Syed Shataj Hosain
Research Proposal Paper.
Professor Samantha Bellamy
English 10100
November 5th, 2019

The context of my exploration question is about Cyberbullying. The question that interests me is,” What responsibilities do social media networks have towards cyberbullying? “ This question interests me because the more people will be aware of this topic, the more we can prevent cyberbully. This question is very shunned because people really do not give much attention about being cyberbullied and it is a widely spread topic among the social and digital media. Cyberbullying is using technology to intimidate, spread rumors, harass, threaten people emotionally, verbally and mentally using social and digital media. People do not feel ashamed or feel guilty after cyberbullying. Instead of that they do it because maybe they are bored, motivated by anger, revenge or frustration. Most of the time the comments people make is already out on the internet and others probably has taken the picture or screenshots even after victim deletes that. Sometimes it impacts on the children but also in today’s generation it is getting popular among adults too. Most of the argument on the sites is about how teens are getting affected and why are not social media not taking any action towards it.

In the New York Times article, “ Instagram Unveils A Bully Filter” by Laura M. Holson how social media is very aware about cyberbullying. They launch new technology and filters on Instagram that will show people who do harassment comments and suggest them to ban. The new instagram filters will hide comments attacking a person’s appearance or character, and alert instagram to repeat offenders. Beside instagram there are also many other social sites like facebook, twitter, youtube where people are being bullied everyday. And that is why, companies are developing many different filters and ideas to stop this. Another blog post, “Responsibilities and Solution” by Ken Riccardi gives examples of students who suicides because they were being bullied on social media. Riccardi gives real life examples of people who have been bullied by some way and committed suicide.The writer used a vast amount of evidence and references including charts about cyberbullying. Ken Riccardi also talks about how people should be responsible and find solution for cyberbullying on social media. The audience would be the social media people, predators who do all the harassment comments on social media and all the victims.
In the BBC News article,”Social media firms ‘failing’ to tackle cyber-bullying” infers that how social media is failing to keep track of cyberbullying. Almost half of 1,089 11 to 25-year-olds questioned for the Safety Net Report had experienced threatening or nasty social media messages, emails or texts.Most of the teenagers would not share if they experience anything upsetting on social media because they think parents will stop them from using it. However,83 percent of the people who use social media want to media companies to take action about being cyberbullied. An inquiry was set up by Tory MP Alex Chalk, together with two children’s charities where they found that cyber bullying over social media happens for so many reasons. Uploading persistent message, sharing embarrassing photos or information online and hate might turn out to be outrageous and cause bullying. However, a 15 years old female survey respondent said that young people today “kind of expect” to experience cyber-bullying. She says most people do not take this matter seriously which leads that in a negative way. Cyberbullying revolves around in the media because if somebody does that, other people get influenced and do the same.And that is why social media companies and government made policies like, repost to the bullying in 24 hours, give young and new users clear instructions how to behave on the social sites, take tough action who break the rules, lauch online safety lessons in school, require social networks to report cyberbullying data to stop social media bullying.Cyber Bullying can ruin people’s lives if people do not take this topic seriously.

In the CCN article,”She was called the n-word and given instructions to slit her wrists.” by Elizabeth Cohez shared her experience about cyberbully that she get to know while doing her research. Elizabeth says how people can say inappropriate words to each other and still be on social media. Cyberbully influence people to harass each other without no actual reason. Some people influence others by telling them to suicuede or give hate comments. Elizabeth Cohen also shared a report about Aisha Odom who had Crohn’s disease and can’t receive certain immunizations. She shared her post on facebook and after a few days she started getting hate comment and n-word which made her physically more sick.One of Facebook user told her to slip her wrist and gave a very racial comments. Facebook blocked her Id for 30 days so that she cannot use her messenger. However, they opened it after a while and it was not to protect other users from cyberbully. Although, Facebook launched many new tools to protect their users from violation and cyberbully. Facebook introduced “new tools and programs so people can better control unwanted, offensive or hurtful experiences on Facebook,” including the ability to report when a friend or family member is possibly being bullied or harassed. Also, the CEO of Facebook says how their company need to be more aware to protect the users privacy and avoid the violated comments.

The article,” Social Networks Adapt to prevent Cyberbullying” by Steven White illustrate how many children are getting threatened, harassed and subjected act of cyberbullying on facebook. Over 76 percentage of teenagers are active on social media and they use intended to use social media more than usual rate. They spend almost half of their day on social media and this why they know exactly what is going on out there. According to facebook report over 93 percentage usage is teenagers and it is containing the rate of cyberbullying on facebook. Because of cyberbullying in high on social media it is allowing the users to appropriate tools like repost feature,this post is a problem, harrassment contract etc which will help the users to repost their problems and the companies will take action over that issue.The CEO of ImageVision tells how their company sites are really resprickted about thier social media site and takes action over cyberbullying.

The blog post,”Cyberbullying and Social Media”publisher Bahati Russull justify his own opinion about what he feels about the cyberbullying and what is social media like Facebook is taking action towards it. Cyberbullying is spreading in a vast amount of society which leaves negative damage. He also wrote about his own experience that impacted his life. The author was being bullied and he was nervous about how people have seen the hateful comments.Social media has a big impact on our lives and also gives everyone a voice to express themselves. People might delete the comments that was hurtful but eventually some people have it because they might take a screenshot and shared it.So,after all it leaves a bad effects on the people and the society. And that’s why nobody thinks anything before doing or saying about others. Rusell did not feel humiliated when he was victimized instead of that he felt insecure because social media people may have already saved it even if it was deleted. There are about 4,400 cases of individuals that have committed suicide because of cyberbulling over the social media.However, social media like Facebook,Twitter, Instagram have nearly taken so many new policies to stop cyberbulliyng. They launched tools that repost the inappropriate comments, block the user, repost Id and many other techniques to stop cyberbullying over the social media.

