Bullying can be a serious issue on Facebook and other social networks and online communities, especially for those in their teenage years. Here’s what Facebook is doing to help prevent this problem.
The Facebook Help Center has a dedicated page that discusses the issue and gives parents and teens ways to help avoid the problem. While there isn’t any specific anti-bullying tools, this is a good place to start if you feel like you’re being abused, and how you and your parents can help prevent it.
There’s actually separate sections for parents and teens, each detailing what can be done, and the tools that can be used to block or report an abusive person. It also provides information on removing unwanted tags in images.
Reporting nasty and mean people is easy. Just go to the profile of the person you want to report, and click the gear icon, and select Report/Block.
That brings you to a set options that allows you to better decide your course of action.
If you’re being bullied, Facebook encourages you to reach to persons you can trust, and also not to be afraid to do something about it — reports remain anonymous.
Parents get useful web resources they can use when dealing with bullying. They’re advised to make sure they go through privacy settings with their kids, in order to make sure everything works as how they want. The page also includes a video detailing the Facebook features that can be used to fight bullying on Facebook.
A fairly recent story of cyberbullying that sticks out is that of Amanda Todd, a 15 year old who posted a chilling video on YouTube that went viral where she uses flash cards to explain her story. She ultimately committed suicide because of the trauma.
It’s obvious that kids today are facing very different issues than the ones we did before growing up on the internet. I think this is a good idea on Facebook’s part and that it should be promoted more.
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