Cyber bullying in e-gaming, an emerging social threat.
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What is Cyber bullying?
Cyber bullying in the context of e-gaming can be considered the willful act of repeatedly harassing/annoying/threatening/abusing another person through the use of electronic devices and information available in games such as email, instant messaging and web sites.. In certain severe cases it can be considered as a cyber crime and is punishable by law.
In September 2002, legislation requiring schools to actively prohibit bullying in their compounds was passed in the United States. And in January 2006, the US Congress passed a law making it a federal crime to "annoy, abuse, threaten or harass" another person over the internet. Approximately 36 states have enacted similar legislation. In South Korea, the "internet real-name system", introduced last month, forces online portals and news websites to record the identities of people who post content and to disclose their contact details if someone wants to sue them for libel or infringement of privacy.
What counts as Cyber bullying?
In the context of e-games,willfully repeating actions which target a certain player such as Player Killing (PK), Player Killer Killing (PKK) Kill Stealing (KS) or Summoning higher leveled monsters all can fall under cyber bullying if done over a prolonged period of time. Non-actions can include spamming a person with messages which are harassing or threatening in nature.
Examples of Cyber bullying in real games
- MapleSea/World of Warcraft will be used to illustrate these examples.
KSing - A very common sight in mapleSEA- a F2P 2D game favored by our singaporean children, youths and adults alike. The higher level characters blacklists(an ingame function to record names down) characters who offended them, tracks(in game command) them down and proceeds to KS(deny the player of their monster kill/exp/item drops) them whenever they're logged on, ultimately forcing the person to either 1)Quit 2)Create a new account/character 3)Ask for help from others resulting in a "KS war" see video links for more info.
PKing - An everyday occurrence in PK enabled games such as World of Warcraft - a P2P 3D globally popular game, however this if done repeatedly on a certain target with intent to harass or inflict psychological harm becomes a form of cyber bullying which is also against the rules set by Blizzard (In most PK enabled games constantly PKing a certain targeted player under unfair circumstances is subjectable to having account deleted/suspended if reported by victim). Victims of constant PK in this game have been shown to be affected in real life as reported by several suicide and sudden violence cases in the United States.
PKKing - A form of extreme response to being PK'ed or being Anti-PK, usually done by victims of constant PK harassment, this uses cyber bullying to attempt to stop cyber bullying(fighting fire with fire). Effective to some degree but fundamentally speaking this method is also wrong.
Summoning - In games that have items which allow players to summon monsters like "monster sacks" in maple story, higher level players can use such items on lower leveled characters, rendering their training grounds un-useable.Not as common as the other methods but still used by some in aggression.
Threats and Harassment - In mapleSEA, one can often see people mega(using real cash to broadcast a message) messages of threatening nature like "Got balls come <place> and meet la!!!" or harassment nature "blah is a *censored*", this can also be done by flooding the person via private message or tracking to person down to tell him/her.
Defamation/Outcasting - In games where there are public channels of broadcasting messages, the bully can use these mediums to defame a person constantly by broadcast accusing him of doing unethical things within the game and hence hurting the person image.Alternatively if a group of people play as a guild/faction/party/clan, they can outcast another player that they know in real life that play the same game.
How is this a problem?
Given the "Anonymity" of the online games, bullying takes on a new level that wouldn't happen in real life face to face encounters, words and threats become harsher and cruder, actions within the games can be done with negligible or no consequences.
No matter how virtual the e-gaming world is, the person behind the characters and monitor are still ultimately human and will inevitably be affected/hurt by such in one way or another, be it psychologically or emotionally.
Reactions to such forms of bullying includes being withdrawn from society, hysteria, suicide and sudden violence tendencies which can cause even more social problems. The real life counterparts of these net characters may even in the end become one of the bullies because of what he or she has gone through.
What We Can Do
Parents:
- Educate your child on such cases, giving them the knowledge on appropriate reactions to such incidents.
- Learn about the Internet and what your child is doing online.
- Encourage your child to come to you if anybody says or does something online that makes them feel uncomfortable or threatened.
- Encourage kids to develop their own moral code so they will choose to behave ethically online.
- Take action if your child is being bullied online - watch out for signs that your child is being bullied online - a reluctance to use the computer or a sudden change in behaviour may be an indication.
- Report any incident of online harassment and physical threats to your local police and your Internet Service Provider (ISP).
Victims:
- Log or record down the threats/acts for evidence.
- Inform the game authorities via functions like "Report a player" or "Report abuse".
- Do not respond emotionally to the bully, it only encourages him/her.
- Guard your contact information.
- If you are being harassed online, tell an adult you trust.
- Leave the area or stop the activity (i.e. online gaming area, instant messaging etc) and/or block the sender's messages.
- If the bullying includes physical threats and both parties seems to know who each other are, record down and bring the evidence to make a police report to prevent escalation into real life bullying.
References
- SG cyber bullying article - CNA
- Education as solution to Cyber bullying - CNA
- US cyber bullying article - Today online
- SG cyber bulling article - schools.com.sg
- MapleSEA forum post on cyber bullying
- Cyber bullying wiki entry
- Cyber Crime wiki entry
- KSing videos from maplestory
- PKing and PKK videos from WoW
- Fight Crime - Cyberbullying
- Teenager Recounts Harrowing Tale of Online Death Threats
- Cyberbullying (New Jersey) (PDF)
- Demystifying and Deescalating Cyber Bullying (PPT)
- Challenging Cyber Bullying