{"id":7941,"date":"2011-12-14T12:11:09","date_gmt":"2011-12-14T12:11:09","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.jomec.co.uk\/altcardiff\/?p=7941"},"modified":"2011-12-14T12:11:09","modified_gmt":"2011-12-14T12:11:09","slug":"in-depth-the-dark-side-of-social-media","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cardiffjournalism.co.uk\/altcardiff\/2011\/12\/14\/in-depth-the-dark-side-of-social-media\/","title":{"rendered":"In-depth: The dark side of social media"},"content":{"rendered":"<h2><span style=\"color: #000000\">Social media is now part of everyday life; however cyberbullying seems to be an increasing trend<\/span><\/h2>\n<h2>\u00a0<\/h2>\n<div id=\"attachment_7942\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"width: 480px\"><a href=\"https:\/\/cardiffjournalism.co.uk\/altcardiff\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/13\/2011\/12\/katherine.jenkins.feature.jpeg\"><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"size-full wp-image-7942\" title=\"katherine.jenkins.feature\" src=\"https:\/\/cardiffjournalism.co.uk\/altcardiff\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/13\/2011\/12\/katherine.jenkins.feature.jpeg\" alt=\"\" width=\"480\" height=\"220\" srcset=\"https:\/\/cardiffjournalism.co.uk\/altcardiff\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/13\/2011\/12\/katherine.jenkins.feature.jpeg 480w, https:\/\/cardiffjournalism.co.uk\/altcardiff\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/13\/2011\/12\/katherine.jenkins.feature-300x138.jpeg 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 480px) 100vw, 480px\" \/><noscript><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-7942\" title=\"katherine.jenkins.feature\" src=\"https:\/\/cardiffjournalism.co.uk\/altcardiff\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/13\/2011\/12\/katherine.jenkins.feature.jpeg\" alt=\"\" width=\"480\" height=\"220\" srcset=\"https:\/\/cardiffjournalism.co.uk\/altcardiff\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/13\/2011\/12\/katherine.jenkins.feature.jpeg 480w, https:\/\/cardiffjournalism.co.uk\/altcardiff\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/13\/2011\/12\/katherine.jenkins.feature-300x138.jpeg 300w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 480px) 100vw, 480px\" \/><\/noscript><\/a><p class=\"wp-caption-text\">Katherine Jenkins has been a high profile victim of cyberbullying. Image courtesy of http:\/\/www.flickr.com\/photos\/branestawm\/<\/p><\/div>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Social media is part of our lives whether we like it or not. However with our personal lives online potentially for all to see, it can leave us vulnerable to cyberbullying and abuse.<\/p>\n<p>According to recent Welsh Government guidance, cyberbullying can be defined as the use of technology, in particular mobile phones and the internet, to deliberately upset someone else. One high profile victim of cyberbullying has been Welsh star Katherine Jenkins, who has been harassed for over a year on Twitter.<\/p>\n<p>Katherine recently revealed a false Twitter account has been set up in her name, by an apparent obsessed fan. Her ordeal culminated with the bully sending Katherine a probing, personal question via Twitter to a live television show, sparking a public response from the star, who branded the bully pathetic. She hit back at the bully, saying, \u201cYou have no right to harass me as you\u2019ve done over the past year with comments like \u2019bring out the dead daddy story again\u2019.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>While celebrities, including Katherine, use social media to communicate with their fans, it seems some use it as an excuse to attack. Social networking is providing another platform for bullying, with an apparent one in 13 young people being victims of persistent cyberbullying. With further research showing over a third of young people have been victims of some form of cyberbullying, online attacks are becoming more frequent.<\/p>\n<p><strong>The pressures of social media<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>A recent Barnardo\u2019s report into bullying discovered that social media can serve as a trigger point for bullying, but can also aggravate the problem by spreading the problem further.<\/p>\n<p>It found that young girls feel they have no choice but to be on social networks, with one Welsh school girl saying they cannot make friends without it. One young girl said, \u201cIt\u2019s not an option not to be on Facebook at our age.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Comments by the young people in the report highlighted how bullies post abusive material and rumours through Facebook, ensuring it spreads to as many people as possible, emphasising not only how social media can exacerbate a situation, but how intimidating being bullied online can become.