Cyberbullying Research Articles

CyberCrime Against Women In India

Cybercrime in India have become one of the biggest issues in recent times especially when we are in the era where people post their day-to-day activities from their morning coffee to their dinner. The most disturbing cybercrimes though are often against women. Crimes in general, against women are increasing day by day but the most traumatizing crime against women would be cyber-crime. Cybercrimes are not only crimes that were once done physically but now online like eve-teasing, bullying, harassment and blackmail but they have gone to extreme level like hacking of personal data, cyber pornography, cybersex trafficking, cyber sexual defamation and morphing being the most frightening cybercrime of them all. This research paper aims to explain how several types of cybercrime against women in India are increasing at an alarming rate and how well the legal systems work to protect women against them. This research paper will include various reputed cases that made a huge impact in making laws for Cybercrime against women Utilizing a qualitative approach, the article examines key legislation, including the Information Technology Act and relevant provisions of the BNSS , alongside an analysis of real-life case studies.

Ethical Challenges and Misconduct in the New Media Environment: From Printing to Digital

This research paper explores into the transformative journey of Indian media from its inception in the 18th century to its current digital era. It examines the historical significance of print media during the pre - independence period, highlighting its role in shaping public opinion and fostering the freedom movement. The paper explores the transition to electronic media post - independence, including the emergence of radio broadcasting and the evolution of Indian cinema. Moreover, it scrutinizes the contemporary media landscape, encompassing the proliferation of television channels, the rise of OTT platforms, and the advent of digital journalism. Special attention is given to the ethical challenges faced by media professionals in the digital age, such as misinformation, clickbait, and online harassment. By analysing case studies and empirical data, the research aims to provide insights into how Indian media has adapted to technological advancements while upholding journalistic integrity and ethical standards.

Gender Differences in Online Harassment Perpetration among University Students in Korea: Impact of Patriarchal Family and Moderators

The influence of the patriarchal family environment on deviance has been limited to offline harassment perpetration. This study examines its impact on online harassment perpetration, incorporating moderating effects of differential association with peers engaging in online harassment and low self-control. Students attending universities in Seoul, South Korea, were surveyed about online harassment perpetration via smartphones. The OLS regression analysis of a sample of 301 students reveals that the patriarchal family environment is significantly associated with online harassment perpetration, with a notably more pronounced effect among men. Additionally, peer association showed enhancing effects, but this was significant only among women.

Who Wants to be a Journalist? Journalists’ Exposure to Violence on the Job

ABSTRACT Research shows that journalists are especially vulnerable to hostile situations that include physical or verbal violence, either online or offline. Digital environments have contributed to an increasing hostility, and women journalists seem to face a double burden. Violence toward journalists may endanger journalism as an institution, and it may add to the already extensive emotional labor experienced by journalists. Yet there seems to be a “normalization” of certain attitudes against journalists. Through semi-structured interviews with Portuguese journalists (N0 = 50), this research shows that most of them have faced violence on the job. Online abuse usually consists of threats and insults, via email, social media, or comments’ sections, and it is often normalized within newsrooms. Offline abuse occurs mostly in the coverage of events such as football matches, protests, political campaigns, or court hearings. Newsrooms are also a setting where journalists are under (psychological) violence, through intimidation or bullying.

Exploring the Influence of the Dark Triad on Indirect Cyber Aggression: A Longitudinal Study of a Taiwanese Sample.

A growing body of research suggests a link between Dark Triad personality traits and cyber aggression but inconsistencies exist. These inconsistencies may be due to limitations in past studies (e.g., using single measures of cyber aggression, summing up individual Dark Triad measures without assessing their interactions, and/or over-relying on cross-sectional data). To address these gaps, this innovative study followed a large sample of Taiwanese (N = 880) and employed a longitudinal design to examine the main and potentially interactive effects of individual Dark Triad traits (Machiavellianism, narcissism, and psychopathy) on three specific forms of indirect cyber aggression (cyberstalking, exclusion, and outing) assessed one year apart. By investigating these relationships over time, this longitudinal study aims to shed light on the nuanced interplay between personality and online misconduct. Findings reveal a significant interaction between Machiavellianism and narcissism, such that individuals high in both traits exhibit a greater propensity for all three forms of indirect cyber aggression. Moreover, individuals high on both psychopathy and narcissism are more likely to engage in outing behaviors, potentially due to the ease of accessing personal information online. These findings contribute to a deeper understanding of the complex interplay between personality and online aggression.

