Cyberbullying : What is it and how to get help

Sparkles; It sounds awful what happened you, but I'm so glad you realise that you have as much right to be online as they do and are not letting them stop you from having fun!! Thanks for sharing your experience!

Jess_Bartel; I'm so sorry to hear what happened to you. That sounds absolutely awful! But so glad you told people what was happening!!! I think the "block" and "delete" buttons are so important on those websites! And we should definitely use them more often. :) Keep being strong. :)

I would definitely encourage anyone who is being cyberbullied to tell someone they trust what is happening (a friend, parent, sibling, Kids Help Line - 1800 551 800). Especially if the person goes to school/tafe with you. Please always remember that you can delete them off MSN/facebook etc if they are continuously harassing you. You should NOT put up with the bullying online!

Stay safe online guys - and keep sharing your inspiring stories here! It's great to hear how others cope with cyberbulling.

The internet is great and we can't let bullies ruin it for us!

MM. 

I got cyberbullied by a TAFE student that I don't know on Facebook in few weeks ago. He thought he knows me but I don't know him. He harassed me to be in a secret relationship behind my boyfriend's back. Which I don't want to do that. I was crying, being angry and confused a lot all week and I tell my teacher about this problem. Then I notified my parents after my sister talked to mum about this. I deleted and blocked him on Facebook.

I have been cyberbullied continously for months.The way these people have worked is not at all normal.I have had my email posted on a disgusting website without my consent.I have had my FB account hacked into.I have contacted Twitter about a particular account that befriended mine and had been posting personal stuff even photos that look similar to me and twitter didnt even delete it.The way this cyberbully works is to bring it to my attention in other ways than just full on email msgs etc.You also wonder when you tell people if they believe you for what is happening but it does happen and it is real. All I can say is stay as strong as you can people and dont let bullies win.They want to see us down and out but they are just cowards for what they do,Dont let it stop you from being on the internet you have just as much right to be on here like everyone else  xoxox

hi trac if your really scared about your nephew maybe you should delete his account because really is to young your are supposed to be 13 and over and if he want give you his account details report him for being under aged  

I was cyber-bullied 1 month ago on FB i did not report it immediately because i was scared she would find out and make it worse i did report it eventualy but did i do the right thing?

Hey all,

Hi, I have been cyber bullied many times over Facebook but the person who does it is sneaky and does not say my name. But she makes her statuses about me and I know they are about me. I even got her to admit she cyber bullies me but she doesn't care. I have been reporting her bully statuses and notes for the past 3 months. I do not want to delete her as a friend so I can keep reporting these. None of my friends would report it for me if I blocked her because the person who bullies me is their best friend too...what can I do to suspend her Facebook or get these statuses gone?

Hi Anna,

I asked a friend of mine if she knew of any articles to help answer your question (she was cyberbullied a few years ago). There's some really good info on this page explaining how to prevent cyberbullying once it's started:

http://raisingchildren.net.au/articles/cyberbullying_teenagers.html

Hope that helps =)

@courtsiemaa:

I've been in a similar situation with cyber bullygin from anonymous people. It's bad enough that people bully on Facebook and MySpace, but people that bully over Formspring are just cowards. What I would do is adjust your privacy settings. I know you can limit your profile so people can only ask you questions publicly. I did that for a while when I was bullied and I went from getting around 50 hate messages a week to around 10. Second, I would adjust your profile so people need to request to follow you. If they can't see your posts, it doesn't matter. Third, be nice to them. It might be hard, but the majority of bullies bully for one reason: revenge. They've been bullied in the past and they feel the need to take it out on other people. So be nice and show them that you don't care what they say. This leads to my last point: be yourself. The only comments you need to worry about are the friendly ones. The positive comments people give you, etc.

