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.

Offline Threats By Adult Cyberbullies Causes Wedding to Cancel

It doesn't matter how strong you are mentally or physically, a cyberbully can get into your psyche and destroy it. Anyone can be a target.

There is not very much about adult cyberbullying online as Sarah Donohue learned when she struggled to find help. There were threats that the online assault would endanger her offline, so she cancelled her wedding and moved to a new location.

Customers Who Are Bullies

"People treat us this way (with disrespect) because they don't respect us." +Jeff Mowatt

Do you ever find in business that the people who pay the least amount of money for your services or who wine and dine you until they learn the contract isn't free, these are the ones who cause you the most grief?

Most of the time, before you sign someone up, you have an inner sense that this might be a difficult customer. But you want their business anyway because they may be high profile or they're someone with an interesting job description. Other times, the customer catches you off guard.

Sometimes, not always, that sixth sense comes true. Maybe the reason you feel it beforehand comes down to seven letters: r-e-s-p-e-c-t. You don't necessarily feel that it goes both ways.

You may be just starting out and you need the business. Unfortunately, that is when you talk yourself into such a contract, even if you know it's going to be a dud. They nickle and dime you and have a freak-out on every little thing that doesn't go exactly to plan. If you're not available at the customer's beck and call, they berate you until they bring you to tears, all because you weren't there for some answer to an impromptu question that could have waited until morning.

Mowatt says everything comes down to this: equal status. Both you and your customer are equals. If it doesn't feel that way, then you may want to reconsider continuing the relationship.

The sad thing is that you have no control over your customer's behavior. They can easily post a horrific review about you on Yelp or worse.

Certainly if your client is a bully, nothing you can do or say will alter his or her behavior. You can only distance yourself and go about your day. If they decide to use the Internet as a weapon, then document everything, investigate as to which laws they might be breaking, and file a police report, then go about your business as if they don't exist.

Cyberbullies Troll on Job Seeker's Creative Resume

A lot of us can relate to Jamie Kyle. He's a 28-year-old creative looking for work in London, United Kingdom. Job hunting is hard enough without a bunch of trolls trying to sabotage your efforts.

Kyle came up with a cool idea of handing out scratch cards to potential employers, where the prize was the ability to recruit a professional artist and illustrator. His idea was innovative enough to capture some positive attention in the socialsphere, including a Buzzfeed post.

Enter Reddit, which seemed to give him the most grief. Posting examples of his work there triggered an onslaught of haters.

One can never appease, or erase, the hateful posts of a cyberbully, even when you just want to apply for a job.

This Mirror story offers up some help for those who might find themselves in a similar position.

Keep Ya Head Up: How Small Businesses Can Win Against Cyberbullies and Trolls | Andrew Chau

Keep Ya Head Up: How Small Businesses Can Win Against Cyberbullies and Trolls | Andrew Chau

"At one point in my life...I was that guy, the person who would post a one-star review simply because I waited too long or someone gave me attitude. I get home and say to myself, "Surely, I'm going to show them!" In reality, it didn't show anyone anything other than how spiteful I was-- like I had it out for the employee or business. It's like I want him or her to get fired over spilt milk (ironically, that did happen one time). That was just mean-spirited and immature."


I think many of us can relate. To echo the words of Maya Angelou, when we know better, we do better. 


Think before you post.

Cyberbullying in the Workplace

The workplace can be a gut-wrenching environment for some when you have a bad boss, a job you hate, or your income is such that you need a second job. Sprinkle in the element of cyberbullies and the stress factor goes through the roof.

As the bully's weapon of choice tends to be email, texts, and social media, while those elements may seem hidden from the workplace environment, the impact it has on a company's bottom line can be devastating.

Workplace cyberbullying is seeping in your computers like a flock of locusts during The Great Depression. Trolls are hungry for power and do not care who they take down or why.

In a study from Punched from the Screen, 80% of the 320 respondents had experienced workplace cyberbullying.

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.

Revenge Porn

Relationships. They take a lot of work to keep it together. Part of that effort might involve a webcam or a camera, where couples "get naughty" with each other and use the pictures to spice things up. But what happens when that relationship goes sour. What happens to the images then?

Statistics show that the divorce rate in the United States and Canada ranges from 40 to 50 percent. There are no real numbers as to the solvency of non-married relationships.

Because we know a lot of breakups end badly, because it is so easy for a disgruntled partner to use the Internet for payback, the many of the United States have specifically introduced Revenge Porn as part of legislation. This is an effort to try and protect people from having unwanted images published without their consent. Even social media is stepping in to take action against those who use intimate images as a revenge tactic.

It's a big problem. Spouses are using the threat of publishing compromising photographs and videos to get what they want in a divorce proceeding.

Enter the social media prenuptual, which is actually takes care of the postnuptual should the couple separate or divorce. More and more couples are spelling out in black and white with a notarized signature that they will not engage in revenge porn should the relationship end.

Monica Lewinsky Is Patient Zero From Adult Cyberbullying

"Imagine walking a mile in someone else's headlines."

For over 20 years, Monica Lewinsky has been branded worldwide by Internet "stone throwers." That is what she calls those who continually and relentlessly publicly humiliate her about something that happened when she was 22. A lot of us have done what she did. Only for the rest of us, it may not have been plastered throughout the 24-hour news cycle or joked about on every television comedy hour and stand-up routine.

At age 25/26, I had an affair with my married boss that lasted over a year. I was fresh out of a divorce, in a new job and city, and was about a year into my singlehood. Unlike Lewinsky, I don't think I was in love with him. I might have been 22, when I married the first man I met after a volatile courtship that became only more capricious after the ceremony. I sewed my oats, big time, once the Decree Absolute was served. I was unabashedly brazen for at least 20 years.

