Bullies find new playground on net

A recently reported incident in which a Krugersdorp High School girl endured months of threats and psychological abuse on Facebook and BlackBerry, leading eventually to being attacked with a glass bottle by a fellow female pupil, has again thrown the focus on the growing issue of cyber bullying.

Gone is the era where bullies intimidated their victims out of their lunch money.

Today a new method of torment is rampant, locally and abroad, where social networking sites and instant message services have become the new playground on which bullying is meted out.

A report in the Daily Mail this week pointed out that as many as one in four children are targeted by cyber bullies in Britain. A study quoted in the report said that 350 000 children suffered persistent torment with many too frightened to go to school, experiencing depression or even contemplating suicide. More than half of all cyber bullying is believed to be taking place on Facebook.

The practice also seems to be gaining prominence locally.

Morningside resident Jessica says that she was recently “put through hell” by a cyber bully who used Facebook and the instant message service BlackBerry Messenger (BBM) to destroy her reputation.

Jessica says the bully, a girl she worked with on the weekend, also sent her threatening messages at night.

“It was a nightmare. I think she started to feel insecure and started to attack me on Facebook,” Jessica said.

She said that her 18-year-old tormentor managed to gain access to her e-mail and sent out messages to her friends and acquaintances, bad mouthing her.

She circulated rumours about Jessica on Facebook.

“It was quite scary because a lot of the time I wasn’t sure what she was saying about me. Then she started threatening me and I wasn’t sure if she was actually going to attack me in person.”

Jessica said her tormentor stopped after the intervention of a family member.

Varsity student Leyya said she had a verbal confrontation with a fellow student late last year which eventually ended up on the public platform of Facebook.

“At first she was just saying bad things about me on Facebook, but then it turned really nasty. It blew out of proportion. She thought I was sleeping with her boyfriend. She started inboxing me, swearing at me and sending me threatening messages on BBM. Eventually I wrote back to her giving her a piece of my mind and that made her mad. The next day she and three other girls wanted to beat me up outside campus. If it wasn’t for security I think I would’ve been seriously bust up.”

Leyya said some cyber bullies worked mob-style.

“Guys can be very bad. If a girl doesn’t want to sleep with them they will put her name on a list. There are so many of these lists going around that are called things like ‘Durban’s biggest whores’ and ‘Slut list 2012’,” she said.

Kelly, a friend of Leyya, who has also had a few run-ins with cyber bullies, said cyber bullying did not only affect high school or college students.

“Even professional people can act really immaturely on Facebook and BBM,” Kelly said.

Police spokesman Lt Col Vincent Mdunge said while police were aware of the problem of cyber bullying, only a few cases were reported as victims were often not aware of their right to press charges against their tormentors.

“When a person feels their character has been negatively depicted on social networks, this person has a right to open a case of defamation and the perpetrator can be traced and charged. It’s a matter of a criminal act being committed.”