Just my 2Kobo: Cyber Bullying: It Stops Now

BY IPHIE MANUELZ 

When the blog was started, the intention was to have the story of a young person following their dreams every Monday morning to serve as an inspiration to youths that read the blog. The intention was for it to become a culture, even though sometimes we have gone without inspirational stories it was for reasons we couldn’t control. But today’s reason is something we can all join hands to stop: CYBER BULLYING.

Today I had in mind to interview a young lady who was making a headway in her chosen career path, she would have served as an inspiration to thousands of youths out there, but for the fear that she would be met with insults she decided to keep her story to herself. I intentionally decided not to interview anyone because I was sure I was going to be able to talk her into seeing reasons as to why she had to share her inspirational story. Unfortunately I didn’t succeed, instead of using the other interviews I had lined up I decided to tackle cyber bulling. This young lady had been cyber bullied before and so decided that the best thing was to stay out of their way, there was no need to trigger an unwanted attack right?

What is cyber bullying?

The Merriam-Webster dictionary defines it to mean ‘the electronic posting of mean-spirited messages about a person, often done anonymously.

Wikipedia takes it to mean ‘the use of internet and related technologies to harm other people in a deliberate, repeated and hostile manner’.

To my own understanding, it means using the social media for reasons other than those, which they were created for, bullying and bringing others down, causing them to have a low sense of self worth.

The scars caused by cyber bulling are not physical and can go unnoticed because these scars are mental scars that usually lead to self-esteem issues.

Cyber bulling has become very wide spread in Nigeria and its becoming very alarming how it goes on everyday. I am pretty sure 95% of the youths in Nigeria have either been victims of cyber bullying or have been the perpetrators. One only needs to log on to Twitter to see the amount of bullying that goes on in the guise of twitfights, yes those ‘harmless’ twitfights can be termed cyber bullying. It is not restricted to Twitter, it goes on on Facebook too, the mean posts about an individual, the mean comments on an update or a picture, friends ganging up on an individual. On the blogs the mean comments about the individual that is the topic of the post or even to someone that commented about the post amounts to cyber bullying. I had to activate the comment moderation feature of the blog as part of my way to convince the young lady to do this interview, and it still didn't do the trick.

Now I know the next thought that comes to your head would be that, freedom of speech is a right protected by the constitution and so you have the right to say what you please. Remember this though, your right ends where another person’s right begins, remember you can be sued for defamation.

I have been both a victim and a perpetrator so I know what it feels like to be on both sides. Recently I had a twitfight with an individual who attacked my tweet for no reason and also on Facebook when some religious fanatic decided my dressing wasn’t in line with his religion. In both situations I felt anxious and I found my heart beating faster than usual. Now this wasn’t because I was scared of these individuals, but it was because I was anxious to see the insult they were going to come up with and to see if I could beat the insults with a witty reply. In both situation what I did was to unfollow and block this person on twitter and on Facebook I ended the friendship and reported the individual as a bully to the Facebook administrators. Now, I am lucky to have a very healthy sense of self worth so I have no self esteem issues add that to the fact that I have a very strong support system made up of friends and family. My self esteem and strong support system ensured that the only effect these cyber bullying had on me was this passing case of anxiety. Not everyone is as lucky.

Like I said I have been the perpetrator in some instances, I remember a certain post where the blogger said ‘the accident was almost fatal’. Now any educated person knows that an accident is either fatal or not fatal. There is nothing wrong with correcting someone who had made a mistake; it’s the manner in which you correct that matters. I could have simply said ‘an accident is either fatal or its not’, I didn’t need to attack her educational background. In the end of the whole saga I felt ashamed of myself for the way I handled things.

There is a growing need to end this growing trend, as it ends up destroying the psych of a lot of people, I need not remind you that it is a vicious circle, one that may affect you or someone dear to you. Now this is what I suggest be done;

Users of social media have to be more responsible for whatever they update, think about the consequences of what you are about to update before doing so. Intervene when you see the social media being misused, now am not saying go and form social media vigilante oh, but remember how we shut down the page of that girl who tweeted about being happy that Goldie, God rest her soul, was dead, ehhn something like that.

Bloggers have to be more responsible for what they post about people/celebrities and also the comments they upload. As a blogger you have the power to moderate comments and so it lies in your hands to control what gets published on your blog. Use that power wisely, instead of going for cheap hits by publishing controversial posts and comment, publish posts and comments that would engage your readers in meaningful, objective arguments.

Administrators of social media also have to be more responsible, there should be a warning against bullying when an account is being opened, one that is boldly written, not to be looked for in the fine print of the terms and conditions. There should be censorship, there should be a standard for what they let fly. I know Facebook has provisions for reporting and handling bullying, twitter has provisions for shutting down accounts. These are right steps in the right direction.

The government has a role to play in this too, create laws that would stop/control and punish cyber bullying. I know you would say Nigeria has bigger problems than cyber bullying biko, but you need to see the way these oyibo people take their lives because of cyber bullying or even the ones that snap and take the lives of their bullies. We don’t have to wait till we get to that point where lives have to be lost before we do something about it, I mean what harm does it cause by having a law, yes I did my research and I didn’t find any, if you know of any though please let me know.

Family and friends need to be a strong support system for people who have being cyber bullied. I know we live in a society where the mentality is, when something happens, pick yourself up and keep marching ahead. This is a good mentality but sometime what we are doing is continuing the circle and building up an army of cyber bullies.

You might not have been affected personally by cyber bullying but I can bet a £100 that you know some one who has been. Some anonymous person backed with a computer and the internet had the power to stop an inspirational young lady from sharing her story, of course I am angry, this time enough is enough, the cyber bullying has to stop.