Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in

On Technology Against Cyberbullying

  • Chapter
  • First Online:
Book cover Minding Minors Wandering the Web: Regulating Online Child Safety

Part of the book series: Information Technology and Law Series ((ITLS,volume 24))

Abstract

Technology is one of the modalities to regulate antisocial online behavior such as cyberbullying. It is unknown what characteristics of effective technology against cyberbullying are and to what extent existing Internet safety technologies can be expected to protect against cyberbullying. Both these issues are addressed in this chapter. First, we propose a framework that consists of desired characteristics for technology against cyberbullying. The framework is derived from important topics that emerge from the literature on Internet safety technology and cyberbullying. Second, the framework is used to discuss the expected effectiveness of existing Internet safety technologies. The results indicate that existing Internet safety technologies are not effective against cyberbullying, mainly because they have been designed for other online risks than cyberbullying. Existing Internet safety technologies primarily target access to undesirable content. Their success in protecting against cyberbullying, which is mostly communication-based, is therefore limited.

Janneke van der Zwaan is a Ph.D. Candidate in Human–Computer Interaction at Delft University of Technology.

Virginia Dignum is Associate Professor at the Faculty of Technology, Policy and Management, Delft University of Technology. Catholijn Jonker is Full Professor of Man–Machine Interaction at the Faculty of Electrical Engineering, Mathematics and Computer Science of the Delft University of Technology. Simone van der Hof is Full Professor of Law and Information Society and chair of eLaw, the Center for Law in the Information Society, Leiden University.

An extended version of this chapter will appear in Van den Hoven et al. (forthcoming) Responsible Innovation Volume 1: Innovative Solutions for Global Issues.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this chapter

Log in via an institution
Chapter
USD 29.95
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
eBook
USD 69.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as EPUB and PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
Hardcover Book
USD 89.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Durable hardcover edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info

Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout

Purchases are for personal use only

Institutional subscriptions

Notes

  1. 1.

    The Gallup Organisation 2008; Eurobarometer 2007.

  2. 2.

    Tokunaga 2010.

  3. 3.

    Tokunaga 2010.

  4. 4.

    Livingstone et al. 2010.

  5. 5.

    Instead of three, Lessig distinguishes four modalities for regulation: social norms, the law, architecture and the market; Lessig 2000. In the case of cyberbullying, the market is not or less relevant as a modality for regulation and will therefore not be addressed in this chapter.

  6. 6.

    Lessig 2006, p. 124.

  7. 7.

    Lessig 2000.

  8. 8.

    Fogg 2002.

  9. 9.

    Lessig 2006.

  10. 10.

    Exceptions are Internet Safety Technical Task Force 2008; Szwajcer et al. 2009; Mesch 2009.

  11. 11.

    See www.clips.ua.ac.be/amica/.

  12. 12.

    See www.friendlyattac.be/en/.

  13. 13.

    Internet Safety Technical Task Force 2008.

  14. 14.

    Internet Safety Technical Task Force 2008; Szwajcer et al. 2009.

  15. 15.

    Tokunaga 2010.

  16. 16.

    Olweus 1999.

  17. 17.

    Ybarra and Mitchell 2004; Patchin and Hinduja 2006; Kowalski and Limber 2007; Shariff 2008.

  18. 18.

    Ybarra and Mitchell 2004; Patchin and Hinduja 2006; Kowalski and Limber 2007; Kowalski et al. 2008.

  19. 19.

    Kowalski et al. 2008.

  20. 20.

    Ybarra et al. 2007.

  21. 21.

    Patchin and Hinduja 2006; Kowalski and Limber 2007.

  22. 22.

    Kowalski and Limber 2007; Kowalski et al. 2008; Shariff 2008.

  23. 23.

    Shariff 2008.

  24. 24.

    Dehue et al. 2008; Vandebosch and Cleemput 2008.

  25. 25.

    Tokunaga 2010.

  26. 26.

    Smith et al. 2008.

