What is Cyber Bullying?
Cyberbullying is when someone uses technology to bully others, most commonly bullying occurs through social media. Victims of cyberbullying can become very distressed especially as often they do not know their perpetrator who is bullying them. Cyberbullying can involve things such as sending offensive messages, sharing off images or setting up a hate group on a social networking site. The bullying can occur 24/7 and the victim is often targeted even when they are in the comfort of their own home. Images and media posts can be distributed very quickly and widely on the internet which makes it very hard to combat cyberbullying.
Young people can experience racist bullying online or be treated less favorably because of their skin colour, nationality, religion or belief, or culture group.
How to recognise if someone is a victim of Racist Cyber Bullying?
It can be difficult to tell if someone is being bullied online, but a pupil may show some of the blow signs:
Not wanting to suddenly interact with social media or their online usage is
significantly less than usual. Have become suddenly withdrawn or is behaving differently. Are anxious or showing symptoms of depression. Have aggressive reactions to normal situations. Changes in eating habits Being afraid to go to school, being mysteriously 'ill' each morning, or skipping school.
What advice can I give to a pupil who has been a victim?
1. Don’t share, comment or reply to bullies as this can often make matters worse. 2. Block the person from contacting them – there are ways to any stop contact.
2. Save the evidence – screenshot or save any abuse for reporting purposes. 3. Tell someone – ensure that the bullying is reported to an adult or via an online
reporting system.
What does the law say and what are your requirements as a school?
There is no legal definition of cyberbullying within UK law and it is not against the law. However there are a number of existing laws that can be applied to cases of cyberbullying and online harassment. Guidelines issued by the Crown Prosecution Service explain how cases of cyberbullying will be assessed under the current legislation. The ‘CPS Guidelines’ can be viewed Here.
Where there is evidence that the accused person demonstrated or was motivated by racial or religious hostility, the criminal courts have a general duty to treat any offence as being more serious. Racial or religious related crimes may alsao be treated as a hate crime. It is also an offence to stir up hatred, threaten or harasses a person or a group of people on the grounds of race and religion.
All schools have various statutory and common law duties to look after the physical and mental health of their employees. Protecting staff and pupils from cyberbullying is best done within a prevention framework, with whole school policies and practices designed to combat cyberbullying. Each school should have a designated cyberbullying lead, a member of the senior management team tasked with overseeing and managing the recording, investigation and resolution of all racist bullying incidents. Schools will need to develop clear guidance to help to protect every member of the school, community and to ensure that sanctions are appropriate and consistent. This will need to be effectively communicated to and discussed with employees, pupils and parents.
How to report online racial bullying
In school: When the perpetrator is known to be a current pupil or staff member, the majority of incidents should be dealt with by the school through the internal school reporting system (see reporting suspected racist incidents in school Factsheet).
Outside of school: When the perpetrator is not a school pupil or staff member there are a number of ways to report Cyber bullying online:
If the incident has occurred on a social media website it is possible to report the perpetrators actions directly through the websites reporting system. For a useful guide on how to report bullying / hate crime across a range of social media website click Here.
True Vision, is an online reporting system for hate crime, including internet hate crime. Visit the True Vision website Here
For further support and advice you can contact Childline who have a free info and advice service or call the police by dialling 101. You can also speak to your school police liaison officer.
Challenging racism and Cyber Bullying in school
Being proactive in discussing bullying and racism in school as part of a whole school approach will help towards prevention of any incidents from occurring.
Show Racism the red card has a range of resources to tackle racism in school through activities that aim to challenge prejudice attitudes and negative stereotypes. Our range of education packs can be found HERE.
There are a number of websites that have specialized activities and information in understanding and challenging Cyber Bullying in school and these are listed below.
Bullying UK - http://www.bullying.co.uk/cyberbullying/
Childline - https://www.childline.org.uk/info-advice/bullying-abuse-safety/types- bullying/online-bullying/
Childnet – http://www.childnet.com/teachers-and-professionals/for-working-with- young-people
Crossing the line toolkit - http://www.childnet.com/resources/pshetoolkit/about-this-
toolkit
Guidelines for schools - http://www.childnet.com/ufiles/Cyberbullyi ng-guidance2.pdf
Digizen Cyber Bullying Guidance - http://www.digizen.org/downloads/cyberbullyingOverview.pdf
Anti-bullying alliance - http://www.anti-bullyingalliance.org.uk/tools-information/all- about-bullying/cyberbullying-0
Department for education - https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/preventing- and-tackling-bullying
For more information visit our website Here.
We can provide training on challenging racism and bullying in school.
Please contact us at [email protected] or call 02920 236 057