Cyberbullying Newsround Specials

Unfortunately, bullying at school is nothing new,

but what is changing is the way bullies are using mobile phones

and the internet to target their victims,

often without anyone knowing it's them.

I got a notification up on my phone.

I wasn't sure if it was someone's idea of a sick joke.

Everybody has a smartphone and it's always there.

You can't get away from it.

Don't retaliate because that's what they want.

They want to see you upset, they want to see how they've got to you.

I'll be finding out what it feels like to be targeted online

and how you can try to deal with cyberbullying.

Cyberbullying is the use of the web or mobile phones to threaten,

tease or embarrass other people.

It can be things like leaving upsetting comments

on people's social media websites,

sending unpleasant texts or sharing embarrassing images

of other people without their permission

and for those who are affected, it can make life very difficult.

It's faceless.

You don't get your chance to say anything back

before everybody else is getting involved.

Cyberbullying would just make things worse at school

because it was shared on by everybody.

Even people who weren't bullying me before would then join in.

I felt like I was in a cage.

There was no place that I could go to escape it.

I definitely felt isolated.

My mum and dad hadn't experienced anything like it.

I didn't know where to go to for help.

Cases of cyberbullying have been in the news a lot recently

and we know it's an issue you're getting more worried about.

Being targeted online can be a very lonely and upsetting experience

and it's something that could happen to anyone.

Welcome to Friday Download, your instant download for the week ahead.

Shannon Flynn is an actor and CBBC presenter,

but when she first started out on TV, she was bullied online.

So, Shannon, when did you first experience cyberbullying?

I'd recently just aired on television

cos I started Waterloo Road when I was 12

and was signed up to quite a lot

of different social media sites, obviously, cos my friends were

and I was signed up to a specific one

where you could send anonymous questions

but I wasn't really getting questions.

A lot of them were just threats,

like, "If I see you out then, I'm going to slap you",

"You're so ugly", "Don't come out in public."

I got one that said, "Why don't you put a bag over your head?"

It makes you feel sick.

I think that's probably the best way to describe how I felt,

physically sick, it was like nervous.

I didn't know where it was coming from.

I'd come home from school, log on...

..check the messages and I used to just sit and just cry my eyes out.

Do you think it's too easy for people to bully others online?

Yeah, way too easy. Somebody wouldn't come up to me and say,

"You should put a bag over your head, you're well ugly."

There's not a chance that anybody would say that,

even the people that were writing it to me wouldn't say it.

People become something else when they've got something to hide behind.

As I've grown up and I've got a lot more mature, I understand how

to handle situations better than when I was younger and I was receiving it.

So do you have advice for kids out there who are being bullied online?

If you're being cyberbullied, I'd say the most important thing

is to not bottle it up.

Make sure you tell somebody, somebody that you can trust.

Block the people that are sending the abuse to you,

because on every website, regardless of what it is,

there is a way to report them or block them, delete them

and, finally, I would say don't retaliate to any of the abuse.

Don't comment back, don't reply, because that's what they want.

They want to see you upset, they want to see how they've got to you.

Just don't provoke it, leave it.

Charities estimate that as many as one in three children

have been victims of cyberbullying,

with girls more likely to be targeted.

I've come to this school in Manchester

to see just how much of an impact it's having on children's lives.

-Hi, guys!

-ALL: Hi.

-How are you doing? You all right?

-ALL: Yeah.

So, guys, who here has had a bad experience online?

Quite a lot of you.

There was some girl that used to start arguments with me

over Facebook nearly every day and it really upset me.

I was told these mean comments and he was being rude to me

and I didn't know how to delete him or block him.

I've had normal arguments with people but then it goes online

and things get said

that you wouldn't normally hear off your friends.

At school, there's teachers to solve it,

but at home, when you're in your bedroom on your computer,

there's no-one to solve it.

I wasn't sure what to do when I was getting bullied,

but then I realised I could set my account on private

so the public can't go through my photos.

Teachers are becoming more aware of the issue

and they do try to deal with instances of online bullying,

but that's not always straightforward to do.

One of the big problems with cyberbullying

is that you don't always know who the bullies are.

They could be anonymous or using someone else's name,

and that can make it hard to deal with and difficult to stop,

as Emily found out.

I'm Emily. I'm 16 years old.

When I wake up the morning,

I'll probably spend about ten minutes in bed

reading through all the Facebook and Twitter feeds.

I text my friends all the time.

I just like to know what people are doing. I'm quite nosy.

I first started having problems at school when I started Year 7.

I would be called names like "shovel face", "Miss Piggy".

It affected how I looked at myself.

I wouldn't look in the mirror. I just wouldn't.

You shouldn't ever get used to it,

but after a while, you just do.

But it wasn't just at school that Emily was picked on.

After she joined a social media site,

she began getting targeted there too.

I had my best friends over for a sleepover

and we were doing little clown makeovers and having a laugh

and then I got a notification up on my phone

and it said that I had a really disturbing face...

..and that I would have to get plastic surgery

if I ever wanted to look nice.

I wasn't sure if it was someone's idea of a sick joke.

Deep inside, it did really hurt.

The social media site Emily joined

allows people to post comments without having to give their name,

so Emily didn't know who was making the hurtful remarks.

It made life at school even more difficult.

I remember walking down the corridor and being like,

"Oh, is she talking about me? Was he talking about me?"

I was so paranoid!

When I was in lessons, I'd think,

"Oh, what are they going to be saying about me tonight?"

Bullying feels like you're trapped in a room

where there are no windows,

no doors and the walls are just closing in on you and in the end

it's all the way around you and you can't move and you can't escape.

