Why Do People Cyberbully?

Sometimes, largely because they feel that they are anonymous; people do things online they would never dream of doing in real life. These range from rude conduct and rude language, to insults, defamation and bullying; to creating fear and to credible threats of actual harm offline.

Unfortunately, in a majority of the cases children and teens are not only the victims; they are also the cyberbullies. Depending on what they are doing and how they are doing it, their actions may just be annoying, may violate their ISP's terms of service or school disciplinary code or may even be criminal.

The cyberbully will even try and provoke an angry response from the victim and then report the victim's angry response as the victim being the bully. These are called "notify" or "warning" wars. Often bullies will also hack their victim's computers or send them viruses or other malicious codes.

Let your children know that they can come and talk to you if they think they have a cyberbully. Your child should know that they have someone they can go to and trust to help them out if they have a problem.