Cyberbullying: the fashion of recording the happy beating
The attacks or aggressions visualized and distributed through the Internet and social networks are complex, difficult to detect and their presence is increasingly frequent among our children. Recently, one of these cases was shown on television in Tarifa, a Spanish municipality in the province of Cádiz. In the emitted video one could see how one adolescent cruelly attacked another, while the attack was recorded with the mobile phone. This behavior is known by the name of happy slapping ("happy beating").
In the same way, it is curious that these behaviors can be observed in the multitudinous meetings that keep young people out of the enclosures or school environments, in which dozens of them crowd around a couple of boys who face each other, simulating a fight that, in many occasions, ends in a real battle.
These meetings are more and more common, hailed by the attendees, in a totally sick climate, and in which the "show" is published in real time on social networks.
These aggressions, more frequent and in their different forms, are difficult to detect, especially when they go from a sporadic and concrete event to a continuous one, repeated and lasting over time, since we could be faced with cases of school or cyberbullying. cyberbullying.
How to detect technological harassment
In this sense, the detection of technological harassment is more difficult than physical or traditional harassment, basically for several reasons:
First, the existence of anonymity that makes Internet difficult to identify the person responsible for the harassment and the author or authors of the conduct.
Second, it is complex determine with precision the constancy of these attacks, since in order to denounce and prosecute these behaviors it is necessary to prove the duration, repetition and continuity in time of these aggressions.
Third, the digital world of minors is an environment that adults do not know and we do not have enough training.
Fourth, for check the existence of acts of harassment in the Network access to mobile devices of minors is required and, therefore, knowledge of their passwords; Clear and manifest difficulty of which many parents are aware.
On the other hand, all these reasons or obstacles that parents find acquire a special importance when they opt for the judicial complaint and communication of the criminal acts before the courts, based on the existence of behaviors such as injuries, threats, coercion, etc. , collected in the penal code as crimes or faults.
Guidelines to support lawsuits for cyberbullying
In this sense, parents must take into account a series of guidelines and recommendations if they wish to succeed in the successful filing of their demands, in cases that are necessary and necessary.
Otherwise, a series of expectations will be generated that are far from reality, which means that the prosecution of the crime and the identification of those responsible for acts of harassment, whether physical or technological, will not be possible.
However, unquestionably parents can appreciate and check the presence of different warning signals that will help us to identify early and preventively the clear indications that our children may be suffering attacks or electronic aggressions, in such a way that they serve as a base to base future complaints that we wish to raise, if necessary and if we deem it appropriate:
1. Our child suddenly stops using the computer, tablet or mobile devices, without any apparent justification.
2. They show nervousness when they are in front of the computer, mobile phones or video game consoles.
3. They express irascible, depressive or frustration behaviors after using any of these technological elements.
4. Avoid or avoid any conversation about what they are doing in the digital world.
Ricardo Lombardero Calzón. Lawyer, Mediator and Coach. Co-founder of Lomber Soluciones Cyberbullying.
