“Trish, I’d be curious to hear your thoughts on how you think cyberharassment has changed over the last decade…”
Hi there, and welcome back to another week of Ask Trish. I hope you’re well and having a great March. (Can you believe that the month is nearly over? Once March comes to a close, we’ll be a quarter–yes, that’s right, 25%–of the way through the year. 😮)
Thank you so much to this week’s question-er for the fantastic question. As many of you may know, I am a passionate anti-cyberbullying activist–I’ve been advocating for a kinder, more inclusive digital world for over a decade now. In that time, there have been a lot of shifts–when I first started this work, for instance, “cyberbullying” wasn’t even in the common vernacular, but today, people across the country and around the world are increasingly united in the fight against online harassment. But cyberbullying itself has changed over the last 10 years, both in ways that complicate the monolithic term “cyberbullying” and in ways that have made it much more difficult for activists like me to counteract online hate.
Too often, though–particularly when we’re in the thick of this work–it can be easy to forget how things have changed. And that’s why I love this week’s question–it offers our community to look back and to look forward, to where we’ve been, where we are, and where we need to go, to build the digital world that today’s youth–and all digital citizens–deserve. In that spirit, in this week’s post, I briefly highlight some of the key ways I’ve noticed cyberbullying has changed over the last 10 years…and what these changes mean for the fight against online harassment today.
Sound like a plan? Let’s get into it:
- Cyberbullying, though increasingly relevant, doesn’t say it all; more subtle forms of digital exclusion are prevalent, too. Cyberbullying is an increasingly important issue for youth across the US and globally; according to Pew Research Center, 46% of U.S. teens aged 13-17 have been harassed online (that’s nearly half). Simultaneously, though, I’ve seen the rise of more subtle forms of digital exclusion and harassment that I often hear Gen Alpha complain about–such as intentionally refusing to tag someone in a post, cropping someone out of a picture, posting an unflattering picture of someone, posting a picture of someone that they specifically asked the other person not to post, accepting a follow request, but choosing not to follow back, refusing to like someone’s picture, leaving passive-aggressive comments on someone’s picture (“I mean your friend looks great”)…the list goes on and on. This is often not what we think about when we think about “cyberbullying”–and yet, scores and scores of young people that I meet are stressed, anxious, and unhappy because of these digital behaviors. (For another example of how small digital behaviors–in this case, not cyberbullying–can produce stress, see this recent Wall Street Journal article about half-swiping on Snapchat.) The takeaway, going forward, is that we need to worry just as much about the more extreme, in-your-face cyberbullying as we do about the more-difficult-to-detect–but equally damaging–digital exclusion so many youth experience.
- Image and video-based harassment is on the rise. When I first started this work, the most popular platforms out there were Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. Today, Twitter technically doesn’t exist any more…and Instagram has been joined by an array of other photo and video-based social media platforms, like Snapchat and TikTok. Perhaps unsurprisingly, with the rise of these image and video-based mediums for communication has come a torrent of image and video-based harassment. Students often tell me about physical harassment being filmed and then shared on Snapchat (indeed, interestingly, it seems that image and video-based platforms have led to greater physical fights); others have told me about racist and/or discriminatory memes that go viral on anonymous Instagram pages. The lesson learned as we look to the future is clear: going forward, we need to think critically about how different mediums for digital expression can facilitate different types of violence, both in-person and online.
- AI is completely upending everything. (As seems to be the case in many other contexts!) In the last year, I’ve read and heard about–sometimes directly from young people–countless experiences of AI-based harassment, whether it’s AI-automated cyberbullying or AI deepfakes being weaponized against youth. Indeed, lots of young people–especially young women–across the country have found themselves the victims of the distribution of non-consensual intimate imagery…that doesn’t even depict them. Instead, it’s an explicit AI deepfake…but because it looks so realistic, viewers think that it’s them…and the stress, anguish, and reputational damage is the same. (For one young woman’s experience with this issue, see this incredibly important article.) As we look ahead, then, as much as we must do everything to harness AI’s potential for good, we also need to be wary of its harm–and think carefully about who will be caught in the cross-hairs. Too often, it’s members of historically marginalized communities–who are underrepresented in the tech creation process.
I hope this post offered you some interesting food-for-thought! If, as you were reading, another question popped up in your mind, please go ahead and share it with me here. It certainly doesn’t have to be cyberbullying-related; questions on any and all topics are welcome! I can’t wait to hear from y’all–thank you so much in advance for contributing your perspective.
Have a great rest of your week,
Trish