You encountered a cyberbully on the internet. What do you do?

[FredTheFeraligatr]

I'm not entirely sure why anyone would be that offended that much over the internet.

 

[Rogue planet]

I am the cyberbully.

But esentially yes if you're getting emo over people chatting **** online you just need to learn to stop being so sensitive. If it's an extension of bullying in school, then I can understand; but if it's exclusively online then just deal with it.

 

[2Cool4Mewtwo]

I've never been cyberbullied, but on a site like PC, I'd just ignore those cyberbullying messages, and if I get spammed for it, contact the moderator. Job done.

If I get constantly "cyberbullied" at site like facebook, though, I'd troll them back. I've never been insulted over the internet and I never will be.

 

[Saryka]

I'm not entirely sure why anyone would be that offended that much over the internet.

Words can be very powerful. Do you know how many kids and teens have committed suicide in part to cyber-bullying and the hate they faced online?

And I would like to think there is a rather discernible difference between being annoyed or trolled online and being seriously bullied.

 

[Thrash]

Due to anonymity on the internet, anyone can have the cojones to say whatever want to whomever they want, whether good or bad. Wherever you go, there are always going to be people who dislike you for some reason or another, and this is pretty much magnified on the internet because we can all hide behind aliases and computer monitors and speak our mind. So, some kid on the internet calls you an ugly friendless loser? Man up and ignore him, don't go crying to mommy for reassurance in yourself. People, by nature, can be very vicious beings. And sometimes it's hard to just turn the other cheek and go about your business, but that's what you've got to do. It's not that serious.

 

[Oryx]

I find the "man up you shouldn't be hurt by it" mentality pretty intolerant of other peoples' mindsets. Sure, there are plenty of people that get upset when it's not really something to get upset over, but at the same time there are plenty of people that maybe have a really crappy home life, no friends, and can really be themselves on the internet, and then are tortured by people online. It would follow that it would be alright to tell kids who are depressed that they shouldn't have a reason to be depressed because they have X, Y, and Z in their lives, when obviously it's not what they have but their own messed up head. And then there are people that get too worked up but the solution for that isn't to tell them "you're too sensitive so I'm going to keep being a jerk to you until you learn to man up", it's to treat their own mindset with tolerance and try to be a good person that can help them. In general online people can be much more cruel than people in real life because it takes a certain kind of terrible person to look a person you're hurting in the eyes as you're doing it, but it's rather easy to just shoot off nasty messages to someone online and not worry about it at all.

For me personally, if it's somewhere I don't care about I would leave that website/game, and if it's something I do care about, I would just silently report it to a staff member and leave it at that. The only time a person online bothers me with that kind of thing is if I actually cared about them as a person in the first place, lol. I never put people on ignore or anything though, just because I can't stand thinking that I don't know what they're saying. I like knowing things.

 

[Alex]

Pretty much, they're pathetic because they have nothing better to do than to hurt someone over the Internet. But that's for random encounters on Omegle, for example. If you let that stuff get to you, you're way too sensitive.

Although there is another side of it. Some people do make very good friends and form cliques on forums. I've done it on PC myself. There can very much be cyberbulling between friends, just like there can be bullying in real life. Drama and all that. We're young and impressionable at that age. Everything gets to you.

But as for me, I don't care for cyberbullying. I would never take someone's words seriously, especially since they're over the Internet. They don't know me at all.

 

[Nick]

Pretty much, they're pathetic because they have nothing better to do than to hurt someone over the Internet. But that's for random encounters on Omegle, for example. If you let that stuff get to you, you're way too sensitive.

This, though if you're being cyberbullied by people you know or through sites like Twitter and Facebook, things are a bit different for me. Bullying is never something that I really pass over, and I think people who take the time to cyberbully - especially people they don't know - need to take a serious look at their lives, because they're the ones with the problems.

 

[Rogue planet]

I find the "man up you shouldn't be hurt by it" mentality pretty intolerant of other peoples' mindsets. Sure, there are plenty of people that get upset when it's not really something to get upset over, but at the same time there are plenty of people that maybe have a really crappy home life, no friends, and can really be themselves on the internet, and then are tortured by people online.

