ShmoopTube

00:01

We speak student!

00:05

Media Literacy

00:07

Cyberbullying

00:09

a la Shmoop

00:12

Cyberbullying.

00:13

Deb, so talk to us

00:15

about anti-cyberbullying, which is our stance here.

00:18

What can cyberbullies really do?

00:20

Like what are they capable of? What does it mean?

00:22

We think of the most extreme cases

00:25

where cyberbullying leads, whether directly or indirectly,

00:28

to suicide.

00:29

So cyberbullies can kill.

00:30

That's the most extreme case.

00:33

But cyberbullies also just

00:35

create so much emotional turmoil, and not just in one person,

00:39

but in everyone who's affected by it.

00:41

So if you were to cyberbully me, you might think,

00:45

"Oh, it's only Deb that I'm affecting. She's a jerk anyway,

00:49

so it doesn't matter."

00:50

But you're also affecting all my friends, my family,

00:53

anyone else who maybe sees it posted

00:56

and thinks, "Wow, this is a really scary world we live in."

00:59

And so on and so forth.

01:01

Even when it's a one-to-one cyberbully situation,

01:04

it never really is and you're affecting a really large group of people.

01:07

Give us a couple of examples of things people do

01:11

that you would define as cyberbullying.

01:13

Sure, so let's say you

01:16

hack into someone's Facebook account.

01:19

- And... You steal their password. - Hack meaning I steal their password?

01:22

Yeah, maybe they told you their password. It could be a friend of yours.

01:25

They told you their password once and you're like,

01:27

"Hey, this is gonna be hilarious."

01:28

And you sign into their Facebook account

01:30

and post pictures of them that you know

01:33

they didn't want anyone to see.

01:36

[ gasp ]

01:37

Even if this is your friend, this is cyberbullying.

01:39

Because imagine having everyone you know,

01:42

and if you have 500, 1,000 friends

01:45

who then have friends of friends of friends

01:47

who can all see this,

01:48

you now have thousands or tens of thousands of people

01:50

seeing this picture that someone thought was private.

01:54

So this is cyberbullying

01:56

among friends, I guess.

01:58

And even that is really terrible and can cause a lot of damage.

02:02

Both because the person is affected emotionally and because,

02:06

you know how we said, "Don't post embarrassing pictures if you're looking for a job."

02:09

Well now that person might never be able to get the job they want

02:12

because that picture is out there.

02:14

And then of course there's the more detached type of cyberbullying.

02:17

Which is you don't know the person or you don't know the person very well.

02:22

And that's usually more in the form of

02:25

you're just saying really nasty things to them.

02:28

And it can be everything from making fun of their physical appearance

02:31

or something specific you know they did

02:33

to saying things like, "You should just go kill yourself."

02:37

And those are the ones you hear about in the news, right?

02:39

The, "You should just go kill yourself."

02:40

And then the person does.

02:42

And it seems impossible that anyone would read that story

02:45

and then ever, ever say something like that,

02:48

but people still do. And you just have to think

02:51

every single word you say

02:53

affects other people.

02:55

The words that you and I are saying right now,

02:56

someone is gonna watch this video

02:58

and might be affected by it in one way or another.

03:00

And that's why we have to be really careful

03:02

whenever we're saying anything

03:04

that can be viewed or heard by more than just the person we're talking to.

03:07

Understood.

03:08

Yeah, and on the Internet, everything is magnified.

03:10

It's so different from a one-on-one conversation

03:12

where you're not protecting thousands

03:14

or hundreds of thousands or whatever people who are watching you.

03:16

And the tone is just different. You might be saying something that

03:19

if you were in person, you could tell that the person was just joking,

03:22

joshing with you. But, if it's online,

03:24

it can be interpreted differently

03:26

and you never know how someone's gonna take something.

03:30

[ whoop ]

03:31

What can be cyberbullies be capable of?

03:35

Cite some examples of cyberbullying.

Full Transcript