand criticism can be a sign of pain. People sometimes lash out because they have other life struggles. Negative comments may have nothing to do with you.

Acknowledge your feelings. Talk to a trusted adult or friend and get some encouragement and support.

Keep being you. Keep moving forward, pursuing your interests, and being who you are.

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Warning Signs a teenager is Being Cyberbullied or is Cyberbullying Others

Many of the warning signs that cyberbullying is occurring happen around a teenager’s use of their device.

Some of the warning signs that a teenager may be involved in cyberbullying are:

  • Noticeable increases or drops in the computer or mobile phone use, like texting.
  • A teenager exhibits emotional reactions to what is happening on their device (laughter, anger, upset).
  • When others are near, a teenager hides their screen or device and avoids discussion about what they are doing on their device.
  • Accounts on social media are shut down or new ones appear.
  • A teenager, even those which have been enjoyed in the past, begins to avoid social situations.
  • A teenager becomes frustrated or withdrawn or lacks interest in groups and activities.
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When should you take action against Cyberbullying?

If you see something inappropriate.

If you ever come across any content on social media or in a text message that makes you feel inappropriate and uncomfortable, no matter where it is, please report it immediately.

If someone spreads rumours about you

If someone posts false and damaging information about you on the Internet or social networking sites, it may be considered harassment. According to the law, it is a crime to engage in harassment both online and offline. Anything that is publicly posted about you will be seen by a lot of people very quickly because the Web is so open.

A growing number of people complain that the former best friend is spreading malicious rumours and vicious gossip. Therefore, please be careful to make friends. Choose carefully who you want to share your secrets with. Only share secrets with friends that you wouldn’t be embarrassed if other people found out about it.

If you are being threatened

It’s against the law in the UK to use the phone system – which includes the internet – to cause alarm or distress. It could even be against the 1997 Harassment Act. If threats are made against you then it’s essential that you alert someone you trust, or call a helpline or contact the Police.  If someone is threatening you on the internet, or threatening someone you know, they could be committing a criminal offence.

Try to get documentary evidence if you can. By pressing the ‘print screen’ button, you should be able to print of a hard copy of the threatening text or images. Place it in a safe place, both on and off line.

If someone posts inappropriate pictures of you

If someone posts an inappropriate picture of you
In a world where almost everyone has a smartphone, it’s common to take photos and videos, and it’s also easy to spread those photos and videos on social media.

For this reason, I recommend not letting anyone take pictures of you that might embarrass you, and try not to take photos with someone else’s phone or device. If someone posts inappropriate pictures about you, please contact them to remove them immediately. If you are going to post someone else’s photo, make sure you have their permission. Because once you post this picture, millions of people will see it online. Even if your friend later contacts you to delete the photo, her loss is irreparable.

Do not change or make fun of other people’s photos, as what you may think is funny may offend others.

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Cyberbullying Tactics

It is important to understand how people are cyberbullied so it can be easily recognized and actions can be taken. Some of the most common cyberbullying tactics include:

  • Posting mean, harmful, hurtful, hurtful, or embarrassing comments or rumours about someone online.
  • Threatening to hurt someone or persuade them to kill themselves. 
  • Posting a mean or hurtful picture or video. 
  • Pretending to be someone else online in order to solicit or post personal or false information about someone else. 
  • Posting mean or hateful names, comments, or content about any race, religion, ethnicity, or other personal characteristics online.
  • Creating a mean or hurtful webpage about someone. 
  • Doxing, an abbreviated form of the word documents, is a form of online harassment used to exact revenge and to threaten and destroy the privacy of individuals by making their personal information public, including addresses, social security, credit card and phone numbers, links to social media accounts, and other private data.
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What’s Cyberbullying?

Cyberbullying is violence that takes place over digital media such as mobile phones, laptops and tablets.

Cyberbullying can take place through SMS, Email, and Applications, or online via social media, forums, or gaming where people can access, engage in, or share information.

Cyberbullying means sending, publishing, or exchanging harmful, damaging, misleading, or mean messages about someone else. It could include sharing sensitive or private information about someone else causing shame or humiliation. Some cyberbullying crosses the line into unethical or criminal activity.


The most common place where cyberbullying happens are:

  • Social networks like Twitter, Instagram, Snapchat, and Tik Tok.
  • Text messaging and messaging applications for smartphone or tablet computers.
  • Instant Communications.
  • Instant messaging and video chat on the Internet.
  • Online forums, chat rooms, and discussion boards, including Reddit.
  • Email.
  • Online entertainment group.