"A major crisis, such as a global pandemic, creates stress, confusion, anxiety and depression in adults as well as children. Over a prolonged period of time it can lead to misunderstandings, acting out or lashing out at others and risk-taking behavior. Ryerson lists a number of triggers that can lead to cyber bullying as: the need for power and control; retaliation for pain they've experience from others (revenge); boredom; lack of empathy toward others; relationship problems with family/friends; the need to elevate their self-esteem; and its addictive nature which provides a temporary lift and protection in that it's anonymous."-Lamorida Weekly
October is National Bullying Prevention Month and yet, the worldwide COVID-19 pandemic has put more stress on kids and adolescents during this time, accounting for a 70% increase in cyberbullying, according to Verywell Family The best way to help your teen to prevent these kind of behaviors seeping into their digital devices and their lives is to know what to expect. Approve every app on your teen's phone and stay current on the latest apps, how they are used, and how they might be manipulated, such as Snapchat. Check out our blog posts on Anonymous Apps to see a list of the ones we've flagged as a concern for potential cyberbullying. Buy Cyberslammed to learn about the six most common cyberbullying tactics from ganging up on person (Digital Pileons) to revenge photos (Sexting). Available in both Kindle ($5.99) and Softcvoer ($9.99)
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Funstagram is the latest free anonymous app available on iTunes that allows you to take a photo of someone without their knowledge or consent and add a ridiculing comment to it.
It's always amazing to me that these apps' designers don't want to believe that people won't misuse their app. (Or they choose not to care.) In any case, the official description says: "Funstagram! is a hilarious new camera app that lets you bust out some AWESOME FUNNY SOUNDS, take priceless funny photos of your friends, then add the PERFECT CAPTION and SHARE ONLINE! Humiliate your friends (or that random victim across the room) – turn your photos from *yawn* to *GENIUS* - join the PARTY!" Yet, from an ABC 6 News article, a reporter investigated how it's really being used by teenagers. "Things like, “you look like a pig”, “come out of the closet” and “takes the disabled bus to school” are some of the captions," according to the article. Parents and educators be aware that Funstagram is yet one more way for a cyberbully to intentionally inflict harm on a target despite what its designers says. Let's call out this anonymous cyberbullying app out for what it is and start 2017 on a better note. Fitting that on Valentine's Day, an Idaho newspaper Post Register reporting on a Times-News story revealed a new app teens are downloading to their phones called 'After School.'
As we always say: same tactics: different technology. After School is an anonymous Rating Site, which allows users to make lewd sexual comparisons about their classmates with zero consequences. According to the story, the "...widespread use of the After School app has left a vicious mark of bullying in its wake — along with a lot of sex talk that includes the names of students and educators." Posts on After School message boards tied to other south-central Idaho schools have included nude photos of students, derogatory comments about appearance, name calling and comments about students’ body parts." If you are a parent, you should already be having a conversation about what apps are unacceptable to download with your teen, especially if you own their phone. Click here on expert advice on how to have The Conversation as well as smart tools to prevent cyberbullying on your teen's phone. Schools and parents need to know if they try to download the app, they will find it requires student verification in the form of a student identification card or driver’s license. The app logs in the student through his or her Facebook account, which makes deleting it more difficult. If you need to know how a Rating Site occurs (one of our six most common cyberbullying tactics, buy our Parent's Guide To A Rating Site on Kindle or purchase a softcover copy of Cyberslammed, our award-winning cyberbullying book. You'd think after all this time, app and feature designers would consider how the latest tool they're promoting could be used to cyberbully, wouldn't you?