When you look at Lewinsky's story in context, now that you know better and are not being influenced by the late-night comics and the pundit news media that gets its advertising dollars from piling on someone's misfortune and shame, you see just how tragic it is.

I remember when her nightmare started. It didn't sit right with me that it was her so-called friend, a confidant, who secretly recorded their private conversations and shared them with the world. I needed a shower after just hearing that. There can be no greater betrayal. I'm fortunate that a lot of my escapades were done before the Internet. However, who knows if someone had some sort of recording device or secret pictures that are now circulating on the deep web.

A lot of people can relate to Lewinsky's Internet experience. Just ask anyone who has been cyberbullied, who have had their personal reputation disparaged by a dedicated web page or had their private moments and words shared publicly without permission and without context.

Kudos to Lewinsky for finding her voice. She has become my personal hero as a result. Her message is clear and echos what I have been working on for the past couple of years: clean up the Internet one post at a time. How you do that is a) post positively and b) report bullying.

http://www.ted.com/talks/monica_lewinsky_the_price_of_shame

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.

Canada's New Cyberbullying Law

On March 9, 2015, a new law will come into affect that will give law enforcement more teeth to charge cyberbullies in Canada. Bill C-13's controversy is that it will also give the government more surveillance powers.

+Allan Oziel describes the law: it will be an offence to knowingly publish, distribute, transmit, sell, make available or advertise an “intimate image” of a person without that person’s consent, where there was a reasonable expectation of privacy.

Under the new law, an +iPredator can be forced to remove content and stay off the Internet AND have their devices confiscated. Offenders can receive up to five years imprisonment.

The law only applies to images broadcast on all forms of media, whether it be photograph, print, or video. So if, say a cloud server was hacked and private unpublished nude photographs were shared publicly and subsequently reshared, the individuals posting and resharing could be prosecuted under this law.

There does not appear to be a statute of limitations with this act as there are with the other cyberbullying crimes, which fall under libel, harassment, and collection laws.

Here is a legislative summary of C-13.

In order to prosecute under any law, important for businesses and individuals to document their bully's trail of toxin.

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.

Celebrity Phonegate

Did she or didn't she?

After a volatile episode of The Celebrity Apprentice, the question on viewer's lips is: Did Kenya steal Vivica's phone?

To fill you in, there has been tension between the women from the get-go. Suspicion comes in when before the team hits the boardroom to learn their fate in episode six. Circumstantial evidence was broadcast by Kenya herself when she looked into the camera and boasted, "Little do they know I have some tricks up my sleeve."

Is this tweet also an admission of guilt?

Sure, this all makes for good television drama on one of network television's most popular show. But seriously? If your coworker stole your phone and hinted about it in a boast, then suddenly a derogatory tweet showed up as seemingly posted by you, wouldn't you call your lawyer?

Kenya may not have stolen Vivica's phone and perhaps it's just a strange coincidence. But if she did, there is a term for this type of behavior and it does also come in the form of a hack: cyberbullying.

It is a crime. It may not be named as such in your state, provincial, or federal legislation. It will be dressed up as theft, harassment, and defamation libel, but it is still a crime.

Debt, Collections, Economy, and Unemployment Can Lead to Cyberbullying

When the economy plummeted into the financial abyss in 2008, for some, it took a year or so for the real impact to show its ugly face.

There may have been a slight upturn after 2012, but the damage was so great that many North Americans have yet to recover.

It's more than about losing a job or taking a bath in the stock market. Whole industries nosedived off a cliff. The economic tank coincided with digital technology forcing the world to rethink how it does business and to reshape its ways of communicating.

People didn't just lose their jobs, those positions became obsolete. 

What happens when as a business person, your expenses exceed your income because your industry is either dying or reinventing itself? You lay off your staff, but you're still drowning in a world of debt you incurred during the year the floor collapsed. There is no unemployment insurance, no cushion for small businesses. Even a bankruptcy costs money.

If the employee was lucky enough to collect unemployment insurance, by the time the insurance ran out or when two years were up, most still had trouble finding a position for numerous reasons: ageism, those jobs they were qualified for no longer existed, too many candidates for the same job, logistics, lack of training.

With only part-time and piecemeal contract work available, the underemployed's household bills pile up and food and rent begins to take priority over all other bills. People will use their credit cards to pay for their utility bills until the juggling from here to there catches up with them. 

A third to one half of the U.S. population has debt in collections, according to +USA TODAY. +The Economist reports that student debt is 7% of the U.S. GDP. In Canada, the +The Globe and Mail reports "On a per-capita basis, household net worth rose to a record $232,200."

One industry that has grown in this environment is debt collections. While the business may be a necessary evil to our society, some of the individuals working the files may be practicing illegal behavior in their desperate attempt to close a case file.

They may use abusive tactics by phone and email, but there are some who take it a step further and publicly try to shame a debtor by disclosing their debt across the Internet. The laws are similar in both Canada and the United States when it comes to prohibitive debt collection practices. It is laid out in both countries' debt collection acts.

The piling on by collections when a person is down and out is bad enough. Abusive behavior is inexcusable. Know your rights.

5 Tips to Manage Your Trolls

1.

Here are five steps to manage your Internet trolls:

1. Post a policy on all of your social media sites that you will not tolerate bullying, spammers, and abusive trolls that hijack your feeds. Warn them that their comments will be deleted and they may be blocked.

2. Set up notifications for the comments on your feeds so that you can address an abusive or spam post once it hits your social media.

3. Assess if the post is hateful, spam, or just an adverse opinion and warrants being deleted or kept.

4. Delete the post if it doesn't serve a meaningful discussion.

5. If the user shows up again to hijack your feed in the same way, take them out of your media. If you suspect they are not a real person (a phisher) or if they've been abusive in any way, then don't hesitate to block and report them.