Cyberbullying

Cyberbullying (사이버 왕따, 사이버 따돌림) refers to malicious attacks on a specified person through online sites including message boards. Nowadays online bullying in Korea and other Asian countries reaches all ages – from elementary school to adults.

In Korea, the celebrity is no exception at all. Famous entertainers are often harassed by extremely malicious online assaults, and some of them used to commit suicide. After the April 11 general elections in 2012, cyber-bullying against Jasmine Lee suddenly surfaced as a hot issue of xenophobia. She is a naturalized Philippine woman who has become a Korean lawmaker. After a spate of heated controversies, she solved the controversy by professing at a press conference that the majority of Koreans were understanding.

Key words
cyberbullying, cyberharassment, cybersquatting, target

Definition
Cyberbullying is defined in legal glossaries as In Korea, on-campus cyberbullying became to be categorized into school violence on March 21, 2012 under the Act on the Prevention and Countermeasures of School Violence (학교폭력 예방 및 대책에 관한 법률, this definition was effective on April 1, 2012, or generally on May 1, 2012), which defines "cyberbullying" as every kind of actions which a group of students make continuous and repetitive psycological attacks on a certain student or disseminate the personal information or false information related with the other student, thus harassing the other student by means of the Internet, mobile phone or other information and communication devices.
 * actions that use information and communication technologies to support deliberate, repeated, and hostile behavior by an individual or group, that is intended to harm another or others.
 * use of communication technologies for the intention of harming another person
 * use of internet service and mobile technologies such as web pages and discussion groups as well as instant messaging or SMS text messaging with the intention of harming another person.

Examples of what constitutes cyberbullying include communications that seek to intimidate, control, manipulate, put down, falsely discredit, or humiliate the recipient. The actions are deliberate, repeated, and hostile behavior intended to harm another. A cyberbully may be a person whom the target knows or an online stranger. A cyberbully may be anonymous and may solicit involvement of other people online who do not even know the target.

Current situation
In particular, Korea, one of the most wired countries in the world, sees cyberbullying so rampant that student-victims and their parents favored government regulations that require users to provide their real names. But the Internet real name system was ruled unconstitutional by the Constitutional Cout in August 2012.

According to a survey of Korean University students, almost three-fourths of the respondents knew a victim of cyberbullying and that half of the bullies were in elementary or middle school. They further reported that some of the worst cyberbullying was done by adults.

Why is cyberbullying is so intense in South Korea? Maybe it's because Koreans live in a highly competitive society but are expected to be extremely polite in person.

Cyberbullying vs. Cyberstalking
As explained above, the practice of cyberbullying is not limited children and, while the behavior is identified by the same definition when practiced by adults, the distinction in age groups sometimes refers to the abuse as cyberstalking or cyberharassment when perpetrated by adults toward adults.

Common tactics used by cyberstalkers are performed in public forums, social media or online information sites and are intended to threaten a victim's earnings, employment, reputation, or safety. Behaviors may include encouraging others to harass the victim and trying to affect a victim's online participation. Many cyberstalkers try to damage the reputation of their victim and turn other people against them. Cyberstalking may include false accusations, monitoring, making threats, identity theft, damage to data or equipment, the solicitation of minors for sex, or gathering information in order to harass. A repeated pattern of such actions and harassment against a target by an adult constitutes cyberstalking. There are consequences of law in offline stalking and online stalking. At present, the Minor Offences Act cannot put cyber-stalkers into jail. Cyberstalking is a form of cyberbullying.

How to Combat Cyberbullying
In Korea, as explained above, on-campus cyberbullying is regarded as school violence under the Act on the Prevention and Countermeasures of School Violence, which requires school teachers to report immediately the incident to the principal of the school and/or police.

But in the United States and United Kingdom, cyberbullying is subject to punishment by law. In Munro County, New York, cyberbullies shall pay a penalty less than one thousand dollars or face imprisonment up to one year. An increasing number of U.S. states have adopted or plan to adopt the combat-cyberbullying acts.

In the United Kingdom, a school girl, who once posted "I kill you" for her classmate on her own Facebook, was sentenced to imprisonment up to three months.

Also a story of a U.S. high school player is spreading out across the country. A 17-year old soccer team captain could no longer keep mum when he saw classmates taunted on Twitter. He made his own Twitter account in a bid to stand up for the victim students and raise their spirits. He strarted to tweet about their merits. The response was much to his surprise. His story has made headlines in various newspapers.