How To Report Cyberbullying?

Cyberbullying is a term we all hear more and more frequently. Cyberbullying is, to put it simply, bullying and harassment using new technologies such as: email, cell phones and social media and gaming networks. For example, sending messages using Blackberry Messenger that threaten or harass a person or saying mean things about someone on Facebook or calling people names on a Twitter timeline. Either way, it's bullying and no matter if the technology is used to compliment or insult others, it's not OK. If you have experienced cyberbullying and need to report it then here are some steps you can take.

Bullying, whether it is in real life or the cyber world, is something that should always be reported for it to be addressed properly and to avoid any incidents in the future. Cyberbullying is as dangerous as real-world bullying because it will have dire social impacts on the victim and could cause the victim to resort to a much dangerous approach on how he/she may deal with said bullying.

The first steps to take in regards to cyberbullying

• Never reply to nor share any form of cyberbullying messages
• Record the evidence of any form of cyberbullying. You must obtain the exact time, date, and events of the cyberbullying instances. As much as possible, take a screenshot, photo, or video of the cyberbullying.
• After gathering every bit of information needed, block the cyberbully immediately.

Reporting Cyberbullying

In terms of reporting any sort of cyberbullying happening, there are 3 ways for you to go about this. You can either report the cyberbullies directly to the law enforcement, you can also report them to their schools and lastly, you can also report them to service providers such as social media admins or their internet service providers.

How to report cyberbullying to law enforcement?

For most countries, cyberbullying is in fact, punishable by law and thus any activities involving it should always be reported immediately to any law enforcement agencies. For you to report the cyberbullying to your law enforcement agencies, do the following:

1. Gather evidence of cyberbullying. As mentioned earlier, you will need photos, videos, or screenshots that can serve as evidence of the said event.
2. Provide the evidence to the authorities.
3. Consult them regarding your next action.
4. Wait for them to finish their investigation.

How to report cyberbullying to schools?

Cyberbullying is something that can be very disruptive to the school environment and that is why most schools will regard cyberbullying as a serious matter. To report a cyberbully to his/her school, do the following:

1. Gather your evidence, be it in a form of a photo or a video.
2. Send the evidence to your school. If you want to be anonymous, you can send the evidence via a throwaway account.
3. Wait for the outcome.
4. If the school did not do any sort of action regarding the cyberbullying, you can then report both the school and cyberbully to the authorities.

Actually, in most states, schools will need to address cyberbullying immediately, failure to do so will be a violation of the anti-bullying policy.

How to report cyberbullying to service providers?

Services providers can disable or even remove the account of the cyberbully completely. By reporting them to the service provider, their accounts will be reviewed and once it has been verified that it was involved in a cyberbullying activity, it will usually be deactivated completely. Let us take Facebook as an example of a service provider. To report someone to Facebook for cyberbullying, do the following:

1. Go to the profile or page of the cyberbully.
2. Click on the three-dotted line.
   
3. Click on Find Support or Report Profile.
4. When reporting a person, click on Harassment or Bullying, when reporting a page click on Harassment.
5. When reporting a page, you can either choose It’s me or It’s someone else, depending on who is being bullied. When reporting a person, skip to the next step.
6. You will then be prompted to another page where you can choose an action for the cyberbully. You can either just block the cyberbully or hide all the posts coming.
7. Click on Done for Facebook to review their profile.

Summary: Report cyberbullying

• Submit a report to the website's administrators.
• Block the user from your social media account.
• Save evidence of cyberbullying.
• If you’re worried about someone else’s safety, report the incident to police.
• Report any cyberbullying that takes place on school grounds if you are concerned that your child may be the victim.

Conclusion

If you’ve experiences cyberbullying, it’s best to report them rather than directly talking to them. Block them out of your life, you don’t need these types of people.