Cyberbullying Is A Major Issue - 1205 Words

It can happen to anyone, on your phone, through social media, and once it starts it’s hard to take control and stop it. Cyberbullying has become a major issue. Cyber bullying can be very damaging. It can lead to anxiety, depression, and even suicide. Also, once things are circulated on the Internet, they may never disappear, resurfacing at later times to renew the pain of cyberbullying. Cyberbullying can take many forms such as sending mean messages or threats to a person’s email account or cell phone, spreading rumors online or through texts, posting hurtful or threatening messages on social networking sites or web pages, stealing a person’s account information to break into their account and send damaging messages, pretending to be†¦show more content†¦If cyberbullying leads to suicide, how can the criminal not be charged with murder? â€Å"The use of electronic communication to bully a person, typically by sending messages of an intimidating or threatening nature†, is the definition of cyberbullying according to the oxford dictionary. Cyberbullying can include such acts as making threats, sending provocative insults or racial or ethnic slurs, attempting to infect the victim s computer with a virus and flooding an e-mail inbox with messages. The fact that a bully can hide behind a user name, disguising his or her true identity makes it difficult to trace the source and encourages bullies to behave more aggressively than they might in a situation where they were identified. Social networking sites such as Facebook and Twitter are where the most common occurrences of cyberbullying happen. In a case of cyberbullying 12 year-old Rebecca Ann Sedwick jumped to her death after enduring months of online harassment by more than fifteen classmates. Only two girls out of the classmates have been arrested and charge d with aggravated stalking and their involvement in the bullying. One of the girls accused stated that she wasn’t very worried about the charges. Leading many to question the further criminalization of cyberbullying. â€Å"Bullying is unwanted, aggressive behavior among school aged children that involves a real or perceived power