Cyber-bullying survival guide

A thread

According to an article published by @ewnupdates in 2018, South Africa took the number 1 spot in cyberbullying out of a study with 27 other countries.

It is a very sad but real situation which each of us has either witnessed or experienced here on Twitter.

With the knowledge of the types of personality traits that most cyberbullies have been found to have, we can then formulate a strategy on how to deprive them of power and how to keep them guessing about how we feel when they try to bother us.

Narcissists love being praised and revered, but that is exhausting in the long run. These ones will have their pic on the AVI and some personal information on the bio, especially if they are doing well in life.

As such, you can either choose to join the choir in praising them and hope to be spared from their bullying or you can avoid interaction by blocking them from seeing your tweets.

Psychopaths (Antisocial Personalities) on the other hand will thrive on violating your space, emotions and privacy. These ones will actually tell you to even commit suicide during an argument.

They are highly impulsive, meaning that they could jump straight into a full blown online fight with you from the smallest trigger. The phrase "0-100" describes how fights usually go with them.

They may also be very manipulative and sadistic, but they may have faceless AVIs and minimal personal information in order to perpetrate their bullying without consequences. Those who have their pics on the AVIs may do so because of thinking they are invincible from consequences.

It is important to note that both Narcissists and Psychopaths may lack emotional(Affective) empathy but Psychopaths may use the lack to cause harm while Narcissists mostly could use it to trick people into praising them.

Therefore, you can choose to avoid a narcissist or to block him/her, but you have no choice with a Psychopath but to only block.

Some may open new accounts to continue harrassing you, so take note if you have been harassed by 3 or more different accounts with similar content.

This will help you because even though SA doesn't have a specific cyberbullying law, we do have the Protection from Harassment Act which covers both electronic and physical harassment.

Under this law, you can seek legal advice and take further steps to protect yourself.

Furthermore, as timeline bystanders, we tend to give bullies so much audience and power from laughing at their insults to someone on the TL. We are enablers of bullying and we also should refrain from entertaining such and start frowning upon it.

If it's funny, laugh to yourself and then think about how you would feel if you were the victim, but avoid giving power to a bully by reacting to their vile comments with laughing emojis.

Don't just ignore a victim should you come across one, try to provide support to the on the comments and use Twitter options to report the bully account.

Lastly, should you be caught up in an argument with a bully, try by all means to avoid retaliation or any sort of entertainment.

Nothing hurts a bully more than feeling unheard.

Let's building an anti-bullying, warmer and more friendly platform where we all focus on securing the bag, finding jobs, finding love and celebrating black excellence bafethu

I believe it is possible.

*Start building