I matched this criteria and I still think people just need to learn to deal with it. Sure if they have a lot of other **** going on then it can add to the pile of crap going on in their life. But I feel a lot of people just complain over nothing, they act like their life is hard as **** because they get bullied online, when it really is nothing. I was extensively physically bullied irl and I had to learn to deal with it, so people who complain about "nasty words on the internet" just seem cheap to me.

I'm not trying to justify people who bully online, they are still horrible. But when it comes to the internet there are so many ways to prevent it, you can block them and just immediately cut them out of their life. People who get bullied in real life don't have that to fall back on, they have no way to get rid of it; bullying online is nothing in comparison.

It's not about "manning up", I can understand sensitivity, but sometimes people are just TOO sensitive. There needs to be a point where you can no longer use the excuse "I'm sensitive so it hurts more". Honestly, cry me a river, just learn to realise some things are not as harmful as you think they are.

 

[Oryx]

I match this criteria and I still think people just need to learn to deal with it. Sure if they have a lot of other **** going on then it can add to the pile of crap going on in their life. But I feel a lot of people just complain over nothing, they act like their life is hard as **** because they get bullied online, when it really is nothing. I was extensively physically bullied irl and I had to learn to deal with it, so people who complain about "nasty words on the internet" just seem cheap to me.

I'm not trying to justify people who bully online, they are still horrible. But when it comes to the internet there are so many ways to prevent it, you can block them and just immediately cut them out of their life. People who get bullied in real life don't have that to fall back on, they have no way to get rid of it; bullying online is nothing in comparison.

It's not about "manning up", I can understand sensitivity, but sometimes people are just TOO sensitive. There needs to be a point where you can no longer use the excuse "I'm sensitive so it hurts more". Honestly, cry me a river, just learn to realise some things are not as harmful as you think they are.

My reply was a mixture of replying to you Thrash, who did use the term 'man up', lol. So that wasn't directly pointed at you.

I think of people that react to bullying online as similar to people who become depressed in real life. Someone who's rich and has loving parents and a happy home and a normal life (I guess in this day and age that might be abnormal but besides the point) can still be depressed, and to tell them they have no right because of how lucky they are isn't going to change their depression in the least, and possibly make it worse. While I do think there are things online that people get too worked up over, I still don't think that's an excuse to ignore their pain and tell them to just stop it pretty much. Coming from someone who tends towards the sensitive irl (not online so much though haha), it's not something that one can really control without loads of effort for an extended period of time. While someone can control their reactions, they can't so much control their feelings on the matter except to bottle them up inside themselves, which seems like what you're encouraging.

On another note, saying one is worse than the other means nothing in this argument. Someone's family member probably died while you were reading this post; that doesn't mean that if your best friend has cancer you need to get over it because it's nothing in comparison to that. If you live in a 1st world nation, you probably have it better than hundreds of millions of other people at least. That doesn't mean that your problems can be wiped away because someone out there has it worse. Parental abuse is worse than most school bullying, should people who are bullied in school just become less sensitive because it's nothing compared to children who have abusive parents?

 

[Rogue planet]

I understand where you are coming from, and I agree to an extent. I see it a lot "oh you're a white middle class male who has loving parents so you have no right to be sad" < that is ********, I agree.

But I guess what I'm trying to say is, when it comes to the internet it is actually manageable. Venturing upon the internet is a choice; you choose who you talk to, what websites you go on, and there are always measures to take against bullying etc. you can easily just stop going to abusive websites. It is a totally manageable and preventable, and I feel a lot of people act like it's worse than what it actually is just for sympathy. If you look at people who have killed themselves over "cyberbullying" it's actually people from their school who are bullying them, so it is in fact an extenstion of irl bullying. The media has gone insane over cyberbullying, blowing it out of proportion.

For example say, you suddenly got bullied on PC. I mean seriously bullied, not a random noob saying "lol ur dumb" you would either ditch the site entirely or report them, and if it was serious they would almost certainly get banned. If you were getting bullied so badly that you considered suicide what would be your first course of action? Leaving PC or just going straight for it and hanging yourself?

 

[The Void]

Bully: @!#@#@@!@!#***@
Me: You're trolling, right? o.O

^^ Pretty much that, lol. Either that, or I ignore them or report them to a staff. If I'm the staff, then I'll give him a punishment depending on how grave his bullying was.

 

[Gothitelle.]

I get hated on over the internet for many reasons. I just ignore them since they are just words on a screen to me.