That's what Twitter is now realizing after rolling out a new feature that allows users to post poll questions. Of course teenagers will use it to negatively rate each other. A Utah high school just figured that out when they discovered tweets with the poll feature asking people to rate the body parts of specific students, vote on an individual student's perceived level of sexual activity, or comment on the status of their relationships with other students. Read the whole story here. For those who aren't familiar with this tactic, it's called a Rating Site, one of the six tactics listed in our cyberbullying prevention book, Cyberslammed. It's a common tactic to negatively rate, denounce or judge someone publicly. Said one of the teens in the story: "This isn't just kids being kids," Campbell said. "This is kids being mean. You can see kids getting revenge on other kids through the polls. "It's definitely kids you go to school with," she added, "because it's rumors and it's everyone's deepest darkest secrets." Know what to do when a group of people use Instagram, Facebook or Internet polls to upload someone's photo and get bystanders to vote for their "ugliest," "fattest," "dumbest" peers? Our Parent's Guide To A Rating Website is available on Kindle for $2.99. Buy here. Or get up to speed on five other cyberbullying tactics along with this tactic in our award-winning book Cyberslammed. I didn't think I could be dumbfounded at this stage in all the years I've been working on cyberbullying prevention. But yup, call me floored, because app developers are now creating anonymous apps designed specifically for cyberbullying. Founder Jonathan Lucas of Blushhh LLC actually calls his anonymous posting app Burnbook, styled after the Mean Girls tactic of writing gossip and anonymous nasty comments about classmates in a physical book that can be passed around. An article in Oregon Live reveals Lucas to be a 23-year-old developer who tried to put preventative measures in place after the app was released. It's a free app, so kids can download it to their phones, search for school "communities" within 10 miles, and share text, photos, and audio with other community members. The terms of service stipulate the user needs to be 18 but it's unenforceable and kids routinely ignore this. The app now has been downloaded 400,000 times. Already, predictably across the country, schools are finding out just how sinister this app is in the hands of students who are (surprise, surprise) out to humiliate and degrade the reputations of others. In San Diego and Oregon, it's been used to send threats. In Torrance California, another school experienced threats and cyberbullying and demanded that Lucas remove their school from his app (thereby cutting off students' access). In an article by The Daily Breeze he refused their request, citing his first amendment rights and was quoted: “The app isn’t the problem It’s the people who abuse it. The truth is the app isn’t posting anything.” In San Diego, a petition has actually been started on Change.org to give schools an opt-out option on the app and is just shy of its 500 needed signatures. another Change.org petition, which has nearly 1,242 signatures demands to eliminate the app altogether. So parents, it's time to get proactive about this one. Check your kid's phone for this app and make it off limits. Then, let your kids' school know about this app and petition to have your school removed from its Geo Locator. Get all of the tactics in one book and prepare your child to recognize and defuse certain types of cyberbullying. Summer Sale: $12.50 Buy The Book Streetchat (go to link) is a new anonymous messaging app from Apple that sprang up over the summer as the latest tool kids can use to cyberbully. The free app on iTunes for iPhones, iPads and iPods, is proudly described this way: "Streetchat is an anonymous bulletin board to post photos to the people in your school. It is a fast reliable way to share your thoughts, gossip and talk about things around you."
After all the vicious cyberbullying that has come out of past anonymous phone apps (some of which have contributed to teen suicide), you gotta love that adult developers are still encouraging teens to engage in malicious gossip, don't you? If there is anything anonymous message app developers have learned from Secret, Whisper, and Ask.fm, it's that this tool can--and always will be--abused. It's not even the first day of school yet and already, stories are coming out that this app is being misused to cyberbully in schools as well as make anonymous real-life threats. One of the ways Streetchat can cyberbully is to set up an anonymous platform to launch a Rating Site tactic, i.e. to negatively rate, denounce or judge someone. Media reports often give the impression that kids flock to these kind of apps, but as this one teen reviewer of the app exemplifies, teens, themselves may be sick of developers monetizing their relationship conflicts. * This app is sickening... by Audrey Chaffin This is so terrible...what kind of people are you to make an app for kids to make fun of other kids in their school?! Maybe that wasn't the original intention, but it is certainly happening. It's so sad to see things that encourage bullying. I know in your rules it says that bullying is not allowed, but that's clearly not monitored very well. I saw plenty of kids making fun of specific kids in the school...one post asking commenters to list the fattest girl in school. I can only imagine how upset I would be if I was one of the kids being made fun of for everyone to see... This could seriously lead to kids committing suicide or cutting themselves over what people say about them and it probably will. There is no need for an easy way to view what everyone at your school thinks about you. This is going to hurt so many poor kids' feelings and get everyone mad at each other. For the sake of teens feeling happy with whom they are, please remove this app. To be prepared this school year how cyberbullying apps work along with other cyberbullying tactics, buy Cyberslammed $12.50 for your school or home. |
Cyberslammed
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