Welcome to the Age of Cyber-bullying

Friday, 25 November 2011 06:30

Written by Aaron Benedict De Leon

According to recent statistics, the Philippines ranks 8th as far as the number of Facebook users per country is concerned, with 26,752,000 users. Meanwhile, Facebook’s penetration in the Philippines is about 26.78% of the country’s total population, with youngsters from ages 18-24 comprising 39% of the Philippine FB population. If the use of social media in broadcast, print and radio is not an indicator, these figures should bare the truth about the state of Social Networking in the country.

For many reasons, Facebook has made the 7,100 islands of the Philippines a little more compact, with interconnection being its most essential feature, cutting across the cultural, ethnical and topographical gaps because of our archipelagic state as a nation. Ideas, Opinions, Perspectives and Facts are shared to various networks, as a means to educate and inform the general public on current events and issues that face our society today.

Horizons have indeed been opened by the emergence of Facebook as a tool for communication, but it has also paved the way for the resurgence of negative propaganda to find a new and alternative hub.

Who would forget Chris Lao who was victimized by the facebook republic for his “I was not informed statement” during the onslaught of typhoon Quiel earlier this year? Perhaps, the most noticeable figure who has been subject to a lot of this is the President himself, President Noynoy Aquino. The bottomline here, it seems, is that nobody is safe or abstained from the scrutiny of the Facebook Republic.

And since this is a freeware, we should not expect the Facebook team to have sufficient control mechanisms to deter this untowardly behavior. With the rapidly increasing figure of Facebook users throughout the world, this reality makes it even tougher for the management team to put in responsive safety features to combat unbecoming behavior by most FB users.

The Fact is…

With the advent of the age of information comes its adverse- the rise of the age of cyber-bullying.

As defined by Wikipedia, Cyber-bullying is the use of the Internet and related technologies to harm other people, in a deliberate, repeated, and hostile manner.

In many parts of the world, governments and many civil society organizations have moved towards criminalizing cyber-bullying.

Of course here in the Philippines, as you all know it, because of the bureaucracy and other political priorities of our legislators, it will take some time before the legislature can create a law to combat cyber-bullying.

With that in mind, how do you prevent this from going widespread across the Filipino Facebook or Social Media strata? More so, how do you protect yourself from being a victim of cyber-bullying?

It’s actually simple-

1. “Don’t do something silly or stupid in front of the camera”
2. “Don’t make derogatory statements that insult a person, a group or an entity in.”

This is unless you love the limelight and love being at the center of every national issue, just like politicians and other media personalities.

There are two emerging concepts in Social Media nowadays- its either you become a “hit” or an “epic fail.” Given that, if you decide to post something you know would attract attention, you should be ready for the eventuality of becoming a hit or an epic fail. The more you are unprepared, the more you will suffer from Social Media popularity or criticism (either way, your private life will be disturbed).

The most important thing everybody should bear in mind is captured well by GMANews.tv’s campaign- “Think Before you Click.” Before you even know it, a post or a status message may have been read by thousands and millions of FB users, so it pays well to be careful in terms of expressing your thoughts.

Don’t think that the Facebook Republic is more forgiving than the Government. The Facebook Republic does not exercise tolerance and patience over online boo boo’s.

So the next time you go online and post and even repost status messages, exercise more caution and think of what will happen after.

Don’t expect the government to protect you if they cannot even protect its own against the social media backlash. Don’t expect people to express sympathy for you especially if their reaction could potentially be a way for other users to bully them as well.

When it comes to Social Media, when it comes to combating cyber-bullying, it’s all on you, and you have no one to trust, not even Facebook itself.