Social media has given the freedom of speech to everyone. People can now raise their voices against crime, misconduct, etc., and even use social media to appreciate good things.
However, like most things in the world. Social media has a bad face too. Some people fail to understand the real use of social media platforms and end up using these sites to spread negativity and harass people.
If you use social media, like Twitter, for entertainment or to gain knowledge, you should be aware of cyberbullying.
Cyberbullying on Twitter refers to using Twitter to send or post messages that might be considered offensive, hurtful, or mean. Cyberbullying on Twitter is a serious problem because it can have long-lasting effects on victims.
This article aims to discuss cyberbullying, its examples, statistics, how it can affect your life, and how you can prevent it.
Cyberbullying on Twitter
The most common form of cyberbullying on Twitter is sending out tweets with offensive or insulting content to the victim’s followers. The tweets are usually sent from an account with very few followers and follow only one person – the victim.
This type of bullying is called “flaming.” Flamers often send out insults and derogatory statements to their victims to provoke a response.
This section discusses how cyberbullies use Twitter’s features to bully their victims and what can be done about it.
How Cyberbullying Has Increased Since Social Media Platforms Used by Wider Audience
The study, conducted by researchers at the University of Houston (UH) and Rice University, examined the link between cyberbullying and various forms of social media use.
The researchers found that cyberbullying rates increased significantly as more people joined social media platforms. Hence staying safe on social media is important.
Since the internet data became cheaper, more and more people are joining along, and you all know that Twitter is the largest platform to publish your opinion on any particular thing. On the other hand, it is politically very traumatic.
A survey conducted last year of over 6000 people (10-18 years old) found that more than 50% of the children have experienced at least one type of cyberbullying in their lifetime. Nearly half of youngsters (47%) have received intimidating, threatening, or nasty messages online.
Twitter Cyberbullying Policy
Twitter has been criticized for its inability to control cyberbullying on its platform. For this reason, Twitter has recently updated its policy to address these concerns. The new policy will prohibit behaviors such as “hateful conduct” and “specific threats of violence or wishing for serious physical harm.”
The company will also be taking steps to protect victims by allowing them to report abuse directly from their account settings page.
Cyberbullying on Twitter Messages Examples
Cyberbullying can take many forms and can happen at any time. It can occur through email, text messaging, instant messaging, social networking sites such as Facebook and Instagram, or other online forums where people share their thoughts and ideas.
Cyberbullying on Twitter Statistics
Recent surveys by the authorities found that 7200 US teenagers use social media. The results indicated that 59% of teenagers surveyed used Twitter and social networking sites such as Facebook to communicate with one another.
The world has led to increased cyberbullying, especially among teenagers. Researchers have widely reported the issues surrounding teenagers and cyberbullying.
Cyberbullying uses information and communication technology to harass and harm deliberately, repetitively, and hostilely. Ditch the Label surveyed more than 10,008 teenagers and discovered that of the 43% who used Twitter, 28% had experienced cyberbullying.
Detecting a Cyberbullying on Twitter Using Machine Learning
Recently a machine learning model has been proposed to detect and prevent bullying on Twitter. Two classifiers, i.e., SVM and Naïve Bayes, are used to train and test social media bullying content. Naive Bayes and SVM detected true positives with 71.25% and 52.70% accuracy, respectively.
Here the proposed model will transform the data into a suitable form passed to the machine learning algorithms. The extraction of the features of the given data is done by the TFDIF vectorizer.
Supervised Binary classification machine learning algorithms like SVM with linear kernel and Naive Bayes are used to detect social media bullying automatically.
Both SVM and NB algorithms are used for the classification of the two-cluster. Both the machine learning models were evaluated on the same dataset.
List and Explain Social Media Platforms That Have a High Rate of Cyberbullying Cases
Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and Snapchat have a high rate of cases of cyberbullying.
Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram have many benefits, like staying connected with family and friends worldwide in minutes.
But they also provide cyberbullies a platform to create cruelty they want to inflict on others. Cyberpathy has some victims that claim Facebook’s reporting process is ineffective as it takes too long before action is taken against the bullies’ accounts.
Among all these platforms, youtube has the highest rate of cyberbullying with 79%.
Explain How and Why Twitter Has One of the Lowest Rates of Cyberbullying
While other social media sites such as Facebook, Instagram, and Snapchat have a high rate of cyberbullying cases, one study analyzed Twitter. And reported that their rate of cyberbullying is among the lowest, with one out of 20 Tweets containing cyber-bullying.
Current Twitter management systems have an easy reporting procedure within the platform, personalized account modification & detailed privacy guidelines all contribute to a safer and more secure environment.
With its easy reporting procedure within the platform, customization account modifications & in-depth privacy guidelines, social media platforms such as Twitter provide a much safer environment for all users even by containing high levels of notifications from followers.
Conclusion
Identifying the type of person in question is huge in deciding how to act or react. Is he angry and spewing a torrent of insults and making threats? Is she the type who vents but will often calm down if confronted?
Over time it’s important not to get frustrated, offended, or lose your temper when encountering these people online for our own sake and theirs.
If you face cyberbullying, delete that particular app or stay offline for some time, but this is not a permanent solution. If you are offended by that person, block him completely from your social media handles, and he will not appear to you anymore.
