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Indian government initiatives on cyberbullying: A case study on cyberbullying in Indian higher education institutions

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In the digitally empowered society, increased internet utilization leads to potential harm to the youth through cyberbullying on various social networking platforms. The cyberbullying stats keep on rising each year, leading to detrimental consequences. In response to this online threat, the Indian Government launched different helplines, especially for the children and women who need assistance, various complaint boxes, cyber cells, and made strict legal provisions to curb online offenses. This research evaluates the relevant initiatives. Additionally, a survey is conducted to get insights into cyberbullying in higher education institutions, discussing multiple factors responsible for youth and adolescents being cyberbullied and a few measures to combat it in universities/colleges.
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Vol.:(0123456789)
https://doi.org/10.1007/s10639-022-11168-4
1 3
Indian government initiatives oncyberbullying: Acase
study oncyberbullying inIndian higher education
institutions
ManpreetKaur1 · MunishSaini1
Received: 24 February 2022 / Accepted: 14 June 2022
© The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Science+Business Media, LLC, part of Springer Nature
2022
Abstract
In the digitally empowered society, increased internet utilization leads to potential
harm to the youth through cyberbullying on various social networking platforms.
The cyberbullying stats keep on rising each year, leading to detrimental conse-
quences. In response to this online threat, the Indian Government launched different
helplines, especially for the children and women who need assistance, various com-
plaint boxes, cyber cells, and made strict legal provisions to curb online offenses.
This research evaluates the relevant initiatives. Additionally, a survey is conducted
to get insights into cyberbullying in higher education institutions, discussing multi-
ple factors responsible for youth and adolescents being cyberbullied and a few meas-
ures to combat it in universities/colleges.
Keywords Cyberbullying· Government initiatives· Higher education· Social media
1 Introduction
Cyberbullying is harassment done to the victim to cause harm via any electronic
method, including social media resulting in defamation, public disclosure of pri-
vate facts, and intentional emotional distress (Watts etal., 2017). It can be related
to sending and posting cruel texts or images with the help of social media and other
digital communication devices to harm a victim (Washington, 2015). It is a repeated
behavior done by the individual with the help of social media, over the gaming, and
messaging platforms that target mainly to lower the victims’ self-esteem.
* Manpreet Kaur
manpreet.csersh@gndu.ac.in
Munish Saini
munish.cet@gndu.ac.in
1 Department ofComputer Engineering andTechnology, Guru Nanak Dev University, Amritsar,
Punjab, India
Education and Information Technologies (2023) 28:581–615
Published online: 4 July 2022
/
Content courtesy of Springer Nature, terms of use apply. Rights reserved.
... This study focuses on investigating cyberbullying and cyberstalking victimisation in the academic context of higher education (HE), shedding light on their impact on student online experiences and well-being (Kaur and Saini, 2023;Lindsay et al., 2016;Marcum and Higgins, 2019). While prior research has mainly addressed them separately (Abaido, 2020;Fissel and Reyns, 2020;Stevens et al., 2021), the convergence of these phenomena in the education and lives of university students suggests a need to explore them holistically Kraft and Wang, 2010). ...
... E, 2014). NCRB data accounts state that cybercrimes in India increased by 63.48 per cent from 2018 to 2019, which saw an expansion of 12.32 per cent in 2020 (Kaur et al., 2023). Perpetrators usually engage in social sabotage of others. ...
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