Royal Canadian Mounted Police
Symbol of the Government of Canada

Common menu bar links

Cyberbullying and Digital Harassment – Conflict, Consequences, Citizenship [11-12] - Handout 11-12.2a

Conflicts + Technology = Bigger Problems - Sample Scenario

Scenario: In Grade 8, Cassie and her friends would spend time on random chat sites, meeting strangers and doing what at the time they thought was hilarious with no consequences. When Cassie went into Grade 9, she ended up going to a school without many of her friends, so she quickly found a new group of friends to hang out with. After a couple weeks, one of her new friends, Adrian, pulled her aside and asked about the picture of her topless on the internet. Cassie was shocked. For fun in Grade 8, she agreed to show her breasts to a random stranger in a chat room, thinking nothing of it because it was someone she didn't know. Adrian said that one of the girls in their group of friends had found it and was inboxing it and texting it to people at their school. Cassie was mortified. To make matters worse, all her new friends stopped hanging out with her and older students started making fun of her and calling her a slut. Cassie switched schools for Grade 10, but the picture, taunting, and bullying continued. Someone created a website with information about Cassie and used the image as the main graphic on the page. It seemed like everyone in the city knew of or had seen the picture. One day at school, Cassie was called to the office and when she arrived, the police, her parents and the principal were all there. They explained that the picture had been forwarded to her parents by another family at the school who wanted to press charges against Cassie for producing child pornography.

List the ways that the conflict escalated because of using technology.

To read Adobe Acrobat (PDF) files, you may need to download and install the free Adobe Reader available from Adobe Systems Incorporated.