The Dilemma of Cyberbullying

“They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.” 
― Benjamin Franklin

Q:            What difficulties might teachers experience when trying to identify and address problems with cyberbullying done by their students?

            The rise of the internet has unleashed a wave of unparalleled potential, knowledge, and power on the youth of today, the likes of which has never been seen in human history.  The great technological democratization of information has, to date and in no particular order, overthrown governments, helped students cheat on essays, allowed for unparalleled humanitarian campaigns, bridges cultures and continents, and allowed me to understand political tyrades in the Shanghai Daily Newspaper.  It is, on the whole, a massively powerful tool for positive change, creativity, and collaboration on a global scale.  Unfortunately, as with any tool, it can also be used for ill.  Be it hacker collectives using Distributed Denial of Service attacks to take down websites, government or private operatives sewing dissent and misinformation into controversial subjects, or bullies – both children and adults – using the unprecedented access to their victims’ lives and personal information to give their attacks greater piercing and reach, the internet can and is used on a daily basis to both personal and social ill as well as good.

            From the perspective of an educator, this presents a unique and potentially un-solvable problem.  The concept of cyberbullying has gone from a theoretical bogeyman in the nascence of the internet era, to an intractable and sometimes unbearable fact of life for as much as 30% of the nation’s youth (Burden and Byrd, 2012, p. 277).  Though it is swiftly becoming the “go-to” format for bullies both nation- and world-wide, there seems precious little that can be effectively done to combat it directly.

            One of the great strengths of the internet has been the ability of its users to maintain a level of anonymity.  While someone may be a student, teacher, or technician by day, online that same individual is able to shed that label in favor of one they have a more direct sense of control over.  In its initial phases, there was little that could go wrong with this: if your “avatar” was compromised or targeted by ne’er-do-wells, it could be quickly and easily shed in favor of a new, fresh one.  In the past decade, however, the era of the “throwaway online identity” has receded against the rise of the era of Facebook, et al exposing people’s real names, identities, and social circles to the harsh eyes on the other side of the computer screen.

            This curious – and largely ad hoc – overlay of personal information and identities on top of a system built by and for users completely disassociated from their own real world identities created a differential of knowledge that is far too easily turn against those sharing their information.  Sharing one’s personal information – critical though it now often seems to most of us using the web – still remains an entirely optional affair.  It is ludicrously easy to create use a false IP address (heck, I’m doing so right now just to access this web site, thanks China) in order to generate a false email account, which you can then use to make a fake Facebook page stocked with free “photos” taken from an image search site.  And preying on the primal human need – and especially those in the adolescent stage of life – to be accepted and have “Friends,” infiltrate any person’s or community’s network and begin, should one so choose, to wreck havoc.  Anyone can do it.  It is simple, it is fast, and it uses only the most basic tools at one’s disposal when using the internet… and there is no way to stop it, save dismantling the whole system entirely.

            So what, then, can be done?  I for one am not yet in favor of scrapping the entire world wide web and the concept of anonymity for the sake of security.  Fortunately, there are a couple of measures that can be taken.  One is significantly easier than the other, and so it’s best to begin with that.  In relies on a principle put forth by Albert Einstein: “Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I'm not sure about the former.”  Simply put, the vast majority of those seeking to bully others over the web are almost as reckless as their intended victims with their personal information.  As simple as it is to alter one’s identity beyond recognition, most people still do not realize that changing one’s name or email address is not enough… in the digital landscape of cyberspace, we are still tagged and bound by the IP address we virtually never see or think about.  It is the easiest thing for the simple user to forget about, and yet is as traceable and identifiable as a fingerprint.  In the digital space where anonymity reigns supreme, most people as still showing up with the nametags still attached.  Of course, this is only of limited and situation use… i.e. criminal investigations.

            The other option is quite a bit more difficult, and that entails simultaneously teaching both our students and our children to use the power at their fingertips smartly, safely, and humanely.  We cannot rely on policies, consequences, or accountability to take care of this problem, given that it is a problem which in its very nature defies all three.  Instead, we must take the harder path of teaching our children how to deal with, ignore, and work around such trolls.  The lessons that most longtime users of the web have learned through much time and struggle: do not feed the trolls, be extremely careful with your real life information, have been all but lost on the generation that has, ironically, been inborn into the web.  Those are what will keep children safe - a powerful, inner sense of identity, a caution with the worrying trend toward "oversharing" online, and a recognition that just because someone says something online does not make it valid, or worth listening to, or worth anything.  While schools, parents, and teachers are remarkably powerless once online bullying actually begins, we can all provide a potent inocculation against its worst effects, and provide a positive, and strong example in web habits and etiquette to ensure that the John Gabriel’s “GIFwT” does not remain a permanent “Law” of the web.

Resources:

 Burden, P.R., & Byrd, D.M. (2013). Methods for Effective Teaching: Meeting the Needs of All Students (6th ed.). Boston, MA: Pearson.

Holkins, J and Krahulik, M.  Penny Arcade.  2004.  “Green Blackboards (And Other Anomalies).”  Retrieved from: http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2004/03/19/ on Oct 4, 2012.