Cyberbullying is a huge problem on the internet, and sometimes it feels like there just isn’t enough being done to stop it. When children can have such flourishing social lives online, it can be difficult knowing what to do if that environment turns toxic – especially when suggesting that they should ‘log off’ isn’t the solution. After all, if your child was being bullied at school, you wouldn’t say the best solution is to simply not go to school. Happily, there are ways to deal with it - both on and offline.
The Personal
The biggest issue for children being bullied online is really straightforward: they don’t feel like they have anywhere else to go. This can be tricky to combat as the victim will typically have spent some time keeping it all to themselves and causing a feeling of even more wretchedness as a result.
The way around this is to communicate before there are any signs of an issue. Your child or other vulnerable person has to feel they have a safe space with you and that they can talk about anything. Talk about your own experiences, or if there is something in the media about how people have been undermined or abused, raise it proactively. Stress that the people getting bullied are being made to feel bad, whether it’s about their body shape, sexuality or gender orientation – but that it’s not their fault.
Feeling that the home is a safe place is vital and something within your control; but the internet is everywhere, including in your home, and that can have a real impact on your child. That’s where Bitdefender comes in.
Bitdefender, first out of the blocks
Last year, Bitdefender became one of the first Cybersecurity solutions to put a dedicated offering to help parents and others whose dependents are subject to bullying online. It comes under the banner of parental controls but it covers other guardian/dependent relationships as well. Essentially the system watches for behaviour that would be typical of bullying and keeps you posted about what is going on.
Part of the BOX 2 suite, the feature is called “Detection of bullying and online predators”. It analyses the content of interactions with children and looks out for inappropriate and unusual behaviours. If someone asks to meet your child outside of the home, it flags this up as unusual and lets you know.
It blocks people trying to get your kids and dependents to disclose your passwords, addresses and even credit card numbers – something that smaller children might have no idea is valuable information and shouldn’t be disclosed to strangers, or older children feeling threatened might be willing to reveal - and it is also calibrated to detect aggressive language and behaviour.
There’s also an option to block and report to parents any inappropriate or explicit pictures that are being shared either between children or between children and potential predators.
The whole idea is to help and underpin the relationship you have with your children and to build on the trust you have with them. It’s an unobtrusive way of monitoring their journey into cyberspace and ensuring that nothing inappropriate is going on. Decisions on what to block are yours; if one of your kids’ friends is in the habit of shooting their mouth off and the system picks it up, it’s down to you to decide whether to block or not – kids are going to be kids after all!
There are serious harms out there. Bitdefender’s aim is to equip parents with the tools to anticipate when something untoward may be about to start happening and be aware of it in plenty of time to intercede – and then to talk to the kids and learn with them, educating yourselves about how to deal with online bullying and take the sting out of it.
There is never going to be a substitute for communicating with your dependents and there never should be, but Bitdefender aims to underpin this with the very best technology.