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p><strong>Preventative measures<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>In supporting anti-bullying, a Welsh initiative, Respect Wales: The Welsh Anti-Bullying network seeks to build links with anti-bullying networks to provide information across the country. They aim to provide support for young people and reduce bullying incidents.<\/p>\n<p>John Hicks, who is part of the Welsh Assembly Government\u2019s Pupil Engagement Team, believes cyberbullying is a way of facilitating bullying. For example, not only would a victim be cyberbullied, they would be suffering homophobic bullying also, and it needs to be dealt with through education.<\/p>\n<p>The government puts out information for schools on how to spot, and what to do about bullying, John explains, \u201cOur approach is, by in large, a preventative approach. By using the guidance we would hope that schools are savvy enough to spot bullying.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><strong>Dealing with Cyberbullying<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>As for victims of bullying, the Welsh Government offers support at school level. John says, \u201cThe Welsh government over the last couple of years has put a lot of money into a national school based counselling service, essentially developing a service to help young people with whatever is affecting them at the time.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>However, dealing with the root cause of the problem are organisations such as Beatbullying Wales, which seeks to eradicate and support victims of bullying. They work with young people to empower them and produce anti-bullying programmes in schools.<\/p>\n<p>Beatbullying has developed a scheme, CyberMentors, to give victims of bullying assistance and advice. CyberMentors are young people who are trained by Beatbullying on how to help their peers.<\/p>\n<p>Sherry Adami of Beatbullying Wales explains, \u201cIt harnesses the power of social networking. We go into schools and train young people from age 11 up to 25. They are there at key times to help and support their peers and people who are being bullied or experiencing wellbeing issues.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><strong>Changing behaviour<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>\u201cThere is a solution; it\u2019s about having an integrated approach,\u201d Sherry believes, \u201cwe know children are using social networking sites. We have seven-year-olds on Facebook and we need to acknowledge that. Facebook needs to create an area that\u2019s appropriate for seven-year-olds instead of pretending they\u2019re not there.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Sherry insists that social networking sites don\u2019t do enough to protect users from cyberbullying.\u00a0 She believes there is a lack of education regarding the sites, and many young people do not know how to deal with offensive material appearing online.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe welcome some of their advancements in terms of acknowledging that this is happening,\u201d she says. \u201cThere are report buttons and safety advice, but there needs to be more. We need to tackle it at the root of the problem. It\u2019s about better signposting, it\u2019s about engaging with users and letting them know that anti-social behaviour online is unacceptable.\u201d<\/p>\n<h2>\u00a0<\/h2>\n<h2>\u00a0<\/h2>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Social media is now part of everyday life; however cyberbullying seems to be an increasing trend \u00a0 &nbsp; Social media is part of our lives whether we like it or not. However with our personal lives online potentially for all to see, it can leave us vulnerable to cyberbullying and abuse. According to recent Welsh Government guidance, cyberbullying can be defined as the use of technology, in particular mobile phones and the internet, to deliberately upset someone else. One high [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":252,"featured_media":7944,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[36],"tags":[1726,1727,1728,1729,1730,1731,1732,1733,1176],"coauthors":[],"class_list":["post-7941","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-no-logo","tag-barnardos","tag-beatbullying-wales","tag-cyberbullying","tag-cybermentors","tag-facebook","tag-in-their-shoes","tag-katherine-jenkins","tag-social-media","tag-twitter"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v25.2 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>In-depth: The dark side of social media - alt.cardiff<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/cardiffjournalism.co.uk\/altcardiff\/2011\/12\/14\/in-depth-the-dark-side-of-social-media\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_GB\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"In-depth: The dark side of social media - alt.cardiff\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Social media is now part of everyday life; however cyberbullying seems to be an increasing trend \u00a0 &nbsp; Social media is part of our lives whether we like it or not. 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