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I don't think we should confuse two issues here. Bullying is not merely throwing insults. Bullying may use insults as one of a range of tactics but bullying is harassment. It's the systematic attempt to degrade another (typically weaker) individual when the harasser KNOWS that his or her actions will affect pain on the person being bullied.

To compare bullying to the mere slinging of insults, especially towards public figures, I think could undermine serious attempts to tackle bullying.

If a child receives an insult from another that in itself is not bullying. It is part of life. Children must learn to deal with criticisms, and learn to ignore destructive criticism and learn to use constructive criticism to improve their behaviour. Without this feedback mechanism we would not act together as a cohesive society.

A celebrity, journalist, politician - yourself included - has made a choice. You are a public figure. As a journalist more often than not, and sometimes without even realising it, one may express opinion. The counterweight to this power is that the public may disagree.

Whilst it may be hurtful to the recipient, and it may be "bad" behaviour (naughty!) and it certainly could set a bad example to children, insulting politicians, public figures and journalists on blogs in my view is NOT analogous to bullying suffered by children.

Frank exchange of ideas, free expression of opinions and attempts to outmanoeuvre political opponents through insults are merely a necessary if unsavoury part of living in a democracy.

I feel we must teach our children to rise above this, rather than cast society as functionally flawed, as you appear to be hinting.

And finally, your analogy to Iran to me feels rather glib: I would ask please that you take some time to consider the state of British libel laws and wonder whether anonymous posting offers a modicum of protection against corporations and powerful individuals who use legal threats to stamp out criticism.

At least with a level of anonymity, a court order is required to unmask an anonymous blog poster, thereby adding a small hurdle in the path of the galloping libel stallion.

Thanks,

Anon.

1st I think when kids say they have witnessed 'bullying' most of those are probably having words put into their mouths by an odler generation who lets face, has no idea how the internet works.

Im not denying bullying can happen but to most people who use the internet, normal communications can be labelled as destructive. I constantly call my friend all manner of insults and whole groups of people I play onlinme games with do the same to each other.

Most of my generation no longer cares for words, they're just gimmicks used to get a point across.

Sounds like this reporter got trolled and was upset over it. /rickroll

"Research for the charity Beatbullying showed that over 60% of 11-18-year-olds said they'd witnessed some form of online bullying"
Well, no, actually they're just making up a big headline to get in the newspapers.

Their definition of cyberbullying is "deliberately upsetting someone using information technology, especially the internet or telephone."

Nope, that's not bullying, as understood by anyone else. Bullying is a HABITUAL or PERSISTANT action :


Let me take an example, Jane takes away Peter's toy. Peter is offended and says "I hate you". Jane is now offended. Based on the defintion by Beatbullying that means Jane has now bullied Peter and Peter has bullied Jane!
No, they haven't, they're being naughty, they're being nasty, but it's not bullying. That's only if it is repeated often.

Rory, I agree with your post - there are all manner of bulletin boards, be they TV discussion forums, political boards or even travel review sites, where if one does not fit in to the prevailing worldview, if one is perceived to challenge the "big men on campus", or just expresses an opinion regarded as unintelligent or inarticulate, you will get jumped on, insulted and abused.

I have seen all manner of newbies be bullied like this until they have slunk off, hurt and embarrassed. Yes, there are places on the internet for childish behaviour, there are - and should be - places where James, poster above, can feel at home and throw whatever insults at friends he wants. But to bring that destructive behaviour into websites where people are trying to gain and share information, where people are looking for advice, is childish and hiding behind an anonymous ID is the act of a bully and the online community ought not to stand for it.

The point made in this article that angry exchanges made in blogs and online fora constitute bullying is erroneous. These are, after all, debates and exchanges of views and opinions. Though admittedly some people can go too far, I don't see how it is possible to bully someone about whom you know absolutely nothing other than their pseudonym. You can disagree with them, you can even get quite offensive, but more often than not your insults will be well wide of the mark.