Exploring Adolescents Perceptions of School Safety and Experiences of Violence in Uzbekistan

School safety is a critical concern for educators, policymakers, and parents alike. Ensuring that students are safe from violence, bullying, harassment, and substance use is essential for creating a conducive learning environment. The aim of this study is to explore the perceptions of students about school safety and their experience of violence – physical, emotional and online harassment. The study employed a quantitative approach, using a multi-stage stratified sampling with random selection of schools based probability proportional to enrolment from the sampling framework. A total of 299 schools from all 14 regions of Uzbekistan with N = 22,854 students in the 6th, 9th and 11th grades, participated in the study. Results showed that despite the fact that the majority of students perceived school as a safe place, there was a constant proportion of students (varying from 1 to almost 2 out of every 10 students) who believed that schools are not safe due to students’ risky, violent and discriminatory behaviours. Boys, 6th graders and working students were more prone to believe that. Similar results were found about their experience of violence during the last month. It is of crucial importance to implement evidence-based programs that address issues related to bullying prevention, conflict resolution, mental health support, and substance abuse prevention to help foster a culture of safety within schools.

Cluster profiles of high school students in cyber bullying, cyber victimization, aggression, and coping

Cyberbullying has become a significant concern, particularly among teenagers, due to the advancement of digital technologies. This study aims to identify the cluster profiles as well as the role of gender, time spent on networking and age on these clusters. This study employed a self-administered survey to investigate cyberbullying among 812 adolescents attending public and private high schools in Selangor, Malaysia. The quantitative data was obtained using validated measures of cyberbullying and cybervictimization scale, coping strategies, and aggression. Data analysis used in this research were two-stage cluster analysis and chi-square statistics. The findings revealed that these teenagers can be categorized into three distinct cluster profiles namely highly cybervictimization, aggressive and depressive; low cyber victimization, aggression, depression and coping; and lower scores in cyber victimization, aggression, depression and higher scores in coping. Unlike previous studies, cluster profiles revealed no substantial correlation with gender. Instead, this study found that cluster patterns were linked to demographic factors, such as age groups. This study also highlights the correlation between cluster profiles and the utilization of social media in the dynamics of cyberbullying. Teens in Cluster 1, who devoted more than four hours per day to social media, experienced the greatest influence of cyberbullying, highlighting the significance of their online environment. This study sheds light on the issue of cyberbullying among Malaysian adolescents and highlights its intricate nature. To foster safer online environments for teenagers in the digital age, educational institutions, parents, and governments can develop specific efforts that identify cluster profiles and demographic factors.

COVID-19, school closures and (cyber)bullying in Germany

ABSTRACT We analyse the prevalence of bullying in Germany during COVID-19, both as in-person bullying (in our context: school bullying) and via social media and electronic communication tools (cyberbullying). Using Google Trends data from 2013 to 2022 and exploiting the COVID-19 pandemic as a natural experiment when schools switched to distance learning, we document stark changes in the prevalence of (cyber)bullying in Germany: Our results indicate that during school years affected by COVID-19, online searches for school bullying decreased by about 29 percent, while online searches for cyberbullying increased by about 40 percent during the same periods.

Not All Interventions are Made Equal: Harnessing Design and Messaging to Nudge Bystander Intervention.