  27. 27.

    Ybarra et al. 2006; Li 2007.

  28. 28.

    Patchin and Hinduja 2006; Wolak et al. 2006; Kowalski and Limber 2007; Hinduja and Patchin 2009.

  29. 29.

    Mishna et al. 2009.

  30. 30.

    Wolak et al. 2006; Hinduja and Patchin 2009.

  31. 31.

    Ybarra et al. 2006.

  32. 32.

    Ybarra et al. 2006; Dehue et al. 2008.

  33. 33.

    Ybarra et al. 2006.

  34. 34.

    Finkelhor et al. 2000; Smith et al. 2008.

  35. 35.

    Wolak et al. 2006.

  36. 36.

    Smith et al. 2008; Hinduja and Patchin 2009.

  37. 37.

    Mishna et al. 2009.

  38. 38.

    See www.netnanny.com/.

  39. 39.

    See www.cyberpatrol.com/.

  40. 40.

    Pendar 2007.

  41. 41.

    Kontostathis et al. 2009.

  42. 42.

    Pendar 2007 and Kontostathis et al. 2009 both used data made available by Perverted Justice (www.perverted-justice.com/).

  43. 43.

    Lewis et al. 2004.

  44. 44.

    Chawla et al. 2004.

  45. 45.

    See http://caw2.barcelonamedia.org/.

  46. 46.

    Yin et al. 2009.

  47. 47.

    Hunter 2000.

  48. 48.

    Mesch 2009.

  49. 49.

    See http://explore.live.com/windows-live-messenger.

  50. 50.

    See www.facebook.com/.

  51. 51.

    See www.myspace.com/.

  52. 52.

    See for example http://cybermentors.org.uk, www.stopcyberbullying.org and www.cybersmart.gov.au/.

  53. 53.

    See http://secondlife.com/.

  54. 54.

    Paiva et al. 2005.

  55. 55.

    Sapouna et al. 2010.

  56. 56.

    See http://mrctrl.spaces.live.com/ (in Dutch).

  57. 57.

    See www.infinitelearninglab.org/.

  58. 58.

    Mishna et al. 2010.

  59. 59.

    Mishna et al. 2010.

  60. 60.

    Shariff 2008.

  61. 61.

    Thierer 2009.

  62. 62.

    Shariff 2008.

  63. 63.

    Thierer 2009.

  64. 64.

    Van der Zwaan et al. 2010.

  65. 65.

    We would like to emphasize that the buddy is not intended as a replacement for professional help or human support. Instead, the buddy should be seen as an additional, easily accessible support channel for cyberbullying victims.

  66. 66.

    Van der Zwaan et al. 2012.

References

  • Chawla NV, Japkowicz N, Kotcz A (2004) Editorial: special issue on learning from imbalanced data sets. SIGKDD Explor Newsl 6(1):1–6

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Dehue F, Bolman C, Völlink T (2008) Cyberbullying: youngsters’ experiences and parental perception. Cyberpsychol Behav 11(2):217–223

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Eurobarometer (2007) Safer internet for children, qualitative study in 29 European countries, national analysis, The Netherlands. http://ec.europa.eu/information_society/activities/sip/surveys/qualitative/index_en.htm

  • Finkelhor D, Mitchell KJ, Wolak J (2000) Online victimization: a report on the nation’s youth. www.unh.edu/ccrc/pdf/Victimization_Online_Survey.pdf

  • Fogg B J (2002) Persuasive technology: using computers to change what we think and do, chapter computers as persuasive social actors. ACM, New York

    Google Scholar 

  • Hinduja S, Patchin JW (2009) Bullying beyond the schoolyard: preventing and responding to cyberbullying. Corwin Press, Thousand Oaks

    Google Scholar 

  • Hunter CD (2000) Internet filter effectiveness (student paper panel): testing over and underinclusive blocking decisions of four popular filters. In: CFP’00: Proceedings of the tenth conference on computers, freedom and privacy, pp 287–294, ACM

