You're nothing more than a hypocritical little bitch from how it looks.
Definitely attention seeking too. Enough. You're so sickening.
What?
In today's episode, I'll be looking into a rising trend in recent years,
cyberbullying.
Cyberbullying is basically bullying or harassment but online.
The risks and impact of cyberbullying continue to
grow as our lives go increasingly digital.
There are different types of cyberbullying but one of the most common
is sending malicious messages or leaving comments with the intention
of humiliating, harassing, or intimidating the victim online.
In the past year or so we have seen some high-profile cases of cyberbullying
that have ended tragically.
Well-known personalities in Singapore
are not spared either.
Christopher Chua is a popular influencer with over 200,000 followers.
In 2018, private videos of her and her then boyfriend were
leaked anonymously online.
Since then, she has been the target of cyberbullying.
So it's been almost three years and are you still getting cyberbullied now?
Yeah.
Every day.
In varying degrees, you know.
Sometimes it's just a comment.
Sometimes it's a DM.
Sometimes they create new instagram pages.
The daily...oh you... you shouldn't be alive
I wish you were dead, and things like that.
I don't think it will ever stop as long as I work in this digital space.
But when all this was happening, did you ever, at any point, think about
quitting or like leaving the internet?
I guess it will cross my mind, you know.
I mean...
Especially on days where you are crying and you are just like
really down...
you're just thinking, "Okay lah I can quit."
But then the next question comes like, what will you do next?
I've spent so many years learning how to...
to understand the industry, to perfect what I do...
build a business and...
Do I really want to...
quit?
How did this affect you emotionally?
When you go to a crowded place,
suddenly you feel very unsafe, you...
would want to cry you want to...
just draw yourself away from a space that...
actually you would be normally okay with,
you know, in the past.
Boarding gates scare me.
Anywhere where
people are using their phones.
In the past,
I used to be....
more comfortable putting myself out there
to be in front of the camera and...
on some days I really...
I cannot, you know...
take an Instagram story, talk about what I love.
I find it really hard to face myself...
Like to just look at the reflection of yourself, it's just...
uncomfortable.
But on some days it's okay.
What safeguards have you put into place to kind of protect yourself?
You can actually block certain words on Instagram.
You can go under privacy settings
and you can block out certain words.
However, I guess you know if people are just out
to make you feel bad about yourself and to bully,
they will find really creative ways to spell it out.
So there's only that much
you can do.
When...
I have the option of choosing
whether to have dinner with my friends or head home to rest,
I'll choose dinner with my friends because
when I'm having dinner with my friends
I use my phone a lot less as opposed to when I'm at home
getting ready for bed, you know, you just scroll through your phone.
I would often
choose the option of...
that results in me using my phone less.
Okay.
Yeah, so these are little things that I do
to try to make myself feel better.
You need an outlet
whether it is crying,
or just talking about it,
you need to vent.
You cannot keep it bottled up inside.
In any way possible just try to reach out to someone.
What...
would you want someone to say to you?
I guess...
to say that they know that's not easy?
It's okay, take as much time as you need. It's not easy, Bel!
That...
they don't know when it will get better but...
if you need someone they'll always be there and they will not get sick of
listening to the same stories over and over again.
Yeah.
I guess that's...that's the thing because
you'll probably be telling them the same thing over and over.
Whether it just happened or whether...
it's the same thing from like a year ago, you know.
And I think if you're the person that's telling the story that you are being cyberbullied,
to not feel bad.
Because you can't...I feel bad talking about it
and I feel sick of talking about it
but...
if you don't then you're not going
to get the support that you need.
And I think everybody needs support.
That's why I'm able to talk about it and my mom will always tell me
you should talk about it because
you might make someone feel less alone.
Did you consider seeking professional help?
Yeah I did.
I went to a therapist.
It's been good,
I achieved my objective.
I think the whole journey for me was to understand
how I feel,
understand how to better control and...
take care of myself
especially when anxiety and stuff like that
act up.
Monica Baey is another person who was cyberbullied.
In 2018, she was the victim of a peeping tom case.
A fellow male student filmed her in the shower.
Even though he was caught,
he was only given a 12-month conditional warning by the police
and suspended from school for a semester.
He was also made to write an apology letter to her.
Monica expressed her frustration on
Instagram stories calling out the school for not doing more against the perpetrator.
However she received many messages from people disagreeing with her method of
doing so.
