Bullying: How to know and handle guide (Self Focus)
*NOTE: THIS POST WAS WRITTEN WITH THE FOCUS ON BULLYING THAT TAKES PLACE IN 7 CUPS, FOR OTHER BULLYING STRUGGLES FEEL FREE TO CONNECT HERE*
Hi there lovely community! So the past weeks bullying has made it to be a very popular topic and I would like to take some time to talk about it too.
Did you watch it? Okay, let's move on.
Bullying is a very important topic to me. I do everything I can to make every teen on this site feel safe and to know they can reach out to me any time. But the thing is, bullying isn't just an admin problem. Bullying is everyones problem. If you feel like you are being bullied, please continue reading this post. If you don't feel that way, I encourage you to read this post instead.
I notice that sometimes users don't know how to react towards bullying so Im writing you all some ideas and tips.
How do I know if Im being bullied?
First things first, to prevent bullying from happening we need to be inform on what bullying is. If you havent, I invite you to read through our Bullying Guide here.
Bullying means any behavior that is unwanted and unwelcome, has a negative impact on the recipient or on bystanders, and is unwarranted.[1]
Harassment refers to pattern of repeated offensive behavior that appears to a reasonable observer to intentionally target a specific person or persons. [2]
Knowing the definition doesn't mean you will always be able to identify bullying at first glance; but it gives you a greater understanding on what things to look out for. It is important to note that not every conflict and disagreement is bullying. It's quite common to feel defensive and take the things said personal even when they are not.
How do I know if Im being bullied?
There is no cookie cut answer here, it's more about how you feel and the intention the other party has when they act a certain way. Some questions you can ask yourself to reflect on whether or not you feel bullied are:
□How did I felt when he said that hurtful comment?
□Is this behavior a one time thing or has happened in repeated occasions?
□Has something else happened today, this week that makes me specially sensitive to that topic?
□What was the emotional state of the person that made the comment? (Were they angry, frustrated, sad?)
□Can I solve this situation by talking to them directly?
□Do I feel safe in 7 cups?
Sometimes, people do clear behaviors that signal bullying such as teasing, publicly antagonizing, singling you out, making inappropriate jokes about you and more.
What do I do once I know Im being bullied?
First things is to try conflict resolution, is it possible this is a miscommunication or something that can be discussed and solved in a one on one discussion? If yes, then great! Give that a try.
To use conflict resolution please refer to this post, and remember to give the WHIF!
W= what happened, when it happened, where it happened
H = how it made you feel
I= what impact it had on you or others
F = what you would like to happen moving forward
If conflict resolution is not an option, then please consider if any of the following alternatives work for you:
→ Ignore the bully: Sometimes they are just craving a reaction, if they don't get any they will move on.
→ If it's in the chatroom, consider asking a mod or mentor/teen star to intervene
→Take a step back: Consider if taking a self care break for a little while can solve it.
Please remember that if conflict resolution was not effective, you should file a report so we (community managers) can directly manage the situation and the event gets logged.
But @Iara, I filed a report and nothing happened!
We take actions on all reports we get, some of the actions can be very noticeable (bans, temporary deactivations, etc) others are far less noticeable. It's important to remember that as a third party, I will try to remain as neutral as possible and my actions will not always be the actions you want me to take; but those that I deem are best for the community.
It's been over two weeks after I reported but the situation continues, what now?
If after two weeks, the situation has not stopped; please directly reach out to the appropriate community manager (@Iara for teens, @Laura for adults and @Heather for group support). There is a chance that the actions taken on the report were not enough to stop the behavior and a different approach is needed.
Other resources to look at:
Help Guide on how to deal with Bullying
Amazing post and very helpful! Thank you, lovely! @Iara
There's this guy who would repeatedly create an account named Anonymousxxx(xxx= some random number) and repost my feed with abusive comments. He uses a VPN and so one can't even trace or stop him. What can I do now?
Also the guy would keep reporting my posts for fake reasons just for the purpose of making me upset. And all my posts get deleted too.
@barath1999 ĺ
Ll
@oliveOak8063 what?
@barath1999 it be okay. Just keep trying and remember "imitation is the sinecerist form of flattery" the person probabaly likes to pick on you. Don't let it get to you but instead keep posting and be strong.
Mute, try not get anxious and worry
@Iara
Thank you this is very helpful and is great. Im speehless and very happy
@Iara
awesome post and i agree, but i feel like what you wrote here is only for people who are listeners or members that are bullies. like ignore the bully that dosent work if its a moderator. youre second point tell it to a moderator, but again that dosent work if its a moderator who bullies you. third point maybe I have to take a break, maybe that appears to be a problem sure, but what if you come back and it still happens the moderator still does it? because i been bullied by a moderator and sure other people have also, but we get discouraged to talk about that, because you get singled out and told you are the bully you are the hater. and i want to point this out that there Should be help for those people to and not only negativity. because thas how i feel it, when we talk about bullying this point should always be made. i understand no leadership is perfect, but there should be some check up to see if ALL is acting like they should.
Here's a possibility which may or may not be complicated depending on the website's coding and coders. Allow people to transfer their progress onto a fresh account under a new username as a copy of the old progress (badges and points without the personal post timeline) so nobody will be able to tell it's the same person without being an admin having the IP information of that account or unless that person who is being transferred to a fresh account tells their trusted friends who aren't the bullies who they are/were. This should stop the bullying from being a thing that the victim can't tune out from being pinged by the known username constantly. I think this would help people to feel safe in returning to the site post bully incident.
The old profile could still exist in an inactive state for a time period after the transfer in case it were needed for evidence purposes at some point (assuming that's not violating the terms) and transferring would not be in violation because techically they'd still only have access to one active account at a time. I'm thinking this would likely need to be on a request case by case basis to prevent abuse of it for the use of bullying others and not being able to report someone who changes their username constantly as they do when they create a new one in violation of the terms.
Not only bullying but also get racist remarks from certain people , i told my mentor as well as moderators.. they helped me to feel better , sometimes in the room i observed some people cant be open or can start conversation ,bkoz he or she is not welcoming by the old members or listeners ... we have to keep in mind 7cups is place to get mental peace ,support and happiness ... I think if we all understand the ideology of 7cups and help each others , we can stop anykind of bad incidents
There have been bullies that kept making very similar usernames and the victims were the ones that received warnings from moderators because of manipulation. This was months ago and since those experiences I've learnt to deal with these in a civilised manner (muting, reporting, not responding back etc.) but I still hold a grudge towards using group support because of this. On the other hand I've been banned at least 3 times before without being informed why beforehand and couldn't access this site when I was desperate for help but not in crisis. That's all been sorted by the Community Managers, for which I'm grateful for but perhaps something needs to be sorted in the algorithms so the site knows how to differentiate between different situations/period of banning.
Bump