    Google Scholar 

  • Internet Safety Technical Task Force (2008) Enhancing child safety and online technologies: final report of the internet safety technical task force to the multi-state working group on social networking of state attorneys general of the United States. Technical report. http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/pubrelease/isttf/

  • Kontostathis A, Edwards L, Leatherman A (2009) Chatcoder: toward the tracking and categorization of Internet predators. In: Proceedings of the 7th text mining workshop

    Google Scholar 

  • Kowalski RM, Limber SP (2007) Electronic bullying among middle school students. J Adolesc Health 41(6, Supplement 1):22–30

    Google Scholar 

  • Kowalski RM, Limber SP, Agatston PW (2008) Cyber bullying: bullying in the digital age. Wiley Blackwell, Malden

    Google Scholar 

  • Lessig L (2000) Code and other laws of cyberspace. Basic Books, New York

    Google Scholar 

  • Lessig L (2006) Code: and other laws of cyberspace, version 2.0. Basic Books, New York

    Google Scholar 

  • Lewis DD, Yang Y, Rose TG, Li F (2004) RCV1: a new benchmark collection for text categorization research. J Mach Learn Res 5:361–397

    Google Scholar 

  • Li Q (2007) New bottle but old wine: a research of cyberbullying in schools. Comput Hum Behav 23(4):1777–1791

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Livingstone S, Haddon L, Görzig A, Ólafsson K (2010) Risks and safety on the internet: the perspective of European children. Initial findings. http://eprints.lse.ac.uk/33731/

  • Mesch GS (2009) Parental mediation, online activities, and cyberbullying. Cyberpsychol Behav 12(4):387–393

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Mishna F, Saini M, Solomon S (2009) Ongoing and online: children and youth’s perceptions of cyber bullying. Child Youth Serv Rev 31(12):1222–1228

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Mishna F, Cook C, Saini M, Wu MJ, MacFadden R (2010) Interventions to prevent and reduce cyber abuse of youth: a systematic review. Res Soc Work Pract 21(1):5–14

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Olweus D (1999) The nature of school bullying: a cross-national perspective, chapter Sweden. Routledge, London, pp 7–27

    Google Scholar 

  • Paiva A, Dias J, Sobral D, Aylett R, Woods S, Hall L, Zoll C (2005) Learning by feeling: evoking empathy with synthetic characters. Appl Artif Intell Int J 19(3):235–266

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Patchin JW, Hinduja S (2006) Bullies move beyond the schoolyard: a preliminary look at cyberbullying. Youth Violence Juv Justice 4(2):148–169

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Pendar N (2007) Toward spotting the pedophile telling victim from predator in text chats. In: ICSC’07: Proceedings of the international conference on semantic computing. IEEE Computer Society, pp 235–241

    Google Scholar 

  • Sapouna M, Wolke D, Vannini N, Watson S, Woods S, Schneider W, Enz S, Hall L, Paiva A, Andre E, Dautenhahn K, Aylett R (2010) Virtual learning intervention to reduce bullying victimization in primary school: a controlled trial. J Child Psychol Psychiatry 51(1):104–112

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Shariff S (2008) Cyber-bullying: issues and solutions for the school, the classroom and the home. Routledge, London

    Google Scholar 

  • Smith PK, Mahdavi J, Carvalho M, Fisher S, Russell S, Tippett N (2008) Cyberbullying: its nature and impact in secondary school pupils. J Child Psychol Psychiatry 49(4):376–385

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Szwajcer E, Ebbers W, Oostdijk M, Wartena C, Hulsebosch B (2009) Kinderen en nieuwe media—technische and socio-technische oplossingsmogelijkheden voor gevaren in de online wereld. www.novay.nl/medialibrary/documenten/originelen/Eindrapportage_kinderen_en_nieuwe_media.pdf

  • The Gallup Organisation (2008) Towards a safer use of the Internet for children in the EU—a parents’ perspective. http://ec.europa.eu/public_opinion/flash/fl_248_en.pdf

