Who Are Adult Cyberbullies?

Workplace bullies follow you home on the computer.

Stalkers lurk on your ever post, your every digital move.

Your ex-boyfriend/girlfriend/spouse seeks revenge and talks trash about you on Facebook or publishes your private intimate photos and videos on YouTube and in spam text.

Disgruntled clients create a web page to destroy your business.

Unsuccessful job candidates seek revenge and create a web page to destroy your business.

Creditors troll your Facebook and send messages to your friends to ask questions about you. 

Strangers take issue with your looks, your name, your profession, your gender, your social status, your sexual preference, or your existence.

You don't have to go far to find an adult cyberbully. They sit in every nook and cranny of your computing devices, lying in wait, ready to pounce, just because technology makes it easy for them to do so.

@notonmyinternet shared a link to a 2015 New Yorker article that talks about how the Internet has changed basic bullying. Bullying researchers are finally seeing that cyberbullying isn't just a school age problem. It's as equally, or more, prevalent in the adult world.

The article admits: "To date, no one has systematically studied how different bullying settings affect bullying behavior..." Three years ago, when I began researching business and adult cyberbullying, there were very few links to people talking about it. The search engines would only bring up school bullies. Today, there are a handful of links, but most still revert to children.

There is a lot of room for psychologists and academic researchers to step up their game. Our lives and our economies depend on it. If you think about the impact cyberbullying has financially on adults and businesses ... if only there were more statistics. Because only then will our law enforcement have any teeth to prevent it.

Stop Paying Ransomware and Increasing the Payoff for Cyber Pirates

For the love of all things Internet, just stop it. Stop being so damned naive and dumb about cybersecurity and paying off ransoms. Just frigging stop it!

I just posted a blog entry on this a few months ago.

Ransomware payments solve diddly squat. Sure, the cyber pirate hacker may release your computer after you fork over thousands of dollars, but guess what. HE/SHE IS STILL INSIDE YOUR COMPUTER! What is to stop this hacker from just locking up your system again tomorrow? Nothing, nada, because you were too dumb and lazy to find a cybersecurity expert.

Cybersecurity and business cyberbullying is hard enough without compounding a crime with a bad decision and rolling out the red carpet for another pirate to say, hey, this idiot paid Hacker 14's ransom, he'll probably pay mine, too.

According to Lloyds of London, cybercrime costs businesses $400 billion a year. $100 billion of that is in the U.S. and the victim count is upwards of 556 million. It is expected that the global cost of cybercrime will net $2 trillion by 2019. Two trillion. At this rate, every gang banger is going to learn how to code. It's a better return than the drug trade.

Why? Because companies don't want to spend money on IT, and by the time they do, the hacker has been in their system for years. (See Sony.) How sad is it that even our educational institutions are set up for failure when it comes to this stuff. Case in point, the University of Calgary. Instead of paying ransomware, maybe the curriculum needs to include and force its administration to attend Cybersecurity and Information Technology courses. Oh wait, it does have a Business Technology Management course.

Look, I don't mean to be mean about this, but seriously, when the hell are businesses and organizations going to take this shit seriously? For every dollar you don't spend on IT, for everything you don't know about basic cybersecurity, updating software/apps, or just basic common sense, you put everyone who is connected to you through the Internet at risk.

Sure, companies don't really want to admit their mistake, but saying nothing and hoping it will go away just means all your employees, suppliers, family members, customers, and golf buddies just had their identities stolen and sold to the black market. Then to add icing to the hacker's cake, you just willingly gave him $20,000 top up the money he will earn from selling the credit cards and social security numbers because instead of finding a security expert, you chose to pay ransom instead.

Please, just stop it.

 

  

Australia's Chronicle Discovers Adult Cyberbullies Worse Than Kids

When readers responded to an article about the cyberbullying of students, they said that adult cyberbullies can actually be worse.

The Chronicle is actually looking for story examples from fellow Australians.

For more about the newspaper's story on adult cyberbullies, click here.

Every Cyberbully Target's Fantasy

Unfriended is a movie that was released this week (April 17, 2015) that is penned with a brilliant premise.

While it was created for the horror genre, in reality, it could fall under fantasy, at least in the idea that every cyberbullying target will fantasize about what they might do to their own bully.

The storyline goes like this: girl gets bullied online; girl commits suicide; girl's account comes to life and haunts her bullies online; bullies die off one-by-one. Can it get any better than that?

This is not to advocate taking any action against your bully, but we can all dream.

If I Say I Don't Like You Is It Bullying?

Disliking someone doesn't give you the license to be mean.

Cyberbullying behavior has less to do about how an individual feels about another and more about how they feel about themselves.

Even so, when someone pees in your Cornflakes, you don't have to eat out of that bowl.

40% Adults Are Targets of Cyberbullies: PEW

(At least) 75 percent of American adults have been witness to cyberbullying and (at least) 40 percent have experienced it first-hand. This is according to a 2014 PEW Research study.

The types of harassment between the sexes is the same, varying only slightly as to whether men or women experience a certain type more. Cyberbullies tend to engage in:

• Name calling
• Embarrassing someone
• Physical threats
• Long-term harassment
• Stalking
• Sexual harassment

The PEW results also show that about half of the targets didn't know their tormentors.

Being a Cyberbully is Easy

Adult Internet users who self-reported cyber-bullying, by relationship to the bully, 2009

Look no further than the comment feed to any major source article, Facebook page post, or YouTube video. Vile and contempt are everywhere. 

It is almost as if there is real money in being as mean as you can on the Internet. 

In reality, when an adult business owner is the target of a cyberbully, it does involve real money...in lost business. 

Being that bully is so easy to do that even the well-intentioned have worn those shoes at one time or the other.

This post by Stephen Hill of the Squamish Chief tells you how easy it is.

Bakery Example of Business Cyberbullying

A bully wakes up one day and decides to rain toxin at a small business establishment that is only trying to make good cupcakes. The only thing this business did to trigger this abuse was exist.

The bully takes to the Internet, initiates posts, trolls feeds, and engages a campaign of hate against the business and its owner.

This is the face of business cyberbullying. Sometimes the cyberbully is known to the target. Other times, the actual face may be hidden behind an anonymous avatar.

In the case of the Sweet Ambrosia Bake Shoppe, the campaign of hate has been at least two years in the making.

The Definition of an Adult Cyberbully

When cyberbullying happens to adults, it does more than affect a person's psyche. It seriously harms or destroys a business. Business cyberbullying is bigger than you might know.

+Michael Nuccitelli, Psy.D. describes a cyberbully as an +iPredator, someone engaging in cyber terrorism. If you think that is too harsh a description, try being on the receiving end.

Online predators can be anyone: a disgruntled client, someone who didn't get the job you advertised, a former employee, a family member, or someone you have never met who just decided that you would be their target for no reason whatsoever.

The Bullying Statistics website lists five character traits of an adult bully:

1. Narcissistic: lacks empathy and relishes in knowing they have caused you pain.
2. Impulsive: lacks impulse control and will troll on the fly when something sticks in their craw. Sometimes their behavior may be unintentional, but they are driven by their emotions.
3. Physical: they may physically harm their target or someone related to their target, or just the threat of physical harm lands them in this category.
4. Verbal: the predator demeans, humiliates, or uses verbal language to disparage their target. This form of bullying can be more devastating than physical bullying.
5. Secondary: the ones who do the piling on. They didn't initiate the post, but they keep it going with fervor.

Dr. Nuccitelli also lists 42 examples of cyberbullying.

If you are an adult who is the target, both personally and business, of an adult cyberbully, you are not alone and there are resources you can access for help.