Sextortion Among Adolescents
by Justin W. Patchin
Thirteen-year-old Amanda Todd made a mistake. The British Columbia teen had just moved to a new town and turned to the Internet to meet people. She’d been chatting online with a man whom she’d become interested in. He said she was pretty. After more than a year of communicating with the man, he convinced her to flash her breasts via a webcam. She trusted him. Unbeknownst to her, he had taken a screen capture of her exposing herself. Not long after, he began threatening Amanda, saying he would distribute the images to her classmates if she did not give him more sexual content. After years of online stalking, public humiliation, and cyberbullying associated with this experience, Amanda hanged herself at home, just a few weeks before her sixteenth birthday.
This incident introduced the world to “sextortion,” which we formally define as the threatened dissemination of explicit, intimate, or embarrassing images of a sexual nature without consent, usually for the purpose of procuring additional images, sexual acts, money, or something else. Most often, a person sends an explicit image to someone voluntarily (usually a romantic partner or interest), and that person threatens to disclose the image to others if some demand isn’t met.
POLL: YOUNG AMERICANS SAY ONLINE BULLYING A SERIOUS PROBLEM
By MATT O’BRIEN and BARBARA ORTUTAY
WETHERSFIELD, Conn. (AP) — Teens and young adults say cyberbullying is a serious problem for people their age, but most don’t think they’ll be the ones targeted for digital abuse.
That’s according to a new poll from The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research and MTV, which also finds that about half of both young people and their parents view social media as having a mostly negative effect on the younger generation.
Fifteen-year-old Matty Nev Luby said she’s learned to navigate Instagram and other social media apps by brushing aside the anonymous bullies.
“When I see a really mean comment about my appearance or something I did, if someone said that to me online, it means nothing to me, but if I pictured someone I know saying that, I would be really upset,” Luby said.
Roughly three-quarters of 15- to 26-year-olds say that online bullying and abuse is a serious problem for their peers. Seven percent of young people say they have already been a victim of cyberbullying, with young women (11 percent) more likely to say they were bullied than young men (3 percent).
YOU CAN ACCESS THE RESEARCH STUDY HERE (Link)
ANU study shows humour key to dealing with workplace bullying
by Miriam Fisher
ullying is a rising concern common to many Australian workplaces, and a phenomenon not even the nation’s leaders can avoid.
But though the reasons behind bullying lie within the bully and their own shortcomings, their victims are often the ones left feeling powerless.
While the last thing victims may feel like doing in the situation is having a laugh, new research by the Australian National University has revealed humour may present the best path forward for organisations with bullies in their ranks.
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