Bullying on Social Media

Social media is a place where people are able to share their thoughts, share pictures, connect with others, and research topics. When using social media, people are supposed to adhere to the rules and follow a set of moral guidelines. In class, I learned about what ethics are and how they relate to using social media. We are supposed to know what is right and what is wrong, and we should keep this in mind when participating on social media platforms.

Unfortunately, when using social media there are many people who do not follow the guidelines. A negative of using an online platform is bullying. People use social media to their advantage and bully other people. People feel more powerful because they can not be seen. For example, Instagram is a platform where people post pictures with captions and people can comment on the post. Someone who has an Instagram account can either be private or public. Many celebrities have public accounts so their fans can see what happens in their daily lives. Celebrities often get thousands of comments on their posts, some are positive uplifting comments, but there are also rude, hurtful, and damaging comments left on posts.

Celebrities get hurtful comments all the time. Some choose to ignore them but some choose to comment back and expose them.

Celebrities face a lot of backlash and bullying from their fans because they are always in the spotlight. When people are commenting and bullying they are going against the moral guidelines. This is not what social media was intended for, but people have taken advantage of the features such as commenting. Instagram has recently updated their platform to disable comment sections for high volume comments, so celebrities and people with a lot of followers can use this update. If someone has been bullied a lot in their comment section, they have the ability to disable the comment section. This update is definitely a relief for people who read their comments and are easily affected by hurtful words. If everyone followed the moral guidelines for platforms and didn’t bully, then social media would be a much more enjoyable place. However, there are still many people out there who don’t adhere to the rules.