A so-called issue that is often discussed is that of cyberbullying. I often see it portrayed as this massive issue that must be addressed to the point that laws are made because of it. I think this is stupid and cyberbullying is possibly the biggest nonissue in society today.
The main reason I think it is a nonissue is because cyberbullying literally cannot harm you. Unlike real bullying which can be physical or psychological in a way that affects your real life, pure cyberbullying itself cannot harm you at all and any psychological affects can be easily remedied such as turning off the device or simply not caring. Using the internet to affect someone's real life is a different thing; I consider it a form of harassment and not the same as cyberbullying. I am also not saying that cyberbullying is a good thing that people should do but that it's not a real problem.
I have so many times seen people complain about cyberbullies at this point and I think it's pathetic. It seems modern internet users have been conditioned into this whole anti-cyberbullying mentality by combination of schools teaching that cyberbullying is just as bad as real bullying, giant social media platforms having rules against cyberbullying that influence people's opinions on the matter, and popular people complaining about cyberbullying and online harassment.
I remember primary-level school teaching how cyberbullying is this big problem and a class in early secondary-level school having a whole thing about how cyberbullying leads to things like suicide. So part of the perception that cyberbullying is this massive problem probably originates from schools spreading this idea to children.
Social media platforms contribute to this perception possibly because of almost every one having rules against cyberbullying or anything deemed as harassment and this causes people to believe that these rules are and should be considered normal and just. People have been conditioned into believing that strict rules against this kind of speech is good and anything that could be considered cyberbullying, harassment, or hate speech should not be allowed to exist. For example, I have noticed that pretty much anything that at least tries be a freedom of speech respecting platform is labeled as a hate speech filled cesspool of extremists and radicals that should never be used because of the lack of restriction of speech. These giant social media platforms have successfully convinced the general internet userbase that their rules are just and should be considered good. I have also noticed how people that use social media can be very protective of themselves and obsess over the 'haters and trolls' or are overly protective of their voluntarily-associated group of people to the point that any criticism at all is labeled as whatever -phobic or -ist and should not be allowed. Social media has weakened the psychological fortitude of people. Because of this, they want to restrict people's speech to feel safer.
Another problem with the perception that cyberbullying must be stopped is that it leads to more surveillance. Platforms in an attempt to prevent cyberbullying may require more information about someone before they can use it. You can also see this kind of thing in laws and law proposals against cyberbullying which want to deanonymize internet users. Recently, at the time of writing this, many video game chat systems have increased their surveillance capability by allowing people to easily record voice chats to send reports or worse, using AI to detect infringing speech. This increase of surveillance is done to prevent cyberbullying and perceived harassment.
Facing some cyberbullying can actually be a good thing. It can lead to psychological hardening. When you face negative criticism or cyberbullying, you can actually become more resistant to it to the point of near immunity. Although personality may be a major contributor to the effectiveness of this approach. I for example because of dealing with people messing with me in the past combined with certain personality traits, has lead to me having a strong psychological fortitude and learning a lot in terms of privacy and internet safety.
If you can't handle people being mean to you and don't know how to properly protect yourself on the internet, you shouldn't be active on it.
Written 2023-12-19 Published 2024-1-1