According to the 2011 KidsHelpPhone survey on Cyberbullying,[1] it “remains a significant problem for many young people in Canada….”.  Cyberbullying may consist of threats, insults, and, as we have seen in a tragic case here in Canada, unwanted photos/videos posted on social networking sites. 

There’s a whole other side to this I wasn’t aware of until I started doing research on this in the past few weeks.  Self-cyberbullying or, as researcher Danah Boyd calls it, “digital self-harm”.   In her 2010 article, she points out, “…there are teens out there who are self-harassing by “anonymously” writing mean questions to themselves and then publicly answering them.”[2]

More recently there have been a couple of high profile cases in the USA and the UK where the threats, nasty comments and harassment have been traced to the victim’s own account or IP address.

Elizabeth Englander, Director of the Massachusetts Aggression Reduction Center, conducted some research with first year university students on this topic.  She found, “9% of the subjects told us that they had falsely posted a cruel remark “against” themselves, or cyberbullied themselves, during high school….about half of these “digital self-harmers” had done this only once or very infrequently; the other half  reported that they had cyberbullied themselves more regularly or had one, ongoing episode which lasted at least several months”[3]

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Ask.fm is a controversial Q & A website that has been translated into 24 languages and has close to 65 million users worldwide.  Almost half of those users are under 18.  This Latvia-based social networking site is one where users can ask other users questions.   You can pose or answer questions or post comments and it is all anonymous. 

Sounds okay.  So what’s the controversy about Ask.fm?  

Someone referred to it as a breeding ground for hate speak and bullying.  News reports about this site in the past year have highlighted cases of cyberbullying and teen suicide. Ask.fm has been harshly criticized for not moderating content and its lack of privacy and identity controls.  Two recent teen suicides in the UK have brought even more attention to the website and the negative ways it has been used.

As one BBC reporter said, “it’s the ability to say what you want without identifying yourself that is both the appeal and the danger of sites like this.”[1]

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I have been spending a lot of time lately with tweens and teens learning about how they are using all sorts of social media.  I’ve heard stories of connection and of cyberbullying.  Stories about rumours and damage to reputations.   I have also witnessed how quickly something on social media can escalate into a real-life crisis.  

One such crisis in recent weeks originated via Snapchat.  Once the crisis was dealt with I decided to research this ‘new to me’ app.   I was surprised at how popular it is.   As of September 21^st Snapchat users were sending 350 million photos daily.

What is it? A mobile app for “real-time picture chatting”.  Theoretically, Snapchat allows users to send a photo that then disappears after 1 -10 seconds.  The creators of this app refer to it as “a new way to share moments with friends. Snap an ugly selfie (a self-portrait) or a video, add a caption, and send it to a friend (or maybe a few). They’ll receive it, laugh, and then the snap disappears…”

Sounds like a reasonable, fun idea. Yet it raises some red flags for me.

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