One in Three. That is how many students receive cyberbully threats at least once. Cyber bullying is becoming a popular form of bullying because of the growth of technology. In fact, there are many different available websites that support anonymous instant messaging, a form of cyberbullying that is becoming more and more popular. Those sites are an attraction to the common bully. Many kids are physically harming themselves or worse; some of the pressure they are experiencing is pushing them to commit suicide because of anonymous bullying threats; if we do not change the rules of anonymous instant messaging soon, the amount of kids harming themselves will continue to grow.

Ask.fm is a very popular website/application that supports anonymous instant messaging. Nine kids have committed suicide having Ask.fm threats be the biggest cause of their death; Ask.fm did come up in some of their suicide notes. After looking at some images of instant messages sent to these people, all of the threats were anonymous. Anonymous bullying is much easier than face to face bullying or even identified cyber bullying because the victim will never know who it is and cannot make an effort to stand up to the bully. The CyberBullying Research Center states that victims of anonymous cyber bullying are more likely to suffer from low self esteem and suicidal thoughts. This proves that each threat a victim receives, their self-esteem slowly disintegrates until depression kicks in, which may even lead to suicidal thoughts.

Demi Lovato is a victim of cyberbullying; her overall well-being health took a nose dive. It all started in middle school; she was bullied daily, and she slowly became bulimic, and she started cutting herself. While she was shooting for Camp Rock at age 15, she would often come across unruly comments online by mainly anonymous users. These remarks would “trigger her emotions” and she would continue to physically harm herself. The cyberbullying that occurred only made her physical and emotional health worse. Thankfully, overtime things did get much better for her and she did get the support she needed. If these anonymous instant messages and comments are affecting this one girl we all know and love, that means this is also affecting many other people in just as bad ways… possibly even worse; we need to change the rules of anonymous instant messaging.

Everyday people receive grotesque and cruel anonymous comments on their social media accounts. Seventy percent of students report seeing frequent bullying online… but don’t do anything about it, yet sixty-eight percent of kids say that anonymous cyberbullying is a serious issue. As long as anonymous instant messaging is not taken care of, those percentages will increase. Four thousand, five hundred kids commit suicide each year because of anonymous cyberbullying and 20 percent of anonymous cyberbully victims have considered it. Those numbers will continue to grow because of more technology that is out there and anonymous instant messaging websites becoming available to us.

To diminish the popularity and availability of instant messaging, there is really only one solution, totally ban all websites that support this type of instant messaging. violencepreventionworks is a website that agrees with my claim of having Instant messaging be banned. This site is also very aware of the consequences and emotions victims of this type of cyberbullying experience.

Nobody should feel like they are worthless, unwanted, and totally hated. Anonymous instant messaging has proved itself to be good and bad; it is good because it is a great way to become social and interact with people and see what people can be like, but although this may seem fun, it may also poorly affect someone depending on who they are instant messaging. The bad effects of anonymous instant messaging are more effective than the good effects, so why keep it legal?