One of the final presentations that I identified with was
the presentation done on cyber bullying.
As a young female who uses the
Internet, I am familiar with cyber bullying. I used to broadcast myself in
video chat rooms such as Tinychat on
a regular basis. Although this was a fun environment outside of the “real”
world where I could connect with other people from all over the world, it also
unfortunately enabled malicious individuals to target me. A popular strategy
that online harassers use is fear. It was a common occurrence to receive
messages from strangers threatening to expose me on vulgar websites, claiming
to possess explicit content of me. The funny thing was, I knew that they didn’t
actually have anything of me, but being an anxious and paranoid teenager, I occasionally
had to think “WHAT IF??” I feel for all the victims out there who were
successfully taken advantage of. In addition I have been “ddosed” on countless
occasions, and that was really frustrating. When your parents are wondering why
the wifi keeps crashing you don’t exactly want to tell them “some person in
this social chat room that I like to go in keeps attacking us.” Eventually I
outgrew my fascination with broadcasting online as well as learned to ignore
the perpetual threats of strangers whenever I did decide to go in those kinds
of environments.
On the other hand, I personally am
not much of a gamer. So I don’t recall being threatened to be “swatted” or
“doxxed.” What amuses me so much about the gaming community is the amount of
trolls and irresponsible usage of computing knowledge. I just don’t understand
why someone would go through all the trouble to send a swat team to another
gamer’s house because they said something that offended them… they probably
should find some better coping skills.
Overall, it
is difficult to get cyber bullying users arrested. Until laws become stronger
regarding cases on the Internet, I think it is best to learn how to avoid
unpleasant bullies and harassers if possible.
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