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Webinar: Understanding and Combatting Cyberbullying and Digital/Online Hate

On April 27, 2020, the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention at the Department of Justice hosted an online webinar, “Understanding and Combatting Cyberbullying and Digital/Online Hate.”

Watch the Webinar

Objectives

  • To provide an overview of cyber hate and cyberbullying and how they reach and affect our nation's youth
  • To discuss the grooming process by hate groups, who try to recruit youth via different online platforms
  • To offer appropriate responses and Internet safety strategies for parents, teachers, and community youth workers to help build protective factors for vulnerable youth

Presenters

  • Angelie Montesa, Crime and Intelligence Analyst at the San Jose Police Department
  • Daniel Kelly, Associate Director of the Center for Technology and Society at the Anti-Defamation League
  • Chuck Cohen, Vice President at the National White Collar Crime Center
  • Gerri Ratliff, Deputy Director of Community Relations Service at the U.S. Department of Justice

Summary

Ms. Montesa discussed internet safety and how parents can play keep kids safe online by:

  • Setting profiles to private
  • Turning off GPS Location
  • Validating followers and following
  • Setting parent controls
  • Controlling app purchases
  • Talking to kids about online safety

Mr. Kelly described the spectrum of online hate and harassment and how these actions target specific identities, especially on social media and online gaming. Understanding the rules of online games spaces and how to report bad behavior is an essential step to protecting safe cyberspace.

Captain Cohen (Ret.) illuminated how online criminal radicalization can happen through exposure to extremist propaganda, recruitment, and indoctrination. Often the process of radicalization resembles the grooming process used by sexual predators.

Ms. Ratliff shared case studies about how education and mediation can address and combat cyberbullying, online harassment, bias incidents, and hate crimes in local communities.

Learn more about hate crimes and digital hate from the Department of Justice.