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Silencing Cyberbullies How to Defuse Bad Actors


by April Thompson W JOIN US ON:


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hether it’s a damaging rumor posted on Facebook, a humiliating photo shared on


Instagram or a threatening text, cyber- bullying is increasing among today’s youth. A 2015 Cyberbullying Research Center study of middle school students found that 43 percent had been target- ed, while 15 percent admitted to being online bullies. Meanwhile, students, parents and teachers are combating cyber-aggression with initiatives to make the phenomenon socially unac- ceptable in schools.


Grassroots Action Tyler Gregory, 23, attended a small, insular high school in rural Ohio where bullying was problematic. As a senior with younger siblings approach- ing their high school years, he aimed to change the local culture to make bullying uncool.


Gregory decided to make a movie to submit to the NO BULL Challenge, a national organization that provides students a platform to develop and dis-


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seminate materials that spark dialogue about such troubling issues. Challenges ranged from teaching himself film- making and persuading students to participate to mustering the courage to present the project to his school. He achieved the transformation he sought, beginning with 70 students participat- ing in his production.


“I appealed to classmates by asking,


‘How do you want to be remembered? Why not choose to be viewed positively, as leaders?’” says Gregory, who later became a spokesperson for NO BULL Challenge. To date, the challenge has received 600 submissions, garnering 23 million impressions through digital and social media, the vehicles of cyberbul- lies. A recent graduate of Dayton, Ohio’s Wright State University, Gregory has spoken to about 45,000 students in 27 states in school assemblies. Nancy Willard, director of Embrace


Civility in the Digital Age, headquartered in Creswell, Oregon, believes that such initiatives, which shift schools from punitive approaches to making


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