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Cyber victims can be anyone affected by crimes committed through the internet, including cyberbullying, scams, and false accusations. Children should be warned and not give out personal information. Cyberbullying can have devastating effects on students, and it is difficult to stop. Attempts to stop illegal activity on the internet remain challenging. Caution should be exercised when using cyberspace.
A cyber victim can be a victim of various crimes committed through the Internet, emails or text messages. Anything that happens in cyberspace, all of our electronic media or the Internet, has the potential to produce cyber victims. Frequently, the term cybervictim now mostly refers to young adolescents and teenagers, who fall prey to so-called cyberbullies, people who intentionally plan to hurt, embarrass or abuse others by posting true or false information about themselves, in forums where that information will be seen by many people.
One easy way people can become cyber victims is by receiving abusive or harmless chat messages from anonymous people. In an Internet chat, a cyberbully may simply try to get others involved by sending crude, rude, or offensive messages. They may deliberately send overtly sexual messages to children, type numerous swear words, or, if they have the person’s email address, start sending obscene pictures.
This can happen to people of any age, but children should be duly warned. It’s easy to think that everyone on the internet is going to be “nice” and that kids might be overly trusting. If offensive messages are sent, children should notify their parents immediately. Such a cyber victim shouldn’t reply to the person sending the message, and people, in general, should never give out personal information, including email addresses, to people they don’t know.
A more direct version of cyberbullying occurs among teenagers and is analogous to bullying in high school or middle school. Unfortunately, due to the more communal nature of cyberspace, cyberbullies can victimize their peers to a much wider audience, which can be embarrassing, saddening, or devastating for students. Students can post true or false information online about other students, post pictures of students in compromising situations, or broadcast detailed private information about other students.
Since this bullying occurs on a large scale, the effects can be devastating for the cyber victim. Offensive rumors or discussions of deeply personal information can significantly affect peer relationships. In these cases, cyber bullying may be easier to stop if the bullying occurs between one student and another, as the school may be able to intervene. However, it is not always possible to stop this type of bullying, as there are numerous ways to post material anonymously and a school cannot exercise control over all internet forums in cyberspace. For example, if a student sends negative messages or sends embarrassing pictures of a person to a number of friends, the school may not be able to stop that bullying and harassment.
Cyber victim can also be defined as anyone involved in an internet scam. These can include attempts to gain illegal access to an individual’s bank account, attempts to solicit money or other means of obtaining personal information about someone, such as their computer passwords, which is then used in a malicious or illegal manner. Another form of cyber victim is the person who posts an innocent video or comment on the internet and then is subject to vitriolic or abusive comments. Alternatively, a cyber victim can be a person against whom false accusations are made resulting in the deprivation of the right to use various Internet forums.
There are attempts in many countries to stop the various forms of scams, internet bullying, child sexual solicitation, posting of offensive material and any illegal activity. These remain difficult to terminate completely, and more importantly, new Internet users are more likely to become cyber victims. It is very difficult to control the Internet, as people may be able to send messages or emails anonymously and may have their information rerouted in a way that makes it impossible to determine the source.
While the Internet can be a great medium for bringing people together, the number of cases of cyber victims continues to grow, causing concern. The potential benefits of the internet and various other computing venues are routinely exploited at the expense of others. People who use cyberspace to harm others create an unsafe environment, which all users of computer communications should enter with due caution.
