About
Cyberbullying is the act of using the internet, social media and related technologies to intentionally harm or harass people in a deliberate, repeated, and hostile manner by an individual or group. As cyberbullying became a more common issue in society, and more people falling victim to it, legislation and awareness campaigns have arisen to combat it.
Origin
According to the Australian National Center Against Bullying (NCAB), the term was first coined[2] by Canadian Politician and the President of the Canadian anti-bullying website, bullying.org, Bill Belsey.[1] Although it’s unknown when exactly Belsey coined the term, the earliest reference to it is shown through Belsey’s website cyberbullying.ca,[3] which he launched on March 3rd, 2003.
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Related Events
CyberBu//y
Cyberbully, stylized as “Cyberbu//y”, is an ABC Family movie which premiered on ABC on July 17th, 2011. It was marketed as part of a campaign against cyberbullying to “delete digital drama”. The film tells the story of a teenage girl who is bullied online on the fictional social site “Cliquester”, eventually leading up to her attempting suicide.
The film quickly became a target for jokes on websites such as 4chan and Tumblr. Specific scenes in the film also grew to become memes on their own. The most notable of these being “Ur a liar lindsay”, a melodramatic close up of a computer screen which became the target of a large quantity of photoshopped versions (shown below, left); and “I can’t get the cap off”, a phrase originating from an overdramatized scene in which the movie’s protagonist, Taylor, fails to open a child-proof bottle as she attempts to commit suicide (shown below, right).
Rehtaeh Parsons’ Death
Rehtaeh Parsons was a Canadian teenager who committed suicide in April 2013 as a result of the events following the distribution of an X-rated viral photo. Her death was covered by countless media outlets and a Facebook memorial page managed to gain nearly 30,000 likes within four days. The four suspects who allegedly gang raped Parsons and took the photo were however not prosecuted due to a lack of evidence. This later lead to Anonymous launching the operation #OpJustice4Rehtaeh, calling for the Canadian law enforcement officials to resume the investigation while threatening to publicly release the names of the alleged assailants if no further actions were taken.
Amanda Cummings’ Death
Amanda Cummings was a teenager who was reported dead after throwing herself in front of a city bus in December of 2011. After the report of her death, the Facebook memorial page for Cummings, “R.I.P. Amanda Cummings”, was vandalized with organised offensive comments on the wall (shown below, left), which lead to news media coverage, anti-cyberbullying petetions (shown below, right), and the sponsoring of a bill by Senator Jeffrey D. Klein that would create harsher penalties for cyberbullies.
Amanda Todd’s Death
Amanda Todd was a Canadian teenager who was reported dead in October of 2012. A month prior to her suicide, Todd uploaded a video to Youtube in which she revealed the long string of online and offline harassment she had to go through. The video and the suicide made her death a subject of many conversations online about the issue of cyberbullying. However, the coverage of Todd’s suicide also brought forth controversy regarding various other victims of cyberbullying who went by unnoticed when they commited suicide, claiming the large coverage and mourning of Todd’s suicide was undeserved (shown below).
