Cyberbullying: Protections against online/digital harassment
Dealing with cyberbullying yourself
Some options for resolving the problem on your own
If you want, you can start by trying to deal with the problem yourself. Here are some options:
- Asking them to stop – You can tell the person that if they don’t stop or otherwise fix the problem, you’ll complain to the people who host the material. For example, if the person is posting abusive comments about you on Facebook, warn them you’ll complain to the site’s administrators and that they might end up getting banned from using Facebook.
- Blocking them – For example, by blocking their incoming phone calls, or unfriending them on Facebook, or blocking them on Twitter or TradeMe.
- Complaining to the online host – You may be able to get the relevant social media site, app host, phone company or other online host to remove the material or take some other action to fix the problem. Since July 2015, the Harmful Digital Communications Act has provided incentives for all these “online content hosts” to set up complaints processes that are effective and easy to access (this is explained in the next section).
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