Hope I helped. :)

I have been recently bullied on formspring. People are calling me a slut, telling me to leave my school and telling me everyone hates me. But I don't know whos writing it, because they are putting it on anonymous. I need help of what I can do. Mod edit Please see guidelines

Hey, I have a question that anyone who know's pleeeeeease help me out with if you know! Okay so me and my sister were recently bullied over Facebook by a BUNCH of girls..a team..literally! Most of them probably really insecure but hey, aren't they all? Haha but anyway most of these girls me and my twin had never even talked to beefore? The thing is though, these girls are smart. They would say REALLY hurtful/mean things about us, but never DIRECTLY mention our names. They would even go as far as saying stuff about past surgeries we had. So sad. They would also leak personal information about us for the whole facebook world to see thhat they knnew once when we were friends.(the ones we had been friends with before). When we took the  evidence to our school, the police said they couldn't do anything just because they never mentioned our names. But it had been going on for months, threatning to beat us up, kill us, postin mocking photos of us, everything. Mean girls like this aren't dumb...they will find ways to try and bring you down no matter what, just so they don't get caught..One girl found out we were going to the school about it, and laughed because she said "we didn't use names, they have no proof!" and continued it......what are we supposed to do? I have like 20 girls blocked on FB but it continues at school and through other peoples profiles..at this rate I'm gunna have ebveryone on FB blocked! Please help or email me at mmshuki@gmail.com

I have experienced cyber bullying ,a partner of someone at work that was sacked ,went on my works global website saying myself and someone else at work wanted to harm her and their children.I dont know the women or contacted her in anyway.i let work go thru my facebook emails and all my phone bills.
We were both cleared now a year down the track this person is contacting friends and relatives .i have contacted police they wont do anything .what do i do to stop it

• I have had been close cyber bullied, but I cut contact with that website and the culprit involved was put on ignored by me.....The fact the wasn't any responses  from me, must really drive him up the wall!!!
• Plus I made sure the moderators knew, but if was a moderator doing I'd cut the website from my use or disguise my user name and block seeing the moderator's comments on the screen.
• I have always keep my origin and area private plus mobile  phone contact I am very stringent to who I give my mobile phone info to.

Hey there YouLookedBack12,

I really am sorry to hear that you have buiiles in your school and that you have been put in this position, it must be stressful.  I think you should be super proud of yourself for coming on here and asking for advice :) It was a really awesome thing to do.

I agree with ejsaysgrr, I think that it is a good idea to tell your teachers, or school counsellor about what is going on.  Bullying is never ok and the school need to know that is is happening so that they can stop it.  If you are worried about the girls finding out who told I advise that you talk to your teachers and ask that they not tell anyone before you tell them about the bullying just so you can feel comfortable  in what you are doing.  I think that most teachers would be more than happy to let you report this anonymously.

Take care
Roisin - RO Crew

Hi YouLookedBack12, 

HELP! My school has a strict policy with bullies and they always tell us to contact any teacher if you see it happening. Today I founded a youtube channel of a girl at my school, she made a video with her best friend who also goes to my school cyber bullying a 9 year old because of her signing. It made me really mad not only because I dont really like those girls but because their making fun and calling bad names to the poor girl. Should I do something and how because I dont want to get involve in any fight with those girls. 

Only the victim can stop cyber-bullying

Hi Chriso122,

I am so sorry to hear about everything that you are going through.  Bullying is never ok and no one ever asks or deserves to be bullied.  I hope some of the tips in the above fact sheet will help you out with this situation.

Remember if you feel like talking to someone about all of this kids help line are really friendly and avilable 24/7.  You can get them on 1800 55 1800.

ive been syber bullyed for almost 2-3 months i havent told any 1 i thoghut i could deal with it but i cant i know the persons name and have his facebook and all and he lives in tawoomba, (Mod edit- please see guidelines)

Hi Trac,

I really am sorry to hear about everything that your nephew and his family have been through.

I would advise that if you are worried about the saftey of your nephew that you should contact the police.  Threatening people is illegal and not ok, whether it is done face to face or online, makes no difference.

As well as contacting the police I would keep face book informed about this person.

Your nephew may want to change the profile setings of his face book account to private so that only people that he has pre aproved can acess any of his information and block this person from his account so that they can never access any of his details.

facebook can advise you on how do do this.

@ Frankie, Hi, welcome to RO, thanks for sharing your advise :)

Trac,

I have had a similar prob myself.  Get access to your nephew face book account and set the account to accounts > Basic Directory Information. Reset the settings to what you think is safe for you. Also let your nephew know what settings that you are setting so he/she can see if the settings that you set are the right settings for you. Also see why your nephew is adding online and sadly but safely monitor his people he/she is adds online. Beware of and photos that go online of your nephew. 
 
hope this helps you Trac.