 

[Souma]

Accusing of Fail Trolling? No, that's too weak.
Reporting it? Pffff, I'm no crybaby.
Ignore? Nah, too old school.

What do I do? Mock them. Troll them back, we could say. Twist their sentences around, and send back insults they throw at me, without ever insulting him. Show them how much little sense they do. And so on. It's really fun, especially if there's people watching. I must say, those who I did that to really don't know when to give up!

Just like when me and a few other people decided to say "Ew" whenever a particular person said the F word.

 

[Oryx]

I understand where you are coming from, and I agree to an extent. I see it a lot "oh you're a white middle class male who has loving parents so you have no right to be sad" < that is ********, I agree.

But I guess what I'm trying to say is, when it comes to the internet it is actually manageable. Venturing upon the internet is a choice; you choose who you talk to, what websites you go on, and there are always measures to take against bullying etc. you can easily just stop going to abusive websites. It is a totally manageable and preventable, and I feel a lot of people act like it's worse than what it actually is just for sympathy. If you look at people who have killed themselves over "cyberbullying" it's actually people from their school who are bullying them, so it is in fact an extenstion of irl bullying. The media has gone insane over cyberbullying, blowing it out of proportion.

For example say, you suddenly got bullied on PC. I mean seriously bullied, not a random noob saying "lol ur dumb" you would either ditch the site entirely or report them, and if it was serious they would almost certainly get banned. If you were getting bullied so badly that you considered suicide what would be your first course of action? Leaving PC or just going straight for it and hanging yourself?

I think we're thinking of two different types of things, because now that I think about I wouldn't consider getting harassed on one site bullying honestly. Kind of like how if you have 5 identical grocery stores that you can go to and you choose to go to one where there are people there that harass you, it would be silly as well. But I think of bullying more like, if someone harasses you on PC, then finds your Facebook and harasses you there, and then adds your friends to get close to you, etc. That kind of thing.

I think you're definitely right about the media and cyberbullying though. From what I've heard on the news and such (I could be wrong though), the people that do commit suicide usually have a combination of online and irl bullying, and the online bullying is from people that they know at school. Not every insult online is cyberbullying for sure.

 

[Esper]

My understanding is also that cyber bullying is mostly an extension of real life bullying. For the most part people who get harassed should just skip on those sites where it happens. Learning to walk away is the first, best thing you can do when you're bullied. I think most everyone knows that (and if not, well, we gotta make sure they do) so the advice of "ignore them" works fine. It's when you have people bullying you on your facebook or whatever it is that you use as part of your real life where people have a reason to be sensitive.

Having a facebook page (or similar) is kind of everyone's right in the same way that we all have the right to walk in public without being harassed. I mean, I don't have one and can't speak from experience, but it's the kind of thing that's almost necessary to have for a lot of people. I don't mean that in an unhealthy, you're-addicted-to-facebook way. Some people just don't/won't/can't communicate in other ways.

 

[Elite Overlord LeSabre™]

I definitely had a major cyberbullying incident on another forum. One started attacking me out of the blue, launching a litany of insults and threats, and then incited two friends to join in and gang up on me. The major issue with this was that one of the "friends" was (and AFAIK is still) a staff member on said forum, so reporting them would have done no good. I contemplated doing some pretty nasty stuff (both to them and to myself) before taking a temporary leave of the forum. I came back a couple months later, completed some unfinished business, then quietly left the forum for good.

In retrospect, i probably should have reported it to someone... I have little doubt that trio has found more victims to bully since I've left said forum.

 

[Yoshikko]

I never really met a cyberbully except Luke, and it was only irl for me and fortunately never extended to online. If someone is just being a tool or fooling around with you, it's nothing to get upset over especially if you don't know those people. Ganging up and cliques is a different thing though. I don't really have a lot to say cause I always find these topics a little hard, but yea.

 

[Overlord Drakow]

I've been trolled on the internet but nothing really that extreme, so I wouldn't call it cyber bullying. I used to troll back when I was younger but nowadays I just ignore it. Too much effort.

 

[Imaginaerυm]

Cyberbullies? Yeah, I've had some problems with some members of this forum who even became mods (for their awesome acting skills, I suppose).

I just ignored them, and I believe that was my best option back then. It's the best thing to do, really.