“Instagram rolls out new features in an effort to combat cyberbullying” the article by Kylie Wiggers give an explanation of how 65 percantage of child and 22 persantage of adults gets involved in a cyber-bullying incident and most tend to occur on social media. The company is liable for the actions of the users because they are getting the freedom to do it without any actions from the sites. However, Facebbok and Instagram opened new features to avoid cyberbullying.

New facets aimed at combating cyberbullying and different types of net mistreatment. Three new equipment, the potential to disable comments, the ability to “like” comments, and the capability to take away followers from personal accounts follow on the heels of a filter that lets users cover remarks with the aid of keyword.Also these companies are working on “around the clock” to monitor reports of suicidal behavior.Companies like Facebook, Twitter, and Google have tried to curb online harassment with new on-line tools in 2016. YouTube rolled out a characteristic that routinely flags doubtlessly abusive comments. Twitter brought an excellent filter tool which uses synthetic intelligence to detect and cover threats, abusive language, and offensive content from Twitter timelines, and mute facets that permits customers to block out precise words, phrases, hashtags, Twitter handles, and emojis.However,victims of bullying are at higher risk for fitness issues and over six instances extra probably to be identified with a serious illness, smoke regularly, or increase a psychiatric ailment compared to those not involved in social media bullying.

The article by Jun Wu “AI, Cyberbullying,and Social Media” describes how social media is involved in cyberbullying. Jun Wu says cyberbullying is now not only a virus that infects people’s experiences online but also leads to real life stalking and harassment.Social media businesses who are trying to shield their personal social media communities online to be more effective the cyberbullying and that is why they are identifying different kind of technologies to prevent it.AI can identify language and classify speech efficaciously on massive portions information where human beings can not. Algorithms can additionally adapt and enhance the accuracy of identifying cyberbullies as they research extra about the bully’s online activities. Recently, Instagram started to use technology to combat online trolls and harassment. Facebook has a content moderating team that employs human in conjunction with using AI technologies to identify harassment online, monitor and remove fake accounts.Twitter also uses AI technological know how to spot spam and apprehend negative interactions. Twitter helps users to curate their personal experiences with the aid of presenting the best, nice experiences on the user’s feeds. If we block anybody on Twitter, possibilities are comparable bills from the identical individual will end displaying up on your Twitter feed.Google and Jigsaw developed the AI moderating tool, Perspective, to scorecomments primarily based on similarities with other feedback labeled as “toxic” by way of human reviewers. Youtube also use this device to fight online harassment on its platform to prevent cyberbullying on social media sites.However, cyberbullying on the rise every day, each and every character has the responsibility to defend our personal on-line experiences.

Social media affects people everyday in so many ways. In my opinion, social Networking has taken bullying to the extreme level. Before advanced technology, kids and young adults had been bullied over school and socially but today, they are being bullied over the internet too. Most humans undergo some shape of bullying in life. Growing up, I experienced some spiteful comments too.Also in today’s generation, I’m noticing so many people going through the same problem of being bullied not only socially but also in visually which is over social media. However, it happened to me when I was so young. But in today’s generation it spread to the adults too. I interviewed a 30 years old female who was bullied for getting married to an older guy. I had to change the name of the victim to keep her privacy.

1.Interviewer- When was the first time it happened to you and why?
-Nadia- When I first uploaded a picture with my husband who was older than me.
2.Interviewer-On which social media did you upload the picture?
-Nadia- It was on Facebook.
3.Interviewer-What kind of reaction and comments did you get?
-Nadia- I got so many hateful and embarrassing comments for getting married with an older guy and some of the people were also inappropriate about their comments.
4.Interviewer How was your initial reaction over those spiteful comments?
-Nadia- I was very shocked and disappointed about the fact how some people they barely know can be very hateful towards another. When they have no idea about the story behind it.
5.Interviewer-What was most hateful comment did you get on Facebook?
-Nadia- I received a comment asking, “Did you get married to him because of his money?” and also some of them wrote “Gold diggers these days”.
6.Interviewer-What did you do to stop it?
-Nadia- I deactivated my Facebook for so many months and when I activated it back it really did not stop.So, I had to repost those Id and they got blocked.
7.Interviewer-Do you think social media comments can affect someone’s life?
-Nadia- I feel like it does effects on people’s lives just like it did on mine. I was mentally upset and was tired of those hateful comments and that is why I had to take a break from it.However, there was no fault of mine. All these started with a picture.
8. Interviewer- How do you think we can stop it?
-Nadia- I think social media should be more aware of this matter and sites like Facebbok should take more responsibility towards people who do hateful and inappropriate comments.

The research I had accumulated had made us think about what we can do to stop bullying in social media and in other areas. My audience would be mostly people who use social media because they use these sites all the time.The purpose of the genre is to catch the attention of the audience to be aware of this topic more. People, by and large teenagers, have hassle with cyberbullying and find it hard to communicate with others about the hassle they are facing. We should decide that to be stopped. People are getting damage and lives are being lost, they are also suffering lengthy term consequences such as depression and anxiety.

Work Cited

https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-43197937
https://www.cnn.com/2019/11/01/health/facebook-harassment-eprise/index.html

Social Networks Adapt to Prevent Cyberbullying

https://www.hastac.org/blogs/bahatiakili/2017/12/02/cyber-bullying-and-social-media
https://www.digitaltrends.com/mobile/instagram-anti-abuse-tools/
https://towardsdatascience.com/ai-cyberbullying-and-social-media-321d91d5b4ba