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Mohammed Mudhish

Professor Brandon Marshall

ENGL-001C-0864

May 17, 2024

A Shadow of Social Media: Cyberbullying

Indeed, in this current digital era, social media is not used as a tool but is in itself a

landscape where young teenagers live out most of their social lives. Yet underneath the surface

of connectivity and shared experiences, there is a very pervasive and damaging phenomenon.

Recent surveys state that over 35% of students have, at some point, experienced cyberbullying in

their life (Patchin). These statistics point to the prevalence of cyberbullying and underline its

potential to infiltrate into the most common spaces of youth interaction.

The rise of social media has been meteoric. Instagram, Snapchat, and TikTok are

communication devices that have changed into significant social hubs. This is especially true for

youngsters who do not just use it to have fun but also as a vital part of their social and emotional

development. This anonymity, and the reach of social media has made it incredibly popular, but

with the same fact, it has turned out to be a hotbed for cyberbullying. With physical interaction,

constraints malicious behavior not only becomes more comfortable to act but also tougher to get

away from.

It is in this context that one needs to appreciate the fact that while social media may provide

enormous opportunities for networking, self-expression, and learning by its users, it has also

become a breeding ground for the activity of cyberbullying, thereby necessitating urgent, serious,

and effective remedial action in the matter. We need to be more aggressive about regulation and

proactive policies at the platform level in response to this threat. We need to protect all users but
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specifically the younger demographics as they are both the most active and the most vulnerable.

It is only through such effort that we can start to neutralize the shadow side of our increasingly

interconnected world.

Cyberbullying, thus, is the use of new means of media tools, that is, the Internet and

mobile phones, to purposely upset or try to scare a person. This new form sometimes takes the

shape of general harassment or trolling activities. This includes harassment from sending

offensive or threatening messages consistently; trolling, which is posting really provocative

mean messages to upset people; and doxing, which means putting up someone's personal

information unauthorizedly online. Speaking of the statistics, the rates of cyberbullying are

dangerously high, especially among the youngest age groups. In fact, according to a report issued

by the Pew Research Center, nearly 41% of all teens in the U.S. have fallen victim to some kind

of online harassment (Vogels). The discussion is, in fact, that these incidents are not isolated

cases but seem to be increasing as part of the social media package and with higher doses of

anonymity that digital platforms can provide.

Its overall impact on the victims is deep, multidimensional, and profound. There might be

grievous distress psychologically, which can lead to depression and symptoms of an anxiety

disorder. Emotionally, the fear of bullying creates a constant emotional space of aloneness and

helplessness. In extremely serious cases, it has even led to unrelenting symptoms—headaches,

sleep disturbances, and lowered immune responses. The continuous negative effects, on the other

hand, are equally troubling: most victims tend to socially withdraw and suffer a tremendous fall

in self-esteem (Sheley). These issues tragically can persist into adulthood, hence affecting an

individual's capability to build a healthy relationship and even thrive within professional or

academic settings. What is more, the pervasive nature of digital platforms implies that escaping
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cyberbullying can be exceptionally challenging. Cyberbullying can follow the victim through

every digital interaction, whereas a traditional bully could usually be escaped by changing the

routine or physical surroundings.

Social media algorithms are optimized to increase as much user activity as possible, often

with little regard for their safety. In reality, such algorithms facilitate very heated content that

evokes strong emotional reactions and, unfortunately, can stand for bad and harassing content. In

a way, the nature of these systems often inadvertently amplifies the visibility—and therefore the

reach—of this content, which could be one of the contributing factors to the increase in

cyberbullying. For example, a mean comment that gets maximum reactions and shares turns out

to be more visible not only to the immediate network of the victim but also to other potential

bullies, thus snowballing and propagating abuse (Wood).

While awareness of these issues has increased over the last few years, such social media

platforms are still not resilient enough in their policies to act against cyberbullying. Quite clearly,

though Facebook and Twitter have mechanisms and apparently policies to tone down

harassment, there have been some major gaps and inconsistencies in the execution of these

policies. For instance, a system that places the onus on users to report abuse on the site before

any action is taken developed normally leads to excessive delays by which time usually much

damage has been done. Also, the specific definitions of what cyberbullying actually constitutes

are subject to individual interpretation from various moderators– effectively preventing universal

policing of the policy in question. These corporations are ethically required not only to ensure

they continue to work on these policies but to actively implement them as well. Social media

must commit to early detection of cyberbullying and go further in assuring all of their users of a
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safer experience, especially the vulnerable and impressionable youth that forms a considerably

large part of their user base space.

