Over the last decade, with technological progress, the way of working has changed dramatically. Currently, employees communicate with each other using new information and communication technologies (abbreviated as ICT – information and communication technologies), which offer powerful tools – such as text messages, photos, videos, e-mails, instant messengers and social networking sites – to facilitate attacking potential victims. As many experts emphasize, cyberbullying (cyberbullying, cybermobbing) is a particularly harmful phenomenon because it can cause serious consequences with only „a few clicks”.

It should be noted that cyberbullying differs from traditional mobbing (harassment) because: perpetrators may remain anonymous, negative behavior towards a specific employee is visible to a wider group of observers, and, moreover, acts of cyberbullying may occur outside the physical workplace. The latest report by the International Labor Organization (ILO) highlights that a comprehensive understanding of the „world of work” is essential to adequately deal with all incidents of cyberbullying, which by their nature can occur anywhere and at any time.

Even though traditional mobbing and cyberbullying in the workplace have many common features, due to the tools used by the perpetrators of cyberbullying (modern information and communication technologies), it is characterized by a higher frequency of aggressive behavior and allows for maintaining anonymity more effectively. This is why the consequences of cyberbullying at work can be much more serious. One of the most painful is the deepening sense of helplessness – even in people who generally cope well with negative behavior at work.

Meanwhile, perpetrators of cyberbullying at work have increasingly new ways of harming victims. The distance between the virtual and real worlds may encourage them to take actions that, thanks to the use of information and communication technologies, violate a number of the victim’s personal rights. As a result, the victim feels less able to protect herself from the perpetrator, especially when acts of aggression occur on a public Internet forum, e.g. on social networking sites such as Facebook or Twitter, and therefore in front of a potentially infinite number of observers in cyberspace. Cyberbullying can permeate a significant part of a person’s life and make them unable to mentally detach themselves from the event, therefore it does not allow the victim to isolate themselves from the source of constant stress. An employee who is the target of long-term cyberbullying suffers serious consequences in terms of mental and physical health. As a result, cyberbullying generates negative consequences for the organization, e.g. loss of productivity and profitability, as well as other costs.

Types of cyberbullying behavior:

• flamingo – causing a violent, short-term dispute with the victim or group of victims, including offensive, vulgar remarks, insults, and sometimes even threats sent electronically;
• harassment (harassment) – repeated, continuous sending of offensive messages to the victim via personal messengers (such as Messenger or Whats App) or e-mail;
• denigration – speaking about the victim in a hurtful, false or cruel way; such statements may be posted online or sent directly to others by electronic means;
• the perpetrator impersonating the victim and posting information on his or her behalf that discredits him or her;
• outing and trickery – publicly posting, sending or forwarding personal messages or photos of the victim, especially those that contain intimate information and are potentially compromising for him or her; these actions may be based on deceit (i.e. the perpetrator deceives the victim into keeping the intimate information provided by him/her to himself, when in fact he spreads it online or uses it as a blackmail tool);
• exclusion of the victim from a given social group, as a result of which he or she becomes an outcast in a specific environment communicating electronically;
• cyberstalking – periodically sending the victim messages that contain threats, are extremely offensive or force specific things;
• online threats (cybertreats) – directly threatening the victim with harm or inciting him to commit suicide (such threats, sent electronically, usually contain information about the actual planned event) or posting disturbing materials online, presenting the victim as an emotionally unstable person who may consider harming yourself or others.

Source:https://www.seka.pl/cyberprzemoc-w-miejscu-pracy/

Supported by Norway through Norway Grants 2014-2021, in the frame of the Programme “Social Dialogue – Decent Work”.