A new situation appeared which is the pandemic strike during the end year of 2019. Within this period of time, children and youths are online more frequently as they use the internet for distance learning while COVID-19 preventive measures are in place. However, observers say that an increase in harmful online behavior such as cyberbullying and risky online behavior have also been identified.
“During the COVID-19 pandemic, and the related school closures, we have seen a rise in violence and hate online – and this includes bullying. Now, as schools begin to reopen, children are expressing their fears about going back to school,” said Audrey Azoulay, director-general of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO).
Cyberbullying is also different from other method of bullying since it is no limitation in age and area, it is a wide range of possibility of the issues to happen. Adult cyberbullying is real, vicious and happens more often than imagined.
An article by Dr Anuradha Rao, founder of Singapore-based cyber-safety company CyberCognizanz discusses the increase of workplace cyberbullying.
“Here, power and gender disparities are exploited by repeated uncivil, aggressive, and inappropriate interactions via technology,” said Rao.
“Outside such formal institutional spaces, social media platforms provide perfect opportunities for cyberbullying and other types of online harassment, such as trolling, stalking, and image-based sexual abuse,” she states.
According to Kantar’s Inclusion Index 2019, it was revealed that 24 percent of employees were bullied in Singapore, the highest among 14 countries surveyed.
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