"2. At 09:59am on 16 Nov 2009, James wrote:

1st I think when kids say they have witnessed 'bullying' most of those are probably having words put into their mouths by an odler generation who lets face, has no idea how the internet works.

Im not denying bullying can happen but to most people who use the internet, normal communications can be labelled as destructive. I constantly call my friend all manner of insults and whole groups of people I play onlinme games with do the same to each other.

Most of my generation no longer cares for words, they're just gimmicks used to get a point across.

Sounds like this reporter got trolled and was upset over it. /rickroll"

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Perhaps your generation should start caring for words and how they are used. Trolling should not be acceptable anywhere but in many areas of the internet it is considered the norm.

Conversation online can, just as in normal life, take place without resorting to insults and profanities. There simply is no need for a conversation to devolve into an insult slinging match.

I am only 32 but I am often dismayed that people who use the internet seem to think that just because they are sat in anonymity that they can get away with saying whatever they like.

And I firmly believe that the internet has done society no favours when it comes to respect for others and simple basic language skills.

Whether or not some of the instances can be classed as bullying is another matter but I do believe that the charity in Rory's article is right to highlight the level of, what is frankly anti-social behaviour, on the internet.

But however the parents of the children need to start taking responsibility and teach their children how to behave in a proper reasonable society, sadly those parents themselves don't know how to, or simply cannot be "bovvered".

@ Anon - I enjoyed your message, Frank James Gunn ;-)

This comment was removed because the moderators found it broke the house rules. Explain.

Cyber-bullying is not simply a few insulting words over msn. If that were the case, I think I would be defined as a victim of cyber-bullying! There are people in life who we won't get on with and will give the odd insult, but stuff like that you just deal with or throw an insult back at them.

I would define bullying as being persistent and derogatory to a very high degree. Victims do not get an opportunity to forget, because it's constantly there. Setting up a hate website or sending dozens of insulting e-mails constitutes bullying in my view.

1) About grownups

Someone in the public eye might set themselves up for public criticism, but that does not mean that they set themself up for public (or private) abuse.

Whilst I might disagree with your actions or point of view, free speech means I have the right to challenge your ideas and actions, I might even express some astonishment that a rational intelligent individual could hold such absurd views, but it does not give me leave to suggest that an prolonged and agonising death should result, as demonstrated by the quotes in Rory's article.

2) About Children.

Unfettered free speech, like sex, drugs, cars and a whole lot of other adult activities, is not something to which we should expose our children. We all know how cruel chldren can be with their comments and whereas the victims of such bullying previously could escape from their tormentors once they have left the school premises and got to the safety of their homes, now these comments can reach them 24 hrs a day and children can be relentless.

(I'm assuming, by the way, that all those who make comments that dispute this research can quote the alternative research to back their point of view? Uninformed opinion is, as we all know, utterly worthless!)

I remember in my school days finding a rather regrettable pun in a fellow pupils name, repeated the joke time every time I saw him until I got bored and forgot. Only looking back do I realise how tiresome this must have been for him but it was stupidity rather than malice that drove me on: I just didn't think!

A recent quote I saw, and forgive me for not remembering the source, is "never attribute to malice that which can be attributed to stupidity."

I am sure that most people, adults and children, do not imagine that their words could cause such pain and I understand that research has shown (mentioned on 成人论坛 breakfast this week) that once you make bullies aware of the pain they are causing they frequently modify their behaviour.

Nevertheless, as I see it, the thrust of Rory's argument is that we, as responsible adults, should maybe be setting a better example for our younger generations to follow.

If people hiding behind their anonymity were shining a light on injustice and wrong doing then no-one would object, but to use one's anonymity to allow one to just be plain nasty is, in my view, an act of cowardice.

If you wouldn't say it to their face.......

I agree with the majority of posters here - most of what Rory is describing is not bullying at all, just exaggerated, uncensored versions of what has appeared in the letters pages in daily newspapers for decades. Rory mentions respect, but few people are respected when they launch into vitriolic attacks - after all, we all know the saying that arguing on the internet is a bit like taking part in a certain sporting event that is not quite the Olympics. The only way to gain respect in that sense is if your target is a deserved recipient, which doesn't fit in with the idea of bullying.

