cyber bullying

This article discusses how the use of “content control features” such as “block and ignore functions, control/trigger warnings, block lists and privacy options” is viewed by people who do not use them.   Melissa King, the author of the article, states that some people who use the Internet may suffer from mental diseases such as PTSD and “need to avoid topics and people that rigger their anxiety”.   King discusses how people who use these control features often deal with criticism from other people. This criticism includes being deemed as “weak” and “too sensitive”, and this pressures these individuals to allow certain content to be present in their Internet experiences. There have been several debates on the topic of online harassment being simply “mean words said on the Internet, with no real threat to safety of someone or their family”.  King quotes Caleb Lack, a licensed clinical psychologist and psychology professor, who explained that “ you can ‘get’ PTSD from Twitter. One needs to be careful, though, to be specific about this: it’s the bullying and harassment that could lead to PTSD or PTSD symptoms, not anything inherent to Twitter itself.” Basically he is saying that long-term exposure to cyber bullying can in fact cause PTSD. The people who seem to be against block lists are often “people who do not harass or threaten other people” and they fail to realize how detrimental cyber bullying can truly be.