  • Thierer AD (2009) Five online safety task forces agree: education, empowerment & self-regulation are the answer. Progress & freedom foundation progress on point paper, vol 16, issue no. 13

    Google Scholar 

  • Tokunaga RS (2010) Following you home from school: a critical review and synthesis of research on cyberbullying victimization. Comput Hum Behav 26(3):277–287

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Van den Hoven J, Koops B-J, Romijn H, Swierstra T, Doorn N (2013, forthcoming) Responsible innovation volume 1: innovative solutions for global issues. Springer, Dordrecht

    Google Scholar 

  • Van der Zwaan JM, Dignum V, Jonker CM (2010) Simulating peer support for victims of cyberbullying. In: Proceedings of the 22st Benelux conference on artificial intelligence (BNAIC 2010)

    Google Scholar 

  • Van der Zwaan JM, Geraerts E, Dignum V, Jonker CM (2012) User validation of an empathic virtual buddy against cyberbullying. Stud Health Technol Inform 181:243–247

    Google Scholar 

  • Vandebosch H, Cleemput KV (2008) Defining cyberbullying: a qualitative research into the perceptions of youngsters. Cyberpsychol Behav 11(4):499–503

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Wolak J, Mitchell KJ, Finkelhor D (2006) Online victimization of youth: five years later. www.unh.edu/ccrc/pdf/CV138.pdf

  • Ybarra ML, Mitchell KJ (2004) Youth engaging in online harassment: associations with caregiver-child relationships, Internet use, and personal characteristics. J Adolesc 27(3):319–336

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Ybarra ML, Mitchell KJ, Wolak J, Finkelhor D (2006) Examining characteristics and associated distress related to internet harassment: findings from the second youth internet safety survey. Pediatrics 118(4):1169–1177

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Ybarra ML, Diener-West M, Leaf PJ (2007) Examining the overlap in internet harassment and school bullying: implications for school intervention. J Adolesc Health 41(6, Supplement 1):42–50

    Google Scholar 

  • Yin D, Xue Z, Hong L, Davison BD, Kontostathis A, Edwards L (2009) Detection of harassment on web 2.0. In: CAW 2.0’09: Proceedings of the 1st content analysis in web 2.0 workshop

    Google Scholar 

Download references

Acknowledgments

This work is funded by NWO under the Responsible Innovation (RI) program via the project ‘Empowering and Protecting Children and Adolescents Against Cyberbullying’.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Delft University of Technology, Delft, The Netherlands

    Janneke M. van der Zwaan, Virginia Dignum & Catholijn M. Jonker

  2. Center for Law in the Information Society, Leiden University, Leiden, The Netherlands

    Simone van der Hof

Authors
  1. Janneke M. van der Zwaan
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  2. Virginia Dignum
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  3. Catholijn M. Jonker
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  4. Simone van der Hof
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Janneke M. van der Zwaan .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. eLaw – Center for law in the information society, Leiden University, Leiden, The Netherlands

    Simone van der Hof

  2. eLaw – Center for law in the information, Leiden University, Leiden, The Netherlands

    Bibi van den Berg

  3. Faculty of Law eLaw – Centre for Law in the Information, Leiden University, Leiden, The Netherlands

    Bart Schermer

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

Copyright information

© 2014 © T.M.C. Asser Press, The Hague, The Netherlands, and the author(s)

About this chapter

Cite this chapter

van der Zwaan, J.M., Dignum, V., Jonker, C.M., van der Hof, S. (2014). On Technology Against Cyberbullying. In: van der Hof, S., van den Berg, B., Schermer, B. (eds) Minding Minors Wandering the Web: Regulating Online Child Safety. Information Technology and Law Series, vol 24. T.M.C. Asser Press, The Hague. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-6265-005-3_12

Download citation

Publish with us

Policies and ethics

Societies and partnerships

Search

Navigation