The internet levels the playing field for people; it makes it easier to get into a war of words, but it's also easier to stick up for yourself than in the real world, so it plays both ways. Also, you have to get some perspective on the whole thing - the level of abstraction provided by the lack of face-to-face interaction means you take things with a pinch of salt, because you know they wouldn't be quite so abrupt in real life situations. If you're unable to do this, then just stay away from those internet forums, or even just re-register under a different name.

What next - barring people from phoning companies up with complaints because the harshly-worded grievances make the call centre staff feel "bullied"?

Cyberbullying is poorly defined; it should mean bullying using technology, but it doesnt. It simply means anything unkind said using technology.

Bullying is systematic and habitual. So bullying over the internet could be:

A sends a nasty facebook message to X
B chimes in, commenting how right the message is about X.
C adds another message, saying something else unkind about X.

etc. Then it might happen again a few days later. These situations do happen, I've seen it happen, and it should be tackled just as forcefully as any other bullying. But by contrast, cyberbullying, according to your article, could be:

A sends a nasty facebook message to B.
B gets annoyed, and sends a nasty message back to A.

Then A and B would report in your survey that they had been victims of cyperbullying; that unkind messages had been sent to them over the internet. I think we should not confuse the two issues. The second is just as undesirable as the first, but it does not constitute bullying.

#10 I remember in my school days finding a rather regrettable pun in a fellow pupils name, repeated the joke time every time I saw him until I got bored and forgot. Only looking back do I realise how tiresome this must have been for him but it was stupidity rather than malice that drove me on: I just didn't think!

Is this bullying? The person in question could have chosen to see the funny side; they could chosen to think you were a moron; or they could have chosen to go home and cry themselves to sleep every night. Whether or not this constituted as bullying very much depends on the recipient's reaction, which is what makes bullying a lot more complicated than what is often suggested.

Being short, chubby and bespectacled at school, I was a ripe target for a concerted bullying campaign; but it never happened, because I didn't make myself out to be a victim. This is why efforts to stop bullying have to take into account the fact that many people become victims because they act like victims, and thus, for want of a better phrase, "ask for it". What's better for the victim: getting bullies to stop because they're told to, or getting them to stop because the victim has been shown how to stand up for themselves, thus gaining respect?

There may be some valid points in there, but it's really hard to assess them as the examples were poorly chosen.

I'm not sure that "The rest of Parliament should be shot, not hung" constitutes anything even remotely resembling bullying behaviour. It's simply expressing a point of view that is quite widespread these days, especially among people who post on political blogs. I doubt that anyone reading it is likely to be even remotely offended (granted, if an MP were reading it, they might be a little offended, but I seriously doubt that many MPs read political blogs).

Oh, and as for "But, as we shake our heads and ask ourselves how it came to this", what do you mean exactly? How it came to 60% of kids saying they've witnessed online bulling? Personally, when I read that, I shook my head and asked myself how it came to this, that such ludicrously meaningless statistics could be presented so uncritically on the 成人论坛, who really ought to know better.

Talk about making a fuss where there isn't one to be made- sit down and think about this for a moment Rory- how many victims online are also not using their real name?

What name people use online is irrelevant because even if they use a real sounding name it might not be their real name regardless.

It's not anonymity that makes people say things they wouldn't otherwise, it's the fact they're physically distanced from the person they speak to. Real name or not doesn't matter, pseudonyms online stem back from the call signs of the CB radio days and that sort of thing, they certainly don't exist for the purpose of bullying.

But now there's a bigger problem arising in the US, we're seeing courts rule that the identity of anonymous people online should be unmasked for making criticisms of others even when the others are political figures and the criticisms are perfectly fair and justified. We're seeing a situation where people are being sued for trying to out the truth about people who truly are corrupt or dangerous. Effectively, the courts are being used to stifle political dissent.

