Should there be a punishment for cyber bullying?
Screenshot of facebook
February 13, 2017
Cyber bullying is a big problem that a lot of teens struggle with. On many social media websites, people face harassment and bullying.
Lots of teens face rude comments and mean messages throughout their social media.
Some people take it too far and begin to bully others.
According to nobullying.com, 52% of young people have reported that they have been cyberbullied.
Another statistic shows that “95 per cent of teens that witnessed bullying on social media report that others, like them, have ignored the behavior.”
This behavior needs to have real life consequences. Not as many people would ignore cyber bullying if they saw it as a real life crime.
We need to teach people that there are consequences to their actions even if it’s not face to face harassment.
According to Judy Locher, a counselor at Palatine High School, students come to her about once a month to report bullying and seek out advice to help them in their situation.
“We review the context of what was said and who is impacted,” Locher says. “There is a different meaning behind having someone ignore a post or not getting “likes” versus making an inappropriate or hurtful comment.”
At Palatine High School, cyber bullying is taken very seriously. “Palatine High School has a very strict ZERO tolerance for bullying policy.”
Locher says, “Students should always report safety concerns and bullying. Administrators review each situation on a case by case basis and apply appropriate consequences based on the severity of the incident.”
More schools should handle their cyber bullying situations like this so that students feel safe. More schools should make it clear to cyber bullies that there are consequences to their actions even if what they’re doing isn’t face to face.
Not only is it important for schools to set rules against cyber bullying, but it is also important to have laws that protect people that are being cyberbullied. Some states do have laws against cyber bullying but not all.
According to cyberbullyhotline.com, “81% of teens say bullying online is easier to get away with.”
It should not be so easy for people to harass each other and get away with it.
Strict consequences like deleting the bully’s social media account should be taken. Deleting a cyber bully’s social media should decrease the amount of cyber bullying that teens face because it won’t give those kinds of people an opportunity to harass others.
Social media sites should set up separate websites where you can report cyberbullies and the social media site should actually look at the accounts that were reported.
Right now on social media, people can report other users, but it’s not taken very seriously and the creators of the social media site don’t look at everyone that’s been reported.
The purpose of social media was to help people communicate and have updates on people’s lives through the internet, not to be used as a platform for harassment and bullying.