This study examined the influence of design "nudges" on bystanders' willingness to intervene in online harassment using a social media simulation. Utilizing a 2 × 2 experimental design, we tested the ability of key design features (community guidelines and pop-up messaging) to induce a sense of self-efficacy (low/high) and personal responsibility (low/high) and thence to influence intervention levels. Participants (n = 206) were invited to "beta test" a new social networking site (SNS) for 15 minutes. All participants were exposed to four instances of online harassment against a victim. Bystanders in the low efficacy and high responsibility condition were most likely to intervene, although this finding only applied to "private" (e.g., direct, 1-2-1 messaging) rather than "public" (e.g., posting on a public feed) interventions. Overall, participants preferred "private" interventions that avoided public confrontation. Qualitative insights highlight a perceived lack of transparency in reporting options and a belief that interventions rarely made a difference as the "damage had been done." Results are discussed in relation to the amplification of personal responsibility when the SNS does not provide clear guidelines and reminders. We recommend ways of "designing in" nudges in practice, to facilitate bystander intervention.

Is rooting for the US Women’s National Team un-American? Populism and popular misogyny within conservative digital sports media

Following Megan Rapinoe’s statement that she would not attend a White House visit under former president Donald Trump, she and the United States Women’s National Team (USWNT) have become focal points of right-wing online abuse. To explore the connection between populist style common within right-wing media and the misogynistic treatment of women in sport, this study analyzes the intertwining logics of populist style and popular misogyny within media coverage of the USWNT on two conservative sports media outlets, Barstool Sports and OutKick. The findings indicate that the outlets utilize populist style to construct a cultural identity of their ideal American sports fan that stands at odds with the progressive ideals encompassed within the USWNT, making the team particularly susceptible to popular misogynistic treatment and attacks. As such, a critical analysis of gender must be incorporated into analyses and understandings of populist style.

Cyberbullying Detection and Prevention System for Enhancing Online Platform Safety Using Maximum Entropy Model

ABSTRACTThe widespread proliferation of social media platforms in the 21st century has undoubtedly brought about a significant shift in how individuals establish connections. However, it is essential to acknowledge that this technological innovation has also given rise to negative repercussions. The proliferation of online abuse, harassment, cyberbullying, and trolling has emerged as a significant concern, overshadowing the otherwise advantageous aspects of digital networking platforms. The detrimental effect of cyberbullying is of considerable concern, which often causes profound psychological and physiological anguish among its targets, sometimes resulting in contemplation of suicide. The proliferation of online harassment occurrences, including disclosing confidential dialogues and spreading detrimental rumors, has engendered extensive apprehension. The present research aims to address the pressing need to identify and mitigate cyberbullying within the context of social media platforms. A rigorous approach was used to gather data from Kaggle, which was further processed utilizing sophisticated methods like tokenization, stemming, and lemmatization. The research used the Maximum Entropy Model to develop a detection system to identify instances of bullying in texts or messages shared on social media sites. The algorithm exhibited a praiseworthy mean accuracy rate of 77% in detecting cases of cyberbullying. The results highlight the capacity of the algorithm to anticipate if remarks entered by individuals on social media might be classified as cyberbullying, representing a noteworthy advancement in addressing this widespread problem. This study supports the broader deployment of the created cyberbullying detection system across all social media platforms. The proactive use of this novel technology enables online platforms to effectively detect and mitigate cyberbullying, cultivating a digital environment characterized by enhanced safety and respect. This research illuminates the significant issue of cyberbullying. It presents a concrete remedy to protect the welfare of those who engage in online activities, particularly those more susceptible to harm, such as women and children.

PressProtect: Helping Journalists Navigate Social Media in the Face of Online Harassment

Social media has become a critical tool for journalists to disseminate their work, engage with their audience, and connect with sources. Unfortunately, journalists also regularly endure significant online harassment on social media platforms, ranging from personal attacks to doxxing to threats of physical harm. In this paper, we seek to understand how to make social media usable for journalists who face constant digital harassment. To begin, we conduct a set of need-finding interviews with Asian American and Pacific Islander journalists to understand where existing platform tools and newsroom resources fall short in adequately protecting journalists, especially those of marginalized identities. We map journalists' unmet needs to concrete design goals, which we use to build PressProtect, an interface that provides journalists greater agency when engaging with readers on Twitter/X. Through user testing with eight journalists, we evaluate PressProtect and find that participants felt it effectively protected them against harassment and could also generalize to serve other visible and vulnerable groups. We conclude with a discussion of our findings and recommendations for social platforms hoping to build defensive defaults for journalists facing online harassment.