The right to anonymity is far more important than any unsupported perceived view that it's used for bullying. Ultimately, bullying attacks are small fry compared to the reasons people would seek to unmask the anonymous.

Post #15 - well said. I entirely agree.

I'm disappointed but not at all surprised by the comments to this post.

I emigrated here 12 years ago and find bullying culturally endemic at all levels and in all corners of life - from the school playground to commuters on the bus and everything in between. It's shocking. Part of the culture also seems to be not getting involved, or to encourage the victim to stay quiet about it in order to keep the peace.

Many of the comments discount the ascertion bullying is common yet whenever I talk to friends and colleagues about their school days bullying often gets mentioned.

At a recent job I experienced bullying and when I brought it up to HR their view was my interpretation of being yelled at and humiliated repeatedly by a colleague was just wrong. It was a robust team with people who had forthright views of how to do things. Not bullying, of course.

Then I started to do some research, and found generally the victim of workplace bullying ended up leaving the employer rather than the employer acting on the complaint.

So sadly, it offers little surprise that calling bullying bullying elicits many comments downplaying bullying - I think the culture is still badly in denial about this issue.

I think the three quotes you've posted here don't highlight bullying at all. I just think they show people who are dramatically critical, using ridiculous language.

Please don't mix up the issues of electronic bullying with the issues of anonymous idiots making ridiculous statements, as you only serve to trivialise the real problems.

@#13

"I remember in my school days finding a rather regrettable pun in a fellow pupils name, repeated the joke time every time I saw him until I got bored and forgot. Only looking back do I realise how tiresome this must have been for him but it was stupidity rather than malice that drove me on: I just didn't think!

Is this bullying?"

You are right, I don't know if it constituted bullying, I certainly didn't intend it as such, but I also don't know whether or not he found it funny or went home and cried himself to sleep. My point, not very well made, is that I didn't think about the consequences of my actions in regard to this individual, as most children, and to be honest quite a few adults, probably don't either.

A generation that "no longer cares about words" or the power of words is a generation, which if true, has lost something of immeasurable value.

"He should be hung drawn and quartered, as slowly as is possible to maximise his suffering."

"This EVIL person deserves no pity. He is accomplished in one thing only. Utter Cowardice."

"The rest of Parliament should be shot, not hung."
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The first two are taken out of context so we don't even know who, or what, they're referring to.
The last is largely becoming popular opinion following things like bank bail-outs and expenses scandals. Sorry but that's not rude, nor is it bullying. They only have themselves to blame on that one.

Online bullying is an over-stated problem, mostly because the solutions put in place by the companies expected to "police" this are simply ignored by the so-called "victims". It's usually pretty straight forward to have other users banned for certain types of offensive comments (especially anything which could be considered homophobia or racism). There are, of course, exceptions - individual websites have their own rules. But guess what? You can just stay away from them.

This is a terrible, badly put together blog and the examples of bullying used do not stand up to scrutiny. Oh dear, am I now a cyber bully?

Don't you know that society has been decaying since the ancient Greeks at the hands of youthful immorality and deteriorating levels of intelligence? Hark at the not-my-generation generations who followed them...

There are two issues here - one is the rather horrific content of Have Your Say, and the other is proper cyber bullying which is a sustained attack on one individual.

Ignoring the first, however, you are right to say this goes beyond the realms of kids and includes adults too.

In our online game Wurm Online, the moderators have had to deal with a lot incidences of harassment of one player by another - both in game and in the forums, often even by private message. The bullies are frequently people in their 20s, 30s, 40s even who seem to get their kicks from making peoples lives as miserable as possible. This is not the result of in game wars or anything like that, just one person deciding to make life hell for another.

I have had this myself. On an old, now abandoned, blog I criticised those who were against the smoking ban. Within hours I had personal attacks from people - not questioning me on what I wrote, but threatening me, insulting what they thought I might look like, saying they knew where I lived and they would "come and get me" and so on.