A usual criticism of the imposition of strong social media rules is that policy could run

the risk of offending freedom of expression. Hence, staunch rules will consequently inhibit real

conversations and diverging opinions to be brought up, resulting in a community that is bland

and contains less dynamism. This is particularly true in ways where the border between hot

debate and harassment is rather thin. But there is a difference between freedom of speech and a

license to harm. Already, freedom of expression variously enjoys the protection of statutory and

constitutional privileges, while at the same time being limited by the rights and freedoms of any

other individual to be contented with their online habitat. Cyberbullying protection is not about

taking away free speech; it is about preventing serious negative emotional and psychological

consequences of constant abuse from happening to the victims.

Although the truth is that social media platforms are doing their best to fight

cyberbullying, they have mostly implemented some sort of a few tools against it, including

reporting mechanisms and AI moderation. Many a time, however, these measures fall short. The

very basis of the reporting tools is the dependence on the victims reporting incidents, which can

be emotionally draining, hence resulting in very low reporting rates. Moreover, though useful, AI

always lacks the actual context of understanding and, many a time, fails to differentiate between

playful banter and malice (Al-Gaarhdi et al.). Such limitations underline the necessity of more

sophisticated and proactive measures. Most importantly, in this respect, protection of extremely

vulnerable users, such as minors, outweighs theoretical risks of limitation of freedom of speech,

since the demonstrated harm of cyberbullying is already obvious through rising rates of mental
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health disorders among its victims and deems more tough preventive measures and responsive

actions on part of social media platforms.

It is only through major regulatory efforts that governments can perfectly address the

scourge of cyberbullying. Such measures are likely to include mandating social media platforms

to put in place real-time monitoring technologies that can help identify and prevent cases of

cyberbullying before they escalate. It follows that platforms may be required to carry out regular

audits into bullying incidents and the effectiveness of their intervention processes, as part of

legislation commitments or face accountability on account of failures in such systems. Also, the

electronic spreading of content that is deemed to be harmful could be criminalized through laws

to make it an offense, something that would really pressure these platforms and encourage them

to take protecting users more seriously than they are currently doing so.

Alongside regulatory action, it remains incumbent on social media companies themselves

to up their ante in better policies and technologies in the enforcement of those policies. This

would involve more advanced, high-sensitivity detection algorithms, which can consider

subtleties of language and context, lessening false positives to capture only actual cases of

bullying. To be quite clear, both these processes should be transparent—users should know how

incidents are being handled and the findings of their reporting. Additional sanctions of the sort

which might dissuade incidences of cyberbullying include greater lengths of temporary bans, and

in greater cases, resorting to involving the police. In addition to changes at the platform level, we

also require school-based educational programs on digital citizenship and the ethical use of

social media. Such activities can enable kids to use social media wisely in the face of

consequences from any actions they might do online.

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All along, in this discussion, we have seen how cyberbullying facilitated by the very

architecture and policies of social media platforms has far-reaching impacts on its victims,

calling for vigorous multiresponses. As we have argued, even as social media create

unprecedented possibilities for connection and expression, they are fraught with important risks

—especially for younger users. This, importantly, will require that we institutionalize and

implement stricter regulatory interventions, enhance platform policies we adopt, and welcome

educational efforts toward responsible digital citizenship. It is upon each one of us to ensure

safety within the digital world rather than its transformation into a battleground. Do we

contribute to a culture of respect and understanding as we integrate these even more solidly into

every aspect of our lives, or are the darker sides of human interaction taking over our digital

experiences?

Works Cited

Al-Garadi, Mohammed Ali, et al. "Predicting cyberbullying on social media in the big data era

using machine learning algorithms: review of literature and open challenges." IEEE

Access 7 (2019): 70701-70718.

Patchin, Justin W. “2021 Cyberbullying Data.” Cyberbullying Research Center,

cyberbullying.org/2021-cyberbullying-data. Accessed 17 May 2024.

Sheley, Erin. "Victim impact statements and expressive punishment in the age of social

media." Wake Forest L. Rev. 52 (2017): 157.

Vogels, Emily A. “The State of Online Harassment.” Pew Research Center, 13 Jan. 2021,

www.pewresearch.org/internet/2021/01/13/the-state-of-online-harassment/. Accessed 17

May 2024.

Wood, Mark A. "Antisocial media and algorithmic deviancy amplification: Analysing the id of
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Facebook’s technological unconscious." Theoretical Criminology 21.2 (2017): 168-185.