Cyberbullying is a growing phenomena of school kids taunting and degrading each other, especially on websites like Facebook.

Bullies have always existed who get a perverse thrill from harassing others. But social media in particular allows put-downs and abuse to flourish for two reasons:

• The abuser feels less accountable for their actions, since face-to-face is replaced with the buffer and anonymity of being online.
• The victim is immediately on the defensive and feels they cannot fight back or defend themselves against a faceless bully sending a stream of accusation and abuse.

Like a drive by shooting, the bully fires off the rejection, hate and may no longer be even present for any rebuttal the victim offers up. This leads to feeling helpless to defend against or prevent further abuse.

Cyberbullying can include inappropriate texts, threats and illicit pictures or videos that can slander, embarrass or extort the bullied individual.

Multiple cyberbullies can gang up on the victim, making him orher feel overwhelmed and haunted by negative message after message. And when the vast majority of social feedback a pre-teen or teenager gets from their peers is hateful and negative, their self-esteem caves in.

Already insecure about fitting in, this abuse in words,pictures and videos can devastate the psyche as their whole world seems to judge them as an unwanted failure. Teens are still developing their identity and rejection at this stage is particularly cruel.

Today’s world of cell phones, Twitter and Facebook makes it easy for a degrading photo or belittling text to get shared with many peers in seconds, further amplifying the abuse and destroying their reputation.

Although new legislation is being developed to combat this cruel phenomena, the best place to stop it is at a cyberbully’s favorite focus for abuse – your child’s Facebook profile.

EyeGuardian stays in the background so your child doesn’t feel like you’re reading over their shoulder.

EyeGuardian also monitors their Facebook contacts for suspect profiles or possible predators. Our combination of visual defense plus message and “friend” watching is a powerful 1-2 punch to deflect bulling online.

At EyeGuardian we want to make Facebook safe for the whole family. We are unique in our ability to go beyond text filtering to also catch inappropriate photos and video content. All this is to put the control back in the parent’s hands for the best experience online.