Guest pots by Lisa Hurd-Walker.
Gather and Mom Central recently partnered on a survey that was conducted to understand moms’ social habits online. The results of the survey show that a majority of moms (80%) report feeling lonely within the last month. As a result, more moms are turning to the internet – social networking sites, community forums and chat rooms – to meet new people. Given the large volume of moms online, there is an increased likelihood of encountering “bullies”, and an alarming 1 in 4 moms admit to having experienced cyber-bullying.
What to Do if Bullied Online
Unfortunately, as in real life, you will no doubt encounter people you disagree with, people who are mean, and people you just don’t care for on the sites you visit. In those cases you can usually just cease contact with those people and still enjoy other friends on the site.
You need to take further action though if you feel that someone online is and repeatedly tormenting, threatening, harassing, humiliating, embarrassing, or otherwise targeting you negatively.
If you are being cyber-bullied on a website, first immediately stop the activities (i.e. exit the chat room, or don’t post anymore comments on the article) .
Cease all contact with the bully going forward.
Make sure to save the messages from the bully and links to them if they are live on a community site.
If you are being bullied on a social network or online community, report the bullying to the customer support team there and ask for help.
If you feel physically threatened, in addition to reporting the incident and bully to customer support team where the abuse is taking place, you should report the online harassment and physical threats to your local police and your Internet Service Provider (ISP)
Guest pots by Lisa Hurd-Walker. Lisa Hurd-Walker is the Family Editor at Gather.com, the leading social network to make new friends and form new social circles. As manager of the Gather Family Channel and Gather Moms group, Lisa acts as the site’s curator when it comes to family content. Prior to joining Gather.com in 2005, Lisa worked in product development for Barefoot Books, an independent children’s book publisher based in Cambridge, MA. Lisa lives in Cambridge, MA with her husband, Josh and 2 year old son Boden. She is expecting her second child in March.
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I see this all too often online. The anonymity of being behind a computer emboldens people in a way they normally wouldn’t be in real life. Being a bully may make others feel powerful when they aren’t normally. This is despicable, but a reality.
I have had to boot people from Bookieboo for this. (Not too many, thank God, but it has happened.) And I will continue to do so when ANYONE tries to make my community a hostile environment. But I will say that I see this more often on Twitter than anywhere else.
I think we need to be as careful abt. what we say online as in person. Written words seem to have a long, long life.
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