Three Steps To Dealing With Bullies Online

When you see bullying happening there are a few ways to combat it without getting yourself in trouble online.  I’d highly advise against taking the situation into your own hands and trying to get justice so you don’t get punished yourself.  Dealing with these situations can be as simple as following these three steps; don’t engage the bully, diffuse the situation, and support the person being bullied.

Don’t Engage. Many times the bullies are there to get attention so do exactly what they don’t want and just ignore them.  Ignoring them just continue doing whatever you’re doing and encourage your teammates to do the same.  Eventually they will move on because they aren’t getting a reaction if enough people adopt this hopefully they will lose interest.  If they don’t move on then get out of the situation as soon as possible.  Typically a great tool in games is to just put them on your ignore list, usually this will get rid of any chat they send that you might see.

Diffuse the situation by doing what you can to keep up team moral by being positive and uplifting.  If you go toe to toe with the bully you might end up getting yourself in trouble and now you look like a bully.  They may not like you and they might shift their attention to you but that’s okay just ignore them.  The way you combat the bully is just reporting them it’s as simple as that.  Let the appropriate people deal with them, the customer support employees have much more power than your words do.  When talking to people who have been banned in the past, some of them change after the first time while others it might take a few.  The one thing that stayed constant was that they didn’t care what anyone on the internet thinks about them, although they do care about their accounts because like many others they put time and money into it and would rather not lose it.

Support the person being bullied and help them get through the current situation.  Being there for someone when they need support can lead to the start of a great friendship.  Help that person improve which will not only help them avoid bullies in the future but improve at the game.  Maybe the bully was right when they said that person wasn’t the greatest of players but they didn’t express it in a constructive way.  It’s one thing to critique someone while it’s another to help them get better.  The best result is that this person passes the good deed along and the cycle repeats.

Thanks for reading and have a happy New Year!

“Be the change you want to see in the world.”