Cyberbullying on Social Media – Know Your Rights

What Is Cyberbullying? Definition and Examples

Cyberbullying is an umbrella term for repeated, targeted digital attacks against a specific person. It typically involves a pattern rather than a single incident: degrading comments, public humiliation, the spread of false or private information, threats, or coordinated harassment by a group. What distinguishes cyberbullying from an isolated offensive message is its systematic, recurring character.

Common Forms of Cyberbullying on Social Media

• Repeated degrading or mocking comments on posts, stories or videos
• Coordinated pile-ons or mass-reporting campaigns against the victim
• Publicly sharing private information or images without consent
• Creating fake profiles to mock, impersonate or harass the victim
• Threats, intimidation or incitement of others to target the victim
• Tagging the victim in humiliating content without their consent
• Misusing report functions to suppress the victim's own content

Cyberbullying vs. Cyberstalking: What Is the Difference?

The two terms are closely related but describe different patterns of behaviour. Cyberbullying typically involves repeated attacks – often carried out by more than one person – that degrade, humiliate or threaten the victim in a visible, public way. The focus is on harm to the victim's reputation, emotional wellbeing or social standing. Cyberstalking, by contrast, is more specifically characterised by one person systematically monitoring, following or contacting another without consent, in a way that causes fear. Surveillance and control are the defining elements rather than public humiliation. In practice, the two frequently overlap: a stalker may also run a public harassment campaign, and a bullying situation can escalate into stalking behaviour. User Rights can handle cases that contain elements of both.

Cyberbullying Policies on Social Media Platforms

All platforms covered by User Rights are subject to the DSA, which requires them to give reasons for moderation decisions and to cooperate with certified dispute settlement bodies. Each platform also prohibits bullying and harassment in its community standards.

Meta: Instagram and Facebook

Meta's Bullying and Harassment policy covers targeted attacks on private individuals, including threats, the sharing of personally identifiable information and content designed to degrade or shame. For public figures, Meta removes only severe attacks and certain attacks where the person is directly tagged; for private individuals it also removes content meant to degrade or shame. Anyone under 18 receives the strongest protection regardless of status. Some categories, including first-person voice bullying and unwanted manipulated imagery, are enforced only when the affected person reports them. Automated moderation at Instagram and Facebook regularly fails to recognise a harassment pattern across multiple accounts or posts.

TikTok

TikTok's Community Guidelines on Harassment and Bullying cover behaviour as well as content. Prohibited conduct includes degrading someone on the basis of characteristics such as appearance, intellect, personality or hygiene, inciting others to bully or exclude an individual, and promoting coordinated harassment or attempting to create conflict between people, for example by calling on others to flood the comments with abusive language. Threatening or encouraging others to doxx, blackmail, share account information or hack an account is also prohibited. TikTok may also restrict content without removing it entirely by making it ineligible for recommendation on the "For your Feed" (FYF) page which is a reviewable moderation measure even when the post remains visible.

TikTok allows counter-speech and condemnation, and applies a lower level of protection to public figures, while still removing serious forms of harassment. Awareness campaigns and narrative or artistic depictions are excepted, but only where the behaviour is not being praised or promoted. These carve-outs are where enforcement most often goes wrong: a video calling out someone's abusive conduct sits close to the retaliatory harassment line, and automated review is poorly placed to tell the two apart.

YouTube

YouTube's Harassment & Cyberbullying policy prohibits content specifically intended to demean, intimidate or harass a particular individual. This includes repeated targeted attacks across multiple videos or comments, content encouraging others to harass a specific person, and the sharing of personal information to direct harassment at them. Where enforcement most often fails is the pattern: individual comments or videos are reviewed in isolation, and automated systems routinely miss the cumulative harassment that only becomes visible across several pieces of content or accounts.

X

X's Abuse and Harassment policy prohibits targeted harassment of individuals, content that incites others to harass a specific person, and repeated degrading or intimidating messages or posts. The policy covers direct attacks, unwanted sexual content directed at individuals, and explicit or implicit calls for others to pile on a target. X allows counter-speech and content discussing harassment in the public interest, but automated enforcement regularly flags legitimate responses to bullying as harassment itself — and this type of decision falls within User Rights' scope of review.

LinkedIn

LinkedIn's Professional Community Policies prohibit targeted personal attacks, intimidation, shaming, revealing others' personal information, trolling or degrading language or repetitive content which disrupts conversations.

Cyberbullying on LinkedIn often targets people's professional reputation: through false reviews, coordinated negative comments, or posts designed to damage their standing with employers or clients.

Snapchat

Snapchat's Community Guidelines prohibit targeted harassment, repeated degrading attacks and behaviour intended to intimidate or exclude a specific person. The Harassment and Bullying section covers both direct attacks and content that facilitates coordinated targeting. Snap may remove content, issue warnings or restrict account features; both failures to act on reported harassment and wrongful removals of legitimate content fall within User Rights' scope of review.

Pinterest

Pinterest's Community Guidelines explicitly prohibit harassment, privacy violations and cyberbullying. Pinterest states it is not a place for antagonistic, harmful or hateful content or behaviour, and may remove, limit or block distribution of such content and the accounts spreading it depending on the harm posed. Bullying on Pinterest frequently takes the form of boards or collections created to publicly mock or humiliate a specific person.

What Can You Do if You Are Affected?

There are two situations in which User Rights can help with cyberbullying: the platform has not acted on harassment you reported, or your own content has been wrongly removed – for example, because a perpetrator misused the report function to silence you.

Scenario A: You are experiencing cyberbullying and the platform has not acted

1. Document the pattern: Screenshot every relevant post, comment or account with the profile name, URL, date and time. Cyberbullying is defined by its repetition – a chronological record that shows the pattern is essential for any review. A simple table with date, platform, content and URL is ideal.
2. Report to the platform: Use the in-built reporting function for each piece of content or account. Where possible, indicate in your report that the incidents form part of a pattern of harassment – not isolated events.
3. Appeal if dismissed: If the platform closes your report without action, use its appeal mechanism via the help centre or the notification you received. Keep a record of the appeal and the platform's response. Please note: You do not have to wait for a response to file a case with User Rights, it is sufficient that a reasonable waiting period of seven days expired. Please always provide evidence of your internal complaint case when you submit a case with User Rights.
4. Submit to User Rights: If the platform's inaction was inconsistent with its own bullying and harassment policy or violated local German or Italian laws, submit a complaint to User Rights. The review is free of charge for users.

Scenario B: Your own content was removed or your account restricted

1. Check the reason: Under Art. 17 DSA, platforms must give a specific reason for every moderation action. If the stated reason does not match your content – for example, if a post documenting harassment was removed as 'harassment' itself – document this discrepancy.
2. Appeal internally: Use the platform's appeal function. If the removal appears to be the result of coordinated false reports by a bully, make this context explicit in your appeal. You do not have to wait for a response by the platform after seven days from the date of your internal complaint. Please always provide evidence of your internal complaint case when you submit a case with User Rights.
3. Submit to User Rights: If the appeal was unsuccessful or not answered, submit your case. User Rights will assess whether the removal was consistent with the platform's own policies. Note that User Rights only assesses the compatibility of the content with the Community Guideline cited by the platform.

Note: User Rights does not review the content of direct messages, or moderation actions that were taken more than six months ago. In addition, a separate case must be submitted to User Rights for each moderation action or each piece of content that has not been removed.

Is a platform ignoring your cyberbullying reports – or was your content wrongly removed?