1. What is cyberbullying?
Cyberbullying is when you're being bullied via the internet. For example Social Media websites and apps, such as Instagram, WhatsApp, ask.fm, Tellonym, Facebook, Twitter and many more. It's a type of bullying that attacks your mental health. It can be hate messages, such as „no one loves you“, „you're fat“ or „kill yourself“ and pictures of you (nudes, embarassing pictures etc.) that are being sent around the internet, but it can also be less harsh, for example people just calling you dumb.
2. What exactly happened to Rebecca that caused her to kill herself?
Rebecca has received a lot of hate messages on a few websites and via whatsapp. Kids from her school told her to kill herself and sent her pictures of her scars (caused by cutting herself). Kids in her school also bullied her in the „traditional way“. They pushed her around, called her bad names and a few also hit her. She had changed schools but it didn't really help. Her parents took her phone away and removed her accounts from facebook, but after she changed schools it got even worse on a website called „ask.fm“. Ask.fm is a website where you can ask someone questions anonymous. Before she killed herself, she changed her name to „That Dead Girl“ and sent goodbye messages to 2 of her friends.
3. What could parents, operators of applications as facebook and the school do to fight cyberbullying? Include what is written in the text but also come up with your own ideas.
Parents could take their kids' phone/PC away, delete their Social Media accounts and maybe move to another city/change schools. Operators of applications could ban the bullies to take away their ways of bullying them via the internet. And schools could give the bullies punishments, such as detention for a long time, or even kick them out of the school.
4. What is your experience with cyberbullying? Do you think it is more of an issue in the US than in Germany? Why (not)?
We haven't experienced it yet and we do not know anyone that has been cyberbullied. But we think that it is the same issue in every country, because it shouldn't happen at all. They bully others in order to show dominance over them and try to „put them in their right place“. They think it's funny to threaten people and make their lives worse. They think it's funny to drive others into having suicidal thoughts.