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By Jung Hae-myoung
School violence is getting serious but also harder to notice because many bullying incidents are taking place online.
Cyberbullying is harassment in online spaces such as the internet and mobile phones. The offenders commit verbal abuse or spread personal information or rumors about the victims.
According to a recent survey by the Ministry of Education, among 50,000 students from elementary to high school who have suffered from school violence, 10.8 percent experienced cyberbullying. The ratio was higher than those who suffered physical violence, 10 percent.
On Sept. 2, a high school student in Jecheon, North Chungcheong Province, committed suicide after receiving constant threats from her peers. Police booked six of them, who were classmates and senior students at her school, for allegedly harassing her through social media and will refer the case to the prosecution soon.
A middle schooler in Incheon also committed suicide on Aug. 13, after constant verbal abuse and sexual harassment. After her death, her sister claimed the victim was raped by two boys in her class, who talked about the incident to others. Then the victim had to suffer from Facebook messages from other students and even strangers who asked her to have sex with them, according to the sister.
The method of cyberbullying varies by platforms, such as leaving a student out from a KakaoTalk group chat room among classmates, ordering students to do something through text message, spreading personal information to others through social media or verbally abusing others during online games.
Recently cyberbullying has "evolved" with many new features on smartphones giving bullies an advantage.
"Unlike the initial-stage cyberbullying that was done anonymously on the internet, smartphone cyberbullying is usually done by an acquaintance," said Lee Chang-ho, a senior research fellow at the National Youth Policy Institute (NYPI).
In Korea, many bullies make ill use of KakaoTalk, a national chat platform with 4 million users. Teenagers make a group chat room leaving out a specific person to intentionally make them feel left out, or the victims are added to a chat room without their consent only to be verbally abused. Those who are picked on cannot escape from the "cyber jail," because their peers continuously "invite" them again.
On Facebook, bullies often spread rumors or composite photos with sexual content to shame victims publicly. Such data, photos and videos remain online and continue to humiliate them, leaving the victims with psychological trauma.
"Adolescents feel more sensitive to the issue, because they cannot control their emotions as easily as adults. Sometimes victims become the attackers as revenge," he said.
Teenagers who are bullied by their peers find it hard to seek help. According to the NYPI, 23.8 percent of victims respond by blocking the bully from online platforms, but an equal percentage of students "do nothing about it." Only 5.3 percent of students reported incidents of bullying to police and even fewer told their parents.
Schools are ignorant of what is going on between students because teachers do not see any physical harassment in class. But online school violence happens beneath the surface.
After the student in Jecheon committed suicide, the school teachers claimed they did not know the student had been bullied until they saw the news.
Social media platforms have been trying to come up with countermeasures against cyberbullying, but their efforts have been limited.
"One of the key features that KakaoTalk can introduce is asking for consent of the person who is invited to the group chat room," Lee said. Currently KakaoTalk allows a person to invite anyone to a group without their consent.
Facebook administrators are supposed to delete comments or posts that could cause psychological distress to an individual upon their report. Instagram also distributed guidelines for parents in Korea to monitor their children and increase their media literacy.
Experts say schools need a better counseling system to provide a culture in which students feel comfortable to speak about their situation.
"In the United States, schools have three to four counselors for students to share their distress, but Korean schools do not have a proper system for students to talk about their emotions. School counselors' jobs are largely limited to career counseling," Lee said.
Students who are cyberbullied can call counseling agencies in their region or call a police department for children, women and the disabled (117). Cyberbullies aged over 14 can also be punished under the juvenile law.
