Empowering and protecting children and adolescents against cyberbullying

Virtual worlds are inhabited by pestering nuisances and ferocious vigilantes. The first group uses the Internet ? cloaked by its relative anonymity ? as their worldwide stage and gain enormous attention for negative behaviour. Digital vigilantes in turn condemn negative online/off-line behaviour via the Internet, and are notorious for extra-legal actions against perceived negative online/off-line behaviour. Both kinds of actions may have profound socio-psychological consequences for individuals, which raises the questions whether and, if so, how to regulate. Anti-social behaviour may be regulated socially, legally and technologically and each regulatory modality can be more or less effective depending on the behaviour and context involved. This research focuses on the phenomenon of cyberbullying amongst children/adolescents in different kinds of (experimental) virtual worlds. Minors are highly involved in virtual worlds and extremely exposed in terms of absorbing social norms and victimisation. The hypothesis is that social norms vary between virtual worlds (e.g., virtual games and social-networking sites), which influences the prevalence and nature of cyberbullying and effectiveness of different regulatory modalities. This research project focuses on relevant factors in governing social behaviour in online environments in view of different kinds of interventions (social, technological, and legal). Moreover, the project investigates relevant factors in the ways adolescent users of virtual worlds perceive and empower themselves against negative behaviour. The research objective is to apprehend the possibilities for protection and empowerment of individuals against online anti-social behaviour through (a combination of) different kinds of regulatory modalities.