New Website Aims To Help Prevent Cyber-Bullying
We live in an age where bullying is no longer just confined to the school playground or cafeteria. Now, kids and teens have to deal with the (unfortunately) easy and frequent form of bullying within the online community called "cyber-bulling." Cyber-bulling is when people, mostly kids and teens, harasses one another through the means of social networking sites, text messages, chat rooms, or through other online means.
Within the past year there have been multiple instances where cyber-bulling has led to career-ruining and sometimes tragic endings. Teen suicides due to cyber-bulling are on the rise and "sexting" scandals are now very common headlines. For example, look at how Anthony Weiner's current "sexting" scandal is ruining his family and career. Nobody is safe in the online world anymore and the act of cyber-bulling needs to be restricted.
So, in order to prevent this act of cyber-bulling, a McGill University research team led by Prof. Shaheen Shariff is launching a new website, www.definetheline.ca, that will help define and discourage cyber-bullying, while encouraging socially responsible digital citizenship. Define The Line promises to become a valuable resource for youth, parents and educators across North America, providing advice from leading experts in a user-friendly format. The site offers different pages for kids, teens, parents, teachers, and policy makers to explore the different ways that cyber-bulling effects each group and offers different strategies in order to help prevent cyber-bulling.
Define The Line aims to help people realize at what point we should draw the line at defining cyber-bulling. The site says that cyber-bulling occurs when:
- Joking and teasing becomes criminal harassment and criminal threats
- Regulations, laws and policies turn into limits on free expression
- Rumors, lies or demeaning images posted on social media can ruin a peer or teacher's reputation and become cyber-libel
All of these actions are deemed as cyber-bulling due to Define The Line, and it is up to us to speak up when we witness any of these occurrences. So pass the link for the Define The Line website on to whoever you can in order to raise awareness and educate people within the online community.
t
Emily Iammarino is a college student at DePaul University who is majoring in Advertising and has a minor in graphic design. She enjoys discovering and listening to new music, going to local concerts, designing, and absorbing as much media as possible in her free time. She hopes to utilize her artistic skills and witty sense of humor to someday create and develop innovative advertisements. As of now, she's experiencing her college life to the fullest by living in Lincoln Park with her best friends and taking advantage of all the perks Chicago has to offer.