What Is the Most Effective Punishment for Cyberbullying?

Learn what cyberbullying is and what to do if a student has become a cyberbully. Find out what punishment for cyberbullying is used today.

The Most Effective Punishment for Cyberbullying

With the development of modern information technologies and the involvement of children and adolescents in the world of the Internet, a kind of school violence has emerged as cyberbullying. It’s humiliation or bullying with the help of mobile phones and other electronic devices. Sometimes, it turns out to be even more painful than physical violence.  Through social networks and communities on the Internet, the dissemination of any information is instantaneous.

Using mobile phones, the Internet, a cyber bully can intimidate their victims around the clock, creating the illusion of complete control over their lives. Today, cyberbullying has become one of the most popular essay topics written by paper writing service as teachers want to draw attention to this global problem.

What Are the Possible Consequences of Cyberbullying?

One click and humiliating and defaming photos, videos, parody images, rumors reach a huge number of recipients.  Internet technologies help maintain the anonymity of cyber terrorists, so children, not being able to identify the author of the messages, are afraid of revenge for attracting adults to the problem. Children often hesitate to talk about cyber violence used against them. They fear that they will be punished for “denunciation”.

It is not necessary for a cyber-regressor to possess physical strength, power, and influence on peers in order to feel superior. Through the Internet, the ability to humiliate, insult, and terrorize is realized only with the help of a computer or mobile phone. Once on the Web, information remains there for a long time, circulating and appearing in various Internet information resources online. This causes a long traumatic effect on the psyche of the child, which becomes the object of ridicule and humiliation, forms low self-esteem, often leads to depressive states, not excluding such consequence as suicide.

Cyberbullying can go beyond the boundaries of the Internet into real life in the form of other manifestations of bullying when the aggressor and the target are both in the same school. Children and adolescents, not assessing the consequences of their actions, post a large amount of personal information on the Internet on their pages of the social network. Photos, posts – everything can be used by the aggressor to intimidate.

What Cyberbullying Punishment Is Used Today?

If you find out that one of your child’s friends or acquaintances is subject to cyberbullying, then inform the class teacher or school psychologist about this — measures must be taken to protect the child and punish the cyber-terrorist. The punishment varies from country to country as not everywhere there are specific laws against cyberbullying. The punishment depends on the consequences of cyberbullying and the more serious if the victim of cyberbullying has suffered from it. The victim should prove that he/she had been harassed by someone for the search of the harasser to be successful. The most effective punishment used in American society is the system of fines which increase up to $1000 (in California).

There are criminal sanctions as well if cyberbullying led to the suicide or health problems of the victim. So, there is administrative and criminal responsibility for cyberbullying. It is up to the learning centers and education establishments together with parents to prevent the behavior of a student that can cause harm to anyone. Children need to know how to block the account of a cyber-terrorist and how to use privacy settings in social networking applications.