Does Who You Are or Appear to Be Matter?: Understanding Identity-Based Harassment in Social VR Through the Lens of (Mis)Perceived Identity Revelation

The popularity of social virtual reality (VR) platforms such as VRChat has led to growing concerns about new and more severe forms of online harassment targeting one's identity characteristics (i.e., identity-based harassment ). Social VR users with marginalized identities (e.g., women, LGBTQIA+ individuals, and racial/ethnic minorities) have been reported as particularly vulnerable to such harassment. This is mainly because social VR can make one's offline identity known to others (i.e., what we term identity revelation in this work) through a unique combination of avatar design, voice use, and immersive full- or partial-body tracking. To address these safety concerns, there is an urgent need to unpack the complex dynamics surrounding how one's offline identity is (mis)perceived by others, and how these (mis)perceptions may affect identity-based harassment in social VR. This study thus utilizes a large-scale survey with 223 social VR users across six continents/regions of the world with varying social VR experiences and identities to investigate (1) the relationship between identity-based harassment in social VR and (mis)perceptions of selective identity revelation practices, (2) how embodying one's identity in social VR might actually be less risky than once thought, and (3) how who you are does still matter when it comes to identity-based harassment in social VR. It also highlights the need to better account for understudied aspects of identity-based harassment in social VR and to better educate social VR users on the interplay between harassment and (mis)perceived identity revelation in these spaces.

Modified Metaheuristics Optimization for Cyberbullying Detection on Online Data Science Platform

Online harassment detection faces significant challenges due to its expansive reach and anonymity. Addressing this issue demands effective detection mechanisms capable of processing vast data streams and adapting to evolving online language. Leveraging advancements in artificial intelligence, we propose a novel approach grounded in natural language processing (NLP) and metaheuristic algorithms. Our methodology integrates term frequency-inverse document frequency (TF-IDF) encoding and the AdaBoost algorithm for classification. To tackle the NP-hard problem of hyperparameter selection, we introduce a modified crayfish optimization algorithm (COA), termed GI-COA. This paper represents a pioneering effort in utilizing metaheuristic algorithms for hyperparameter selection in harassment detection models. Through experimentation, we demonstrate the efficacy of our approach in fostering a safer online environment. The best performing optimize models demonstrate and accuracy exceeding 77%.

Cyber Aggression and Suicidal Ideation in Emerging Adults: Examining the Potential Roles of Depressive Symptoms and Nonsuicidal Self-Injury.

Cyber aggression is prevalent among emerging adults and is associated with a range of mental and behavioral issues. One particularly concerning outcome is the widespread presence of suicidal ideation in this group, which poses a significant threat to their life. However, the specific impact of cyber aggression on suicidal ideation and the longitudinal mechanisms remains unclear. Hence, this study sought to address these gaps by applying the general aggression model (GAM). The investigation utilized three-wave longitudinal data with 6-month intervals from a large sample of Chinese emerging adults (N = 1568; 54.7% female; Mage = 19.70 [SD = 1.44], ranging from 17 to 26 years). The random-intercept cross-lagged panel model (RI-CLPM) was employed to explore the roles of depressive symptoms and nonsuicidal self-injury (NSSI) between cyber aggression and suicidal ideation at both the between- and within-person levels. The findings indicated that, at the between-person level, there were trait-like associations between depressive symptoms and cyber aggression, NSSI, and suicidal ideation. At the within-person level, cyber aggression exhibited unidirectional positive cross-lagged effects on depressive symptoms and NSSI, and could subsequently indirectly lead to suicidal ideation via the contemporaneous associations from depressive symptoms and NSSI to suicidal ideation. These results not only align with GAM but also shed light on the underlying mechanisms linking cyber aggression to suicidal ideation. Also, the findings underscore the significance of maintaining a positive network environment for the well-being of all internet users even cyber aggression perpetrators.