The first sign that I had been receiving
hateful comments it was actually on my Instagram so...
it first started like in my DMs,
people would comment or like message me and be like
"Why are you like doing this?"
"Are you trying to get attention?"
"Get revenge?"
"What is the reason that
you are posting about this?"
and basically questioning my intentions.
You're nothing more than a hypocritical little bitch from how it looks.
Definitely attention seeking too.
Don't forget that he admitted his wrongdoing
on the same night after the incident before he even went to the police.
So now you're saying that you had no intention to crucify him?
What he did was wrong but you are no angel either.
Don't hide your true evil intentions and
narcissistic self-serving ambitions under the noble reasons such as fighting
for women's rights.
Enough. You're so sickening.
How do you do all this negativity?
My boyfriend.
He basically took it on himself and he just like read through all the comments and he showed
me the ones that I needed to see, which were like maybe requests about things I
could actually do or like, you know, help or positive comments,
he showed me all of that.
All the negative comments he was like, "Don't even look at it."
Like don't even engage, it's not going to
make you feel any better, there's nothing you can do about it
and people are not going to understand.
And what's important is people that you
care about understand and that is all that matters.
So I was like, you know what? You're right.
I'm not even going to look.
Now I look back on it, I'm actually not as affected because i've kind of like separated
myself from it.
These are people that hate on me and I've
sort of learned to be like...don't take it personally, right?
Everyone's entitled to their own opinion.
I cannot do anything if they want to
disagree with me.
What I can do is not let it affect me.
So why do you choose to continue speaking about it?
If I stop, everyone's going to stop caring.
I think like initially when
you know, it happened, I was like shut off and I was just like petrified.
I cannot tell anyone.
No one is going to know about this.
What if the video gets out? I was just so freaking terrified.
When the outcome came out, it just didn't make sense to me like how
is it possible that this is justice?
Everyone tell me to like just
you know accept it, what can I do?
I was so upset, I was crying but nobody saw that.
I was so helpless I felt like
I had seen other people go through this and
not talk about it and I cannot imagine, you know
just keeping quiet letting myself be another statistic.
At least if people can hear about what is going on,
hear and understand like, why there's something wrong with this,
maybe it's a chance to make it better for someone else.
If I made a difference you know, even to just one person,
it matters to me.
So how did this affect you emotionally?
Cyberbullying is something that
people think that you can just ignore, right?
It's just...
a comment but
I understand how it feels to feel really alone,
really isolated just by like this one comment.
This one comment can really get to you.
I don't know, something in this the comment that
said that really hit you in a place that like...
why would someone say this?
I think many people actually don't know that there
are laws that protect us from cyberbullying in singapore
or maybe they do but they don't quite know how to use them.
So I decided to look into this.
I'm here today with Benjamin, he's a lawyer who
should be able to answer my questions.
If I am being cyberbullied, do I first go to the police or to a lawyer?
The short answer actually is neither.
In fact, a victim who is you know suffering from cyberbullying
can actually approach the courts directly.
And they are actually able to help direct or to guide the victim
through the system.
There are some exceptions to this rule.
If the victim believes that he's in immediate physical danger
then he should go to the police immediately.
Could you explain what going
to the courts look like so what does that mean for me who
has no experience with this?
Do I just show up?
Do I look online? How does that work?
The state courts is actually quite centrally located within the Chinatown area,
Havelock Road. It's a very simple matter
of going to the administrative counter. One of the
clerical officers there or the court staff right who will
basically take down your complaint and will help guide you through the
forms that you need to fill and will get the information from you.
And is that process free?
Generally it is the costs are
very low with any at all. Right, I mean this is really a matter of public protection.
Is there a law in singapore that would
specifically protect me from cyberbullying?
Yes there is.
So this is what we call POHA.
POHA - the Protection From Harassment Act.
POHA was actually enacted to provide victims
to give them a range of protection either by criminal protection or civil
protection against harassment.
And also against what we call false statements of facts.
It doesn't actually require
that these sort of intimidating circumstances be
in the physical realm, they can also extend to
the online world as well.
How is POHA executed?
The courts will come in and what they will do
is they will issue what we call court orders
to give you certain protection.
What they would get will be an
order from the courts, you know, against the individual for a Stop Publication Order
against the person making publication of certain statements
to stop that the publication.
If you breach that then
obviously that's a contempt of a court order.
And there can be penalties against the individual.
Now that we know how the law
can protect us, how can we deal with the emotional
aspects of cyberbullying?
