Cyberbullying is classified as a computer crime, and despite differences among definitions the following elements have been identified as common features of cyberbullying: the use of electronic or digital means; the intention to cause harm; a sense of anonymity and lack of accountability of abusers as well as the publicity of actions. This type of bullying has recently become a large problem, especially within the youth. The EU institutions have recognized the dangers posed by cyberbullying. Cyberbullying is as a common threat to children’s well-being. According to an academic article from 2016 reviewing recent literature on cyberbullying, being the victim of bulling – both traditional and online - is associated with significant short- and long-term mental and physical health issues and academic achievement problems. Cyberbullying among young people seems to be a new form of a long-established problem and as such requires more attention and new approaches – especially with a greater and greater percentage of European countries’ young people being online regular-users. Victims of cyberbullying and other harmful actions online must be assisted to find effective ways to combat it. Likewise, youths who are perpetrators of cyberbullying or other harmful actions need to be informed about the consequences of their behaviour on the Internet. Therefore it is important to tackle cyberbullying and harmful behaviour online. Moreover, the awareness of bullying online and the sharing of good practices in this area across the EU should also be strengthened. This project wishes to address and combat the behaviour and harmful activities that European youth expose to each other online. More specifically, the focus will be to address and combat cyberbullying, and hereunder other harmful actions such as writing threats or hateful and abusive comments, non-consensual sharing of nude images/videos, and intentionally or unintentionally sharing other content that has a hurtful outcome for another person. Specifically, we will facilitate an international training activity (TA1) where a group of young people, named the frontrunners, from different countries gather to learn about cyberbullying and how to fight it. The training activity will give the youth skills and tools to fight and tackle cyberbullying. For example: how can you create campaigns against cyberbullying; how can you help victims of cyberbullying; what makes people do cyberbullying etc. After this training activity, the frontrunners will plan and coordinate a one-day national training activity (TA's) in their respective countries to reach a higher amount of youth who will fight cyberbullying. The topics of the one-day national training activities will be similar to those mentioned for the international training activity. Based on the topics and learnings of the training activities the content of the digital platform (O1), the application (O2) and the e-brochure (O3) will be concluded and executed. Besides the content on cyberbullying, the digital platform will entail a chat forum, which the frontrunners will be in charge of. The content of the digital platform will be developed in cooperation with the youth and the partner organisations, thereby ensuring that it will be at eye level with the target group. Therefore, whether the subject is challenging, difficult, fun or sensible, the content is easy to understand, share and approach. This will ensure that a wide variety of youth can be reached. Therefore, the combination of the training activities and the digital tools is an innovative way of improving young people’s motivation to participate in the fight against cyberbullying and establish good practices in this area across Europe.
The main project objective was to address and combat cyberbullying, and hereunder other harmful actions such as writing threats or hateful and abusive comments, non-consensual sharing of nude images/videos, and intentionally or unintentionally sharing other content that has a hurtful outcome for another person. Moreover, the awareness of bullying online and the sharing of good practices in this area across the EU should also be strengthened.
As all of us, but especially youth become more and more online, a new world to navigate occurs. A new world with both opportunities but also disadvantages. Some of the disadvantages being, rude language, harassment and cyberbullying. Whit this project we wished to target cyberbullying. We wanted to engage the youth in this problem, as we consider them the best people to make the change and fight the problem. Since writing the application, the problem has only risen and more people have become online users.