I suspect many other people have suffered the same sort of thing. One comment said, well, its your fault for writing a blog. But that is wrong; it is the bullies fault for being plain nasty for no real reason.

Bullying amongst adults has been common in the work place for years, so it is no surprise that it is becoming common on the internet. Indeed, the internet allows for people who would be too cowardly otherwise to bully others. Anyone who works in online games or other communities knows the true scale of the problem, but also knows how little sympathy there can be from the community as a whole for those who have been victims.

And that is another hang over from real life, and something I remember from my school days of many years ago. It is common for victims to feel that every one else believes it is their fault they are being bullied.

For some reason, no one ever seems to blame the person who actually does the bullying!


PS: One other thing to note, the growth of bullying on the internet which has been there since it was very much the domain of the tech demonstrates how middle class bullying often is.

Why don't "cyber-bullies" use their real names? Do we really need an answer to the question? Bullies, cyber or otherwise, are cowards. Plain and simple. People talk really tough when there is no chance of meeting their victims.

Take the beeb's own Jonathan Ross. He can be as nasty as you like when he is making jokes at celebrities' expense, yet is the most sycophantic, smarmy, fawning licky-toad when they are on his show. (Sorry Jonathan, if I just bullied you!). Is he a bully or a talent?

I agree with no. 24, people think they are anonymous and therefore "safe" from retaliation.

It's rudeness, though, and we still remember those online names (false or not) and remember their rudeness and vileness.

And they do harm to other's feelings--how proud they must feel (the bullies/cowards).

The problem is that the internet gives you annonyimity, with that comes the protection of being able to say exactly what you think or even say things you don't really mean. The problem is that the people you are attacking don't always see that side of it, they just see the agressive or abusive comment.
There is also a lack of ability to use tone of voice in a written statement, given the poor level of english most people in Britian have (me included) you can often seem to say things you wern't intending.
It's far too easy to be abusive to people online, look at the sometimes quite obscene comments in forums and on online games. I've no doubt that most of the people making such comments arn't particularly nasty people.

There is of course a massive difference when it comes to bullying. Specifically targeting someone you know is disgusting and shows a huge amount of cowardice.

The problem is that it has almost no repercussions, so the level of the abuse gets much worse. You can't see the effect it's having on the person you are targeting either, sometimes even bullies draw the line somewhere when it's face to face (although its usually not drawn soon enough). The bully may not even realise the effect its having on the person, they might just se it as some friendly teasing, but if they arn't looking the person in the eye when doing it then they won't realise they've gone to far.

Its good that it's being discussed, maybe some of the people considering doing it will think twice.

It's very hard to respect anyone who abuses or insults someone from being the mask of online annonimity. If your going to attack someone at least have the courage to do it openly.

This article raises some key issues that lye at the heart of any discussion of human rights.

I was present at Mr Cellan Jones's recent lecture to Cardiff University on his role in the 成人论坛 and what he sees as the future for online communication and journalism.

Bringing these two streams together it is essential that human rights not be forgotten in the new media age and part of that is knowing the difference between fair comment, slander and abuse.

Dispraging the policies of a public figure within a strucutred argument- fine- attacking them personally and for no better reason than self gratification-not fine. It goes against the root of our democracy, every man woman and child is a human and an individual and in that capacity they should not have to suffer unustified abuse in any form. If you attack a public figure personally then you have over stepped that line.

This becomes even more important when those who make these comments cannot be held to account and hide behind a screen of annonymity.

The power of bloggs have potential for such postive power, as in my recent article at www.brendanperring.wordpress.com. They also have the power for real destruction.