I'm going to talk to Joseph, he's a counsellor who
deals with cyberbullying cases.
There is still a bit of stigma with
regards to seeking professional help so what is your take on that?
a lot of people feel that
seeking help is
maybe number one like saying that
they are weak,
they can't handle their own problem.
They may think that these are things that i should be able to overcome
and they may not want to step forward
because they feel that people might
shame them, people might say that, "What do you do wrong?"
"Why?"
It's not a bad thing right to seek help you do need to talk to
someone about it, don't be afraid, just step up talk to
someone and you never know that that may be your
turning point in your life.
If I reach out to a counselor would that
be on my health record and who can access my health record?
When you come to see a counselor everything is confidential
unless there is harm to yourself, harm to others, or harm to the community itself.
Other than that, what is shared in a session is confidential.
It's kept in the institute or the place that you seek counselling help with.
Unless you need...your records is summoned by the court, otherwise it is confidential.
So it's a safe place for you to talk.
Another thing I'm actually really curious about is the psychology of a cyberbully.
What leads to someone choosing to write a mean comment or even
go the whole hog to you know harass somebody online send them mean
emails, that kind of thing?
One group of people they are being
bullied online...
and they become the bully.
Right, so
when they are bullied online they feel weak they feel small
and sometimes they want to seek revenge or another group of people that we
hear about is that...
when they write things online they feel that it's
their right to let out this emotion. They feel that it's their right
to vend out what they feel.
We help them see that
this is also hurting people.
They actually do not realize that
I don't think that many cyberbullies actually understand the impact of what
they're doing, so if you could say something to like a cyberbully,
what would you say?
Everyone is entitled to their own opinion whether you like
something or not.
You can share with your friends but
do you really need to go the extra mile to leave a comment
or to type it out
to that person.
Think about it before you hit enter
and hopefully you know if something is unkind,
keep it to yourself
or your close group of friends.
And it might really help you know
not hurt someone.
I guess if you know that your friend is
being a bully or unkind,
just tell them, hey you know this is not very nice.
Can you just just not?
Just don't do it.
I think most of the time people just ignore,
people brush it off and people just let
their friend be like that
but you wouldn't know the
adverse effect that your friend's actions has on the person
Yeah, so keep each other in check.
Try your best to make sure that everybody
is a little bit kinder, just a little bit.
You might think that you know,
you're just poking a bit of fun, you're just saying your opinion.
You're not intending to you know cause serious hurt or upset to someone
but before you actually
say something maybe you should put
yourself in the shoe to someone else.
It's so easy now you know like in this
day and age like on YouTube, just leave a comment, dislike,
say like "fuck you" with an anonymous account. It's so easy to do that
but it's so hard to be the person on the receiving end.
What if you were saying that to your sister your own mother
like why would you ever say that?
What would you say to someone who's also being cyberbullied?
Firstly, go offline first. Go offline, put it away.
Don't even look at it for right now. Think about yourself - what are you
feeling because a lot of people might feel like "I'm worthless",
they might not even feel like
their opinion matters and that's when people kick them right when they're
already down.
Speaking to someone you can close like someone close that
understands you that knows you really really well,
it can be family, it can be friends it can be anyone really.
They will understand that your nature and that is people who can really like
get to you, make you feel better, make you understand that this is inconsequential
this comment is inconsequential. What matters is you. What matters is that
your daily life, you live your life, you're feeling fulfilled
and you are loved.
I think when you're cyberbullied,
you kind of don't want to admit that you are
because you feel a bit silly
saying that you have been cyberbullied
and everyone will tell you to get over it.
Do not feel ashamed of talking about it.
The bullies are trying to incite a
reaction from you.
They are urging you to feel really bad
about yourself
and
I hope that people find it in them
to not let them win.
Because these people don't care about you and these people
do not care if you live, you know, or if you
are happy and stuff like that. Your friends do, and
your family does.
Learn how to make sure it doesn't happen as often
whether you you're the one seeing the comments or
you're blocking the words
because when you don't absorb the content then you don't get a reaction
you don't feel it.
Then you just try to take yourself out of the situation.
Maybe we see our online lives as a different separate world that doesn't
spill into our real lives.
But as today's episode has shown,
it could just be a funny comment to you, a little bit of tea, a little bit of shade,
but to someone else, the accumulated effect has a very real human cost.
Thanks for watching guys.
As usual don't forget to like, subscribe and hit the little bell so you get notified every
time a new episode comes out. I'll see you guys next time, bye!