Emily has now shut down her account

and since leaving school and starting college,

she's put the experience behind her.

My life now has, I would say, dramatically changed

since I left school.

I'm not still being bullied.

That part of my life is over

and I'm not going to be the victim any more. I'm at a lovely sixth-form,

I've got a lovely, strong group of friends who care about me a lot

and I'm a lot happier now.

It's so easy to be bullied nowadays because the technology's moved on.

If you're getting bullied, talk to people.

You're never on your own, you've always got someone.

It's so important not to suffer in silence.

Removing yourself from the online bullies by shutting down

your social media account is just one way to stop the problem,

but for many people, the online world has become such a big part

of their lives that walking away just isn't an option.

For Zoe Sugg, life revolves around the internet.

She's a video blogger better known to her fans as Zoella.

Hello, everyone.

Today I am going to be doing a video showing you

all my favourite beauty products of this month.

Zoe makes and posts videos about herself online

and is now one of the most successful vloggers in the country.

She was recently named vlogger of the year

at the Radio 1 Teen Awards.

The winner for best British vlogger is...

Zoella!

CHEERING

What kind of relationship do you have with your viewers?

I like to read all the comments that are coming through.

They'll say, "I really enjoy your videos",

"Keep making videos", "Never stop."

It's nice to have support and positive comments back

for something that you've done

and it's really encouraging as well.

Zoe now has over 3 million subscribers to her videos

and gets thousands of comments posted to her,

but that success has also made her a target for online bullying.

I've had comments about my appearance,

I have people telling me that I'm too skinny to be a role model,

that I lie about having anxiety just to get views,

pretty much everything that you can think of, I've probably read

and sometimes I would think, "I don't really want to make a video now",

because it knocks your confidence a bit.

They wanted to upset me or make me feel rubbish

and that's exactly what they did.

Why do you think you got some of these comments?

I think it's just very easy for somebody to just type

whatever they want to type, press send

and they don't even have to think about it,

because it's not somebody that's sat opposite you.

It's not somebody that you are having to look at in the eye.

It's somebody that you don't know, so you can just write

whatever you want to write and you don't have to think about it.

You can just walk away.

Zoe's not going to stop making her videos because of the nasty posts.

Instead, she focuses on the many more positive messages

she gets from her viewers.

The people that care and the people that love your videos

and comment on your videos and give you positivity

are the people that really matter when it comes down to YouTube.

Thanks for watching, everybody, and I will see you again very soon.

Goodbye!

Zoe doesn't let the horrible messages get to her any more,

but many kids who are targeted online

will also be picked on at school

and when that happens, it can often feel like

there's no escape from the bullies, as Jack found out.

I'm Jack and I'm 14 years old.

The bullying started when I joined secondary school

because I didn't really know anybody, I was always alone

so people used to pick on me because of this.

At first, it was just a bit of verbal -

people just blurting out stuff, calling me "teacher's pet"

and then it gradually became physical - people pushing me,

trying to trip me up.

At home, Jack was able to have a break from his problems.

He would go online and chat to old friends from primary school.

I liked coming home and speaking to my friends and finding out

what their school's like and what my school's like

and just catching up, really.

It was nice.

But when Jack invited some of the kids from his new school

to be friends with him online, he started having problems there too.

One day I saw that somebody was calling me...

saying that I'm a weirdo in this photo.

At first, I just thought,

"Oh, it's probably a bit of a joke or they've said it to the wrong person",

so I left it.

A week later, it was happening every day, anything I put up.

It was commented on, saying, "Oh, weirdo",

"Idiot", "You look horrible in that picture."

It was hard enough at school,

but coming home and seeing all this, it was just really horrible.

Everybody has a smartphone and it's always there -

Facebook, Instagram, whatever.

It's always there, you can't get away from it.

I just wanted to stay off school and just go into a corner

and hide away and hope that everything would stop.

Not knowing where to turn, Jack took matters into his own hands.

I just wanted to stop it all and make a change.

I looked online and saw an anti-bullying ambassador scheme.

There are a number of charities that offer support

and advice to kids online.

The Diana Award is one that trains young people

to be anti-bullying ambassadors so they can help

to tackle the problem themselves.

Jack introduced the idea into his school

and was one of the first to take on the role there.

As an anti-bullying ambassador,

we help the vulnerable kids in our school.

They can just come to us and say, "I've been having this problem",

cos they know there is someone that they can turn to.

And Jack's not stopped there.

He now tries to educate other kids about online safety.

Today I'm going to do a presentation about cyberbullying.

Does anybody know any types of cyberbullying at all?

Taking a stand against bullying

has made a big difference to Jack's life.

He's no longer targeted at school

and is determined to stop others going through what he did.

'When it was happening to me,

'I didn't really know anything about the online safety.'

Thank you for listening to what I had to offer.

Feeling how I felt when I was being bullied,

I don't want anyone to be in the situation I was in.

Being cyberbullied can be a really lonely and upsetting experience.

It can sometimes feel like it's never going to end,

but the stories of Emily and Jack, Zoe and Shannon,

show us that there are ways to deal with the problem.

To use nearly all social media sites,

you have to be at least 13 and most offer a way to report

any bullying in confidence or block users who aren't being nice.

If a site allows people to send messages anonymously,

you should think about staying away

and if you know someone who's being bullied,

be a good friend and offer your support.

Perhaps the most important thing to remember

is that you don't have to go through it on your own.

Talking to an adult you trust can often be the first step

in putting an end to the bullying.

To find more advice on how

to deal with online bullying,

visit the Stay Safe page

on the CBBC website.