A new type of bullying is increasingly taking place among adolescents.
These are Instagram profiles of various schools and courses, which under the name
“confessions”
, upload anonymous messages in which the boys write
what they think about other classmates
, humiliate them, threaten them and create false rumors.
There is concern among families and in schools.
“A kid named Yoni, from the late shift, I'm going to fuck him up, don't let him give it away,” says one account's post.
Followed by the threat, write the victim's profile.
“Thank you for confessing,” the account administrator responds.
Many ask
to cover their profile photo
so as not to be recognized, others don't care, and have no problem showing their face.
In the form of a “tribune,” the teenagers jokingly comment on the publication.
The new type of bullying has as its protagonists high school kids, between first and fourth year.
This new version of bullying changes the rules: it is not known who the person who attacks is, now it becomes
a great digital monster
whose identity is not known.
In some cases, the accounts organize fights after school or even publish
photos with firearms
as a threat.
The profiles are public, but the private ones usually have even more explicit content.
This fashion began in some parts of Latin America under the name “quemados” and arrived in the country with another name, but with the same imprint.
Sara Méndez is Lautaro's mother (16).
At the end of last year, she and other parents of the course were summoned to reflect on coexistence and respect for others.
At the meeting, which was attended by only two parents, a teacher warned about an Instagram account called “confessions.”
Cyberbullying takes different formats and families and teachers find it difficult to confront the problem.
“They told us that they were harassing not only the students at the school,
but also at other schools
.
I was not aware of all this, but the director and the preceptor were very concerned because these groups
were organizing fights outside the school
.
There they even got involved with the choice of gender,” the woman explained.
According to Sara, the violence reaches a point where some students stop attending their classes due to the exposure mixed with mockery and aggression.
“After that I spoke with my son and his friends because I was very worried.
She told me that a classmate
had stopped going
and she had even changed classes to no longer see her classmates because she was ashamed of the situation and they blamed her for being bisexual,” she told
Clarín
.
The woman considered that “the involvement of parents in these issues is very important.”
“At that meeting they had summoned parents from different first and sixth year classes and
there were only two parents
.
“Adolescence is a difficult stage and unfortunately in many homes there is no containment and it would be good to become aware of this problem and the danger that social networks are for our children,” she said.
Paola Marchisio is a school mediator and offers the workshop, “In your shoes”, directed by the Comprehensive Welfare Secretariat of the City of Buenos Aires.
According to the specialist, “many teachers
are not aware
of this new type of cyberbullying.”
“Generally when kids start high school the first thing they do is see if there is a confession profile for their grade or school.
“These pages are used to tarnish the digital reputation of another, which then affects personal identity,” she said.
A "confession" among the many that can appear on social networks.
Marchisio warns that complaints are sometimes not effective on the platform and that in cases where the platform is closed, the administrators themselves create a new one.
Regarding this,
Clarín
consulted Meta about the impossibility of reporting some accounts.
“We are committed to providing a safe and positive environment for teens on our apps, and we want them to feel good about the time they spend on them.
Meta has been working on digital well-being for more than a decade, and has developed more than 30 tools, functions and resources to support adolescents and their families,” explained María Cristina Capelo, security leader at Meta Latin America.
“We have strict policies against bullying and harassment of teens, and we constantly work to enforce them and remove offending content.
"After reviewing the accounts provided, we have disabled them for violating our policies," she completed.
Recommendations for parents
Marchisio states that children
do not usually tell their parents about cyberbullying situations
, “out of shame, out of fear that their internet hours will be limited or their Instagram profiles will be deleted.”
“It is important that as parents we do not minimize the problems they have, there are things that are minimal for us, but for them it is a big problem,” he remarked.
Another piece of advice is to create
spaces for dialogue
with adolescents, but Paola highlights a central recommendation.
“You have to go to schools to talk, ask for help and mediate the situation.
There are never minor conflicts.
These are not children's problems and that is why you should not get involved.
We have to get involved,” she said at the end.
P.S.