There are sites where students can post COMPLETELY anonymous comments to other peoples Facebook and Twitter profiles. The most worrying thing is, that these sites are able to get away with it because they claim to be there as ‘a bit of fun’ or ‘to discover the gossip in your school/local area.’ These sites seem to legally not be doing anything wrong since they have age/censorship buttons to confirm that you are an adult, however, this is not really checked – it’s down to the site ‘trusting’ the user is over the age of 16.

There seems to be little we can do to prevent websites like this from operating but we can increase our vigilance and ensure that all of these sites are blocked from school computer systems.

In addition to that:

1) It seems that as with everything, teaching the causes and effects of cyber bullying – can drastically help students from offending, moreover, it gives absolute support to victims.

2) Persuading any victims to come forward, especially if the perpetrator is spreading negative comments that will affect the opinions of others towards the victim. Explaining there will be no implications whatsoever on the victim and they should feel comfortable talking to an adult.

3) Ensure that students are aware that the police are constantly finding ways to break through these anonymous sites and find ways through, to discover who these bullies are and give them the appropriate punishment, if necessary.

4) Encourage students to ‘block’ these cyber bullies from their instant messaging programs and social networking sites. This is the best initial way of preventing abuse.

5) Encourage the students to ‘not respond’ however angry it makes them, as with all bullies – they are mostly ‘all mouth’ and feel even more powerful when they have something to react to, or more alarmingly, when they get a reaction from their victims.