This link hopefull.

Account Security Abuse

Please I need help an 60 year old man on face book is cyber bullying my 12 year old nephew and I dont know what to do.  He is being so graphic and to be honest it started because my nephew put on a friends comment  wtf?  this guy is applying some horrible and sexual stuff and he calls him self a "Chaplin"  We reporting him to face book only to have him get a new face book account and start all over again.  Please can any one help us.  i mean this guy even hunt down my nephew address his school and has threatened to go there and "teach him a lesson" and "Make him a man"  Any help will be grateful

i got a really abusive message on facebook recently from a friend of my boyfriend who just happens to live about 30meters from my house.
he talked about how he was going to come over to my house and destroy my life unless i gave his friend back to him gong on and on about how he would make me pay if i chose to stay with my boyfriend. I was in queensland with my fmily at the time. i blocked him from having any communication on facebook with me ever again and sent the email to my boyfriend to deal with as it was his friend who i havd never really seen for more than 5 minutes before ever, i didnt even know there was a problem until this. Im a very small thin girl and he is like 6'7 and bulky. after the holiday i came home and im absolutly petrified being in my own house. i could report him on facebook? but then they might just tell him what the complaint against him is about, and if that happened im not sure id be here next week. So basically im scared everytime in at home especially when its just me here so thats not good. but reporting it to facebook or the police could potentially make things so much worse and more dangerous for me??
Help!! please give advice
im one very troubled stressed out emotional girl at the moment :S

I use to go to an all girls school, i wish i never did now. I use to be excited about going to school meeting up with my friends and having a good day. I have this best friend and we finally found a group and made really good friends with them. Until they all turned sour. So we moved groups, but of  course they didnt like that. They new that they couldnt get to my best friend by hurting her feelings but they could to me. They started sending me mean emails telling me that they are going to bash me calling me a fat c**** and my mum is a looser or im not cool because i wasnt into the hole smoking, drug sex scene like they were but its funny because they are all massive girls and i no im not fat but when i go to the beach i feel like i just want to curl up and die because i feel so uncomfortable in a bikini now all because of those f*ck*ng low lifes.  i tried not to look at the emails. Until one day i got off the bus and there they all were standing there waiting for me. I ran across the street and they where yelling stuff out to me. One girl was holing the other one down because she wanted to charge at me. Ive never told anyone. But when i  did i felt so much better. I told my best friend what was happening and boy did she take care of it. ahaha. 

My niece recently took her own life. It wasn't until this occurred that the adults in her life realised that she was being bullied. She had a falling out with some friends and her former boyfriend. What followed was a barrage of messages across several networking sites and in her email. In the last few days of her life the messages in her inbox relating to the derogatory messages and postings numbered in the thousands. This was in addition to the humiliation they subjected her to in person.

What I want to say to kids out there is do get help for yourself or those you care about. If you don't get help or understanding the first time keep trying. There are so many people out there who are willing to help. Parents, teachers, the police, friends, relatives, perhaps your sporting coach or a family friends. There is always someone to help. There is no such thing as alone.

3 weeks ago, I got a violent text message from 'a' friend, whom I was shocked upon. I felt so angry at the message, that I was driving 100KM/H in a 70 zone that I almost hit into a truck.

Hi Rainee,

I really am sorry to hear about what you and your daughter have been through.  Cyber bulling is never ok and can be realy scary for the person t s happenng to. 

Have you guys looked at the fact sheet above? It has some practical tips to stop cyber bullies.

We also have this fact sheet on bullying which has more tps on what you can do if you are being bullied.

http://au.reachout.com/find/articles/bullying-what-to-do-if-you-are-being-bullied

If you or your daughter would like to talk to someone about what you are going through please do not hesitate to call LifeLine on 13 11 14 (for the price of a local call).

All the Best
Roisin - RO Crew

My daughter 19 is being cyber bullied by 4 girls and now all their friends have joined in.... She called the police but unless she is threatened they wont do anything.  and their parents dont care because these people r in their 20's

Once I was Cyber Bullied then I told my Mum straight away, then she went to the school.

The assistant principal sorted everything out, but I was left crying. Constable Phil came yesterday and talked us about cyber bullying.

I never want to be in a situation like that again.