Page 70 - Security Today, November 2017

bullying in today’s society. The stereotype of a bully has always been a “bigger athletic stu- dent” or “jock” picking on a “small nerdy stu- dent.” However, with cyberbullying, anyone can hide virtually anonymously behind a key- board (or smart phone) and embarrass, make threats and post harmful information about others online. In the case of cyberbullying, a bully publishes harmful and/or harrassing posts on social media for everyone to see, which can extend well beyond one’s local community and social circle.
Students being cyberbullied are haunted
by these posts, not only while on computers at school but also on their home computers, on computers at other locations and every time they turn on their smartphone or tablet. Others who may live further away may also see these posts if they are friends with the bullied student on social media or share friends within the students’ same social media circle, making the public span of shaming and embarrassment that much more visible and wider.
Cyberbullying’s public dissemination and access severely impacts a student’s ability to
concentrate at school, study at home and par- ticipate in social activities, leading them to a life of humiliation, alienation and isolation. Yet, it is through the emergence of cyberbul- lying that school security technology compa- nies have found creative ways to build a better mouse trap for empowering schools and col- leges with ways to detect bullying of all kinds, which include not only cyberbullying but also verbal bullying, social bullying and physical bullying. Digital Fly has created a platform that provides administrators with tools for receiving alerts related to social media, bully- ing, and threats of self-harm. These tools also play a critical part in investigating incidents and developing approaches for helping stu- dents who have been bullied.
With bullying being so distressing and traumatic, this makes it very easy for bully- ing victims to avoid discussing and address- ing the problem, which only allows the bul- lying to perpetuate. It is because of this that administrators bear the responsibility in playing a key role in being aware of bullying behaviors and activity for purposes of inter- vening and taking appropriate disciplinary action when needed.
The best way for schools and colleges to fight against bullying is to have proper mea- sures and penalties in place to prevent bully- ing or stopping the activity before it gets seri- ous. Schools must take appropriate action as soon as they are made aware of a problem. They also cannot rely on the victim to come forward. They must be vigilant in looking for signs of individuals being victims as well as for indicators that someone is a bully.
Many experts have written excellent practi- cal ways to prevent bullying that are useful for administrators. A great website that offers strategies for administrators is www.stopbul- lying.gov. Once administrators have put prac- tical steps in place, leveraging bullying detec- tion technologies is a critical key for supporting and aiding in their anti-bullying efforts and policies.
Social media awareness for bullying is one approach that administrators are using for staying on top of bullying activity. There are a number of social media awareness, moni- toring and alert tools on the market today that provide administrators insight into the lives of students who could be in distress from being bullied. Even if a student is not being cyberbullied, we at Digital Fly have found that students use social media as a diary. A social media awareness tool has the ability to pick up bullying activity that could raise red flags of bullying behaviors to
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