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An Exploratory Study of Fact-Checking Practices in Conflict and Authoritarian Contexts

This study explores fact-checking practices in Ethiopia and Mali in times of conflict and in a context marked by increasing restrictions to press freedom. The objective is to understand how, in this hostile environment, fact-checkers in these two countries manage to carry out their activities. Our findings reveal that fact-checkers are often victims of online bullying and harassment and fear reprisal from governments. This pushes them to self-censor, avoiding working on sensitive topics, such as military issues in Mali. In addition, fact-checking organizations in both countries highlight the difficulty of accessing reliable sources. Consequently, they focus more on debunking viral social media content, thus effectively becoming content moderators who have turned away from the mission of holding leaders accountable, one of the primary functions of fact-checking. Regarding their role conception, fact-checkers in Ethiopia and Mali see themselves more as guides helping navigate the information disorder than “guardians of truth” or “truth keepers.”

Social media affordances of LGBTQIA+ expression and community formation

Faced with offline discrimination, LGBTQIA+ users frequently turn to social media to find role models, build social networks and test out new forms of self-expression. Each platform has its own affordances and governance processes which can, in turn, facilitate or impede self-expression and community growth. Through a survey of 120 LGBTQIA+ participants, this paper considers which social media affordances facilitate the creation and development of LGBTQIA+ identities, support online and offline community formation and peer-to-peer learning, whilst limiting opportunities for online abuse. While previous research has so far largely focused on younger LGBTQIA+ users' experiences on SM, we found that broadening our sample to include older participants can lead to novel reflections on platforms' potential and/or challenges towards expressing one’s queerness online. For example, while users young and old found the visibility of other LGBTQIA+ accounts inspiring, entertaining and reassuring, particularly within previously stigmatised expressions of bisexuality, we found that older participants preferred to be selective about their outness, or sometimes to not be out at all, not simply for fear of harassment or context collapse, but also because of historical factors around family and friend relationships or because their identity experimentation had already happened offline. We also identified contrasting views about outness and the use and visibility of pronouns, reminding us that the online LGBTQIA+ community is not a monolith in its beliefs and practices, particularly when different life stages are considered.

A comprehensive survey of cybercrimes in India over the last decade

Since the 1990s, the integration of technology into daily life has led to the creation of an extensive network of interconnected devices, transforming how individuals and organizations operate. However, this digital transformation has also spurred the rise of cybercrime, criminal activities perpetrated through networks or computer systems. Cybercrime has become a global concern, presenting significant challenges to security systems. Although advancements in digital technology have enhanced efficiency, they have also opened new avenues for exploitation by cybercriminals, highlighting the urgent need for advanced cybersecurity measures. The escalating number of cyberattacks and associated risks in the past decade highlights the critical importance of protecting sensitive data and safeguarding information systems. Cybercrimes range from financial fraud and phishing scams to identity theft and online harassment, posing substantial risks to both individuals and organizations. In response, governments, law enforcement agencies, and cybersecurity units have intensified their efforts to address these threats. In recent years, India has experienced a significant surge in cybercrime incidents, with a notable increase in cases involving ransomware, data breaches, and social engineering attacks. The growing penetration of internet services, the expansion of e-commerce, and the rapid adoption of digital payment systems have made individuals and organizations more vulnerable to cyber threats. Key areas affected include banking, healthcare, and government sectors, which are frequently targeted due to the sensitive nature of the data they handle. To combat these risks, there is an increasing focus on public awareness, cybersecurity education, and robust regulatory frameworks. This paper provides an in-depth analysis of cybercrime, with a focus on developing innovative prevention strategies, strengthening internal security protocols, and classifying key cybercrime terminologies to better understand their implications for digital infrastructure.

Cybersecurity and personal privacy: Protecting yourself in the digital age

The internet has revolutionized communication, work, and life, offering unprecedented opportunities and conveniences. However, as our dependence on the digital world grows, so do the risks to our personal information, privacy, and security. Cyberattacks, online harassment, and cyberstalking are no longer rare occurrences—they have become everyday threats that anyone can face. Understanding and implementing robust cybersecurity measures is essential for protecting yourself in this increasingly connected world. This article explores effective ways to safeguard against cyberattacks, respond to online harassment, prevent cyberstalking, and remove your personal information from websites that share it without your consent.