Whilst there are many definitions out there, to me cyberbullying is any form of communication that is aimed at hurting or embarrassing a specific target. From my personal experience, it has been often used in an attempt by the bully to raise themselves above their target and/or discredit the target.

Working within the cybersecurity field, I often provide awareness training focused on ‘demystifying hackers,’ which focuses on identifying the three types of hackers (black hat, white hat, and grey hat) along with classifying the motivations between. I’m not sure who, but someone very cleverly grouped black hat hackers’ (i.e. malicious actors’) motivations into three groups: riches, reputation and ruins. When it comes to cyberbullying, I feel that those motivations hold true, as well. Cyberbullying is, to me, a form of manipulation, belittlement, and targeted abuse meant to cause harm and ultimately benefit the abuser in some way. That could include boosting their ego, but often, it’s directly linked to attempting to ruin the reputation of their target. From my experience, this has been the case for all forms of cyberbullying and online abuse that I have received either from someone I have never met or someone within my every day ‘in real life.’

What’s worse is that cyberbullying doesn’t stop when you’re physically away from the situation. It carries over into our personal lives and homes.

An interesting point that Maria Konnikova made in The New Yorker October 2015 was “In short, the picture that’s emerged suggests that the Internet has made bullying both harder to escape and harder to identify. It has also, perhaps, made bullies out of some of us who would otherwise not be. We are immersed in an online world in which consequences often go unseen—and that has made it easier to deceive (Read more...)