cyberbullying

as someone who has basically grown up with the internet in her life, i feel like cyberstalking and harassment is never really taken seriously? like whenever i bring up the topic to someone, a common reaction i get is a chuckle. when these issues actually do happen, yet again, no one is taken seriously. being through my own experience of this firsthand, i honestly blame platforms like instagram and tiktok for not being safe enough. my harassers had first infected my tiktok, and then once i abandoned tiktok, flooded into my instagram. i was constantly receiving horrifying messages every day--i would literally expect to see a new message in my inbox. instagram had only recently updated their system to where messages are specifically filtered away and even potentially deleted if they are deemed inappropriate--where was this update when i was going through my issue? during the time i had even tried to reach out to instagram asking them to help. ding ding! no response. me being barely 14 years old at the time there was no way i was going to even attempt to go to the police because number one being they would do nothing and number two the people terrorizing my life would obviously figure it out, which put myself in even more hot water. 

moral of the story, social media platforms need to be safer, and we can only do so much to monitor the activity of children on social media. i am also going to be publishing an article about cyber harassment soon! please read it up and promote me! thanks!