Between a joke online and cyber-bullying

The final question I asked was on the subject of “frape”, or “Facebook rape”. This recent addition to the English language refers to the nasty phenomenon where a person leaves their computer unattended while logged on to Facebook and others use the opportunity to change information on their personal page, usually to embarrass or humiliate.

This is an issue that has not been specifically studied in previous research. In fact, most “frapers” do not see fraping as bullying. While this may be true of many frapes – changing information on Facebook to make someone look as though they are a Justin Bieber fan, for example – other frapes, such as posting homophobic, sexist or racist statements should, I believe, be considered cyberbullying. I say this because of the distress it may cause both the victim of the frape and the readers of that page, who may not realise that a frape has occurred.

My survey showed that frape was popular amongst boys in middle adolescence and it was a reciprocal behaviour – those who were fraped also admitting fraping.

We need to continue to educate young people about cyber-bullying. We need to encourage them to think about what sort of behaviour constitutes cyber-bullying – and ask them whether any of their behaviour online might be perceived by others as bullying. What may seem like a joke to them may be seen very differently by the victim and a wider audience. l Sarah Pedersen is a professor in the Department of Communication, Marketing & Media, Aberdeen Business School, Robert Gordon University, www.rgu.ac.uk