My post also relates back to the earlier blog about Modern Warfare 2. I have to say that some of the worst 'bullying' I've encountered is on the online multiplayer where some players with headsets seem to get immense enjoyment from terrorising other players. Sometimes they can get very abusive and offensive, and can gang up on a particular player often simply because he or she simply had a bad game. I must also say that the worst offenders of this tend to be kids, particularly pre-pubescent American kids, who somehow think it's big and clever to use bad language, like the rest of us will be impressed by their obnoxiousness and arrogance. There seems to be little way of regulating this, and clearly not everyone is as thick-skinned as I am - I have occasionally known people get genuinely upset. More often than not it just ends up with simply turning off the VOIP volume so I don't have to listen to them, but this clearly solves nothing.

A lot of the problem (as well as the beauty) with the internet is that it gives everybody an absolutely equal platform from which to speak.

In 'real life' an individual would usually conduct a discussion, debate or even argument with somebody from their own social circle, who are likely to be from a similar social and educational background. I don't have research to back this up and maybe I'm miles wide of the mark, but people of similar intelligences (horribly difficult to define and defend I know...) do tend to group together.

On the internet you find yourself up against people from all over the world, with a huge range of views and varying levels of social and linguistic eloquence with which to put them across...

You hardly need to say something radical or controversial in certain areas of the internet to have some seriously base abuse flung in you direction - 5 minutes scanning practically any comments on youtube will prove ample evidence of that.

But, and as many people here have pointed out, it doesn't constitute bullying. Bullying is targetted and repetetive - its aim is to leave the victim perpetually feeling belittled or afraid.

If someone was to see this post and fling mindless, expletive ridden abuse at me (aside from not making it past 成人论坛 moderation) I'd hardly feel that person was in some way superior to me, and I certainly wouldn't be scared.

If the person was to trace me across all the websites on which I post (not that i'm particularly prolific), and attack all my comments everywhere with the same vitriolic abuse it would become a major inconvenience - but again I'd certainly get over it.

If the person combined the abuse with genuine knowledge of who I was, where I lived - anything about me in fact which I hadn't personally elected to make public knowledge - then I might well start to feel afraid. If he combined it further by exploiting something about my appearance or personality or lifestyle which resonated with any insecurities I have I may well start to feel belittled.

At THAT point, in my opinion, that person would be bullying me.

I suspect (though ahain I don't have evidence) that the majority of people are bullied by somebody who knows them - 'cyberbullying' may well occur on social networking sites where people go by their real names and post photos of themselves, but there you're putting the tools out there for them to do it, and your bully is likely to be clearly displaying their identity too...

To that end I personally think the anonymity allowed by the internet protects victims of bullying just as much as bullys themeseves.

Longwinded I know, and as always I'm not sure if I really put any point across, but that's my take.

Also, did anyone else sense a bit of a sore patch with regards the massive amount of comments to a recent post on this very blog about 'which computer operating system is the best'?

I fail to see the point of this blog, particularly the last paragraph.
If the bullying is not anonymous does that make a difference? Of course not. Anonymity makes no difference whatsoever.

Surely the blog should have been about online bullying, fullstop.

"Viral Marketing" is hydra-headed.

How naive to assume anonymous bullies on the internet are just off-center individuals.

There are companies out there that spider, glean, categorize, assemble and chart message board entries across the internet. The reports are then packaged and sold to corporations that can afford to discover what's being said about them online.

You assume that no vested interest would deploy such anonymous postings as damage control, to create an altered perception of popular opinion.

What better way to silence dissent than to make the mildest demurrer an invitation to be assaulted online, as viciously and brutally as possible?

Who wants to step into such a mudfest? Not many.

The result is a display on message boards of an altered reality--one carefully and diligently engineered by special interests. A handful of posters can overwhelm any normal board.

Check out message board postings on any aspect of tobacco policy.

The vituperative and unpleasant nature of so many posts is what deters me from making contributions to forums very often; I'm looking to debate, share ideas or simply discuss things, not be involved in a slanging match. Unfortunately an awful lot of posters in any manner of forums from literature sites, the Guardian, the TES, ZDnet... and on, regard intelligent engagement or good manners as old fashioned. Personally I don't see it as bullying, just as an unpleasantness I'm not willing to engage in, and so I go and procrastinate elsewhere.