3. Métodos
3.1. Recolección de muestras
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involved an older high school student in Grade 10 who used his personal information to access inappropriate websites.
I know the actual guy's name. His name is Max. He tried to steal my identity to go onto inappropriate sites. The authorities got involved and got mad at me and I said, "You know what? I don't look at those sites." Really, really bad sites. P, the P word. P-O-R- N. The police found out that it wasn't me. It was Max, so they went over and told him not to do that. It was a warning.
When Chase was asked how he knew that someone was accessing the inappropriate websites using his information, he shared that he had a security app that alerted him if someone accessed one of his personal accounts. Chase went on to explain that police officers came to his house:
There's several officers. They're called online officers. They check to see if anybody is being cyberbullied on the Internet and if inappropriate things are being posted, so they log on and it's really easy to see what the actual person's name is. They found out my house address and then they said, “Chase, is this you?” I said, “You're speaking to him.” They said, “You got to stop looking at these inappropriate websites." I said, "What do you mean?" They said, "A lot of inappropriate stuff on the Internet, pictures and that." I said, "That's not me. That's Max and he lives at this address." Then they went to his house.
Chase shared that he knew it was Max accessing the inappropriate websites before the police officers came to his house. Chase explained that Max hacked into his Gmail account and used Chase’s email address to access the inappropriate websites. Chase shared another cyberbullying experience through Facebook. Chase shared:
I've been threatened to be stabbed and shot a lot from a guy. His name is Dan. He's just a little kid in Grade 8. He was using Facebook to send me messages and write on my Facebook wall, and I told him, "As soon as you put something on the Internet, you can't take it back." Then my mom went on my Facebook, because she was the one who set it up for me, so she knows my e-mail address and password. She contacted the police. Chase said, “It started one time, and then it got to two days and three days, and so on.” Chase explained that once his mom checked on his Facebook account and involved the police, the boy stopped messaging Chase. Emma was also a victim of cyberbullying, she was cyberbullied through Facebook by a male student at her high school who also bullied her in person. She
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shared that the cyberbullying began when she started high school at the beginning of the school year. She shared that the male student would send her private messages through Facebook and called her derogatory names. She shared, “He doesn’t call me a slut in person, he’d only say it on Facebook.” Emma’s experiences with bullying and cyberbullying had a profound impact on her self-worth, and she admitted that she believed that what the male student was saying to her was the truth. Emma said that she had blocked the male on Facebook, but that did not stop him from making derogatory comments to her in person. Emma also shared that she had received mean messages on Facebook from people who she thought were her friends. After the audio recording had stopped, Emma shared that she had received multiple messages from males on Facebook who asked her to send nude photos of herself. Chase and Emma both recounted multiple experiences of being victims of cyberbullying. Both Chase and Emma were aware of who was cyberbullying them.
Jake, who posted videos of himself as a ventriloquist, also identified as being a victim of cyberbullying; however, Jake was unaware of who the perpetrators were. He shared his
experience:
Well, basically, what I do is when I post my videos, people talk about me and make fun of me and, so that I know that they're not into that. Some people told me to kill myself. I’m a bit shocked about it, it’s kind of funny because they’re just doing that to make me feel bad or they’re just doing that because they're not feeling good about themselves. Jake explained that he could delete the comments, but said, “I don’t really mind it, I ignore it.” Jake was not aware if he could block individual users from commenting on his videos on YouTube. He said that the cyberbullying had been happening for a long time and said, “It’s people I don’t know. I can see their username, but I do not know them.” Jake did admit that he was shocked that the comments went as far as telling him to commit suicide, but he did not take any action to address the cyberbullying. Ethan was also a victim of cyberbullying, by multiple older students who did not attend the same high school as he did. Ethan made it clear that the mean comments did not affect him. He shared his experience: “People try to call me down on my Facebook. They said mean things on my Facebook wall. It doesn’t really hurt. They said I’m weak. They stopped messaging me and they said they were sorry. I didn’t really care.” Ethan explained that he responded to the posts on his Facebook wall and said that he questioned the cyberbullies about the mean comments, he shared what he said: “Why are you doing this, and
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what's wrong with you?” Nick had also been a victim of cyberbullying through Facebook; he shared that a 21 year old male was sending him threatening messages on Facebook. He explained:
I was on Facebook and this message came up saying "Hey! beep, beep, beep, beep, why are you stealing my girlfriend and I'm gonna come after you, I'm gonna kill you.” He said to stay away from his girlfriend and then I kept that message up on my mom's phone. I showed her the messages and I was like “Can I go to the police and show them this message?” So, I went there and showed them the messages.
Nick said that after he showed the police the threatening messages, the person stopped sending him messages. Chase, Emma, Jake, Ethan, and Nick all shared their experiences of being victims of cyberbullying. Many of the participants were cyberbullied through Facebook messages.