What Cyberbullying Is and How to Spot It
How to recognize cyberbullying and what to do
Cyberbullying happens when someone uses the internet, a chat or a social network to bother, make fun of, threaten or make another person feel bad over and over again, such as sending hurtful messages, sharing an embarrassing photo without permission or deliberately leaving someone out of a group chat to make them feel bad. Unlike a normal argument between friends that gets fixed quickly, cyberbullying happens again and again and is meant to hurt, and it can be even harder to escape because the messages can reach you at any moment, even when you're in your own home. Recognizing it is the first step to stopping it, so if you see that someone keeps bothering you online, or that it's happening to a classmate, what matters is not responding with more aggression, saving the messages as evidence if you can, and telling a trusted adult right away so they can help you sort it out.