Cyberbullying: Tips to Protect Yourself Online

The internet is a scary and vast place, and it can sometimes feel like threats are distant hunched-over, beer-bellied men from living in their mother's basements trying to deflate your ego or steal your money and data. However, oftentimes the mental health threat comes from those close to us on our very own social media platforms. So what can we do to protect ourselves from the modern reality of cyberbullying?

Regulate your online presence

The number one tip is to control what you post online. If you don't give your "enemies" or "frenemies" or even randos many photos or details of your lifestyle or personality, they have little to warp and make you feel bad about. For example, risky posts include videos or photos of you and your friends at a party (especially using substances), talking about controversial political or social topics, or wearing provocative clothing. Cyberbullies may use this type of content to blackmail you by threatening to send it to an institution or adults in your personal and professional life; target insecurities (see section 2); or even insult your intelligence, gender, ethnicity, generaiton, etc. The more ammo you provide, the higher a chance that cyberbullies will target you to make themselves feel better, by making you feel worse.

Another way to prevent unwanted commentors or viewers on your posts is to make your accounts private. By doing so, the only way people can see your posts is if you allow them to follow you. Of course, there is always the possibility that someone who has permission to view your profile could screen capture your content and share it without your permission, but by privatizing your accounts, you can mitigate majority of the threat to your online presence.

2. Be self-confident

Secondly, negative comments (especially those from strangers) cannot hurt you if you don't let it. Sounds simple in writing, huh? But, really by being self-confident and secure in your abilitiies, appearance, personality, etc., you protect yourself from being hurt by an insecure bully's comments by adding no weight to these comments. Bullying (at least verbal/online/emotional types) only hurt as much as you let it.

You might be thinking, "Siena that sounds all well and good, but how do you actually make that happen?" We have a lot of blogs on different aspects of confidence: physical, athletic, academic, testing, and even on other bullying scopes. So, I won't waste too much of your time on this topic. But a basic key to self-confidence is relying on internal factors to track growth and success. It's very difficult to consider yourself as someone smart, capable, and kind if your only markers for success in these areas are external, like grades or college acceptances and others' opinions of you or your actions. However, when you internally recognize your capacity to perform a certain task or exhibit a specifc characteristic, your self-perception will not waver with a cyberbully's destructive comments.

The benefits of this internal-success-based mindset extends beyond fighting against bullying, too. Psychology studies have shown that individuals who join activities or set goals for themselves based on internal motivations (such as improving at a skill or feelings of fulfillment) are 20% more likely [2] to complete or stay in said program than those in the same activities or with the same goals with external-motivatiors (such as expanding a resume or making money).

3. Have a zero-tolerance policy

The last piece of advice comes with actually encountering cyberbullying or cyber-threats of any kind: report, report, report. The only way to stop cyberbullies and scammers across the world is for everyone to do their part. Even though you may not sure that a comment or message qualifies as cyberbullying and you don't want to "ruin" someone else's life by reporting them online, it's better to be safe than sorry. If an individual seems to have gone out of their way to make you feel bad online, it's worth reporting as it most likely qualifies as a form of cyberbullying. Getting a dangerous user off of a platform protects your friends, family, and strangers from being attacked by the same individual(s) in the future.

There are many ways to report cyberbullying online, and it mostly depends on the platform. However, there are a few principles you can keep in mind if you unfortunately encounter bullying when online:

Take screenshots. If suspicious, many cyberbullies may delete their comments or messages, but by taking a screenshot you ensure that you always have a copy and evidence of their bullying.
Do not engage. It is very risky to engage with cyberbullies and it almost never ends well. If you fight or insult them back or instigate the attacker in any way, you may lose leverage to try and restrict their access to hurt more people.

It's similar to if someone hit or assaulted you; if you fight back it might not always be taken as "self-defense" and could ruin your fight whether in court, a settlement, or a confrontation.

Report as soon as possible. Many online platforms, like Instagram, Facebook, Youtube, Snapchat, and Discord, have direct hotlines or options to report an individual or a message just a few clicks away. A few examples of these courses of action are shown below. Additionally, if you wait too long (especially if you did not follow step 1), immediately accessible evidence of a comment, message, or user may be deleted and unviewable on your end, restricting what professionals at a given social media platform can do to help you.

Many platforms want users to feel comfortable reporting bullies, inappropriate acconts, and illegal activity on their sites because it keeps the community safe and self-regulates (as opposed to a small monitoring team or online bots) their media. So, never hesitate to protect yourselves and others!