As Melania Trump launches anti-bullying campaign — here’s the creepiest thing about being harassed online

Social media can be used for good or evil. Just ask any school-age American.

First lady Melania Trump launched her “Be Best” platform in the White House Rose Garden on Monday. Among the issues she wants to tackle: Cyberbullying. “When children learn positive online behaviors early on, social media can be used in productive ways and can effect positive change,” she said. Her platform will also include the well-being of children and opioid abuse.

Critics pointed out President Trump’s own bombastic use of Twitter   and how he uses it to call out members of the press and his political opponents, often with hashtags and unflattering sobriquets. But the first lady steered clear of politics, adding, “Together, I believe we should strive to provide kids with the tools they need to cultivate their social and emotional health.”

Politics aside, anti-bullying advocates say millions of American children face bullying online and skip school as a result. And students who have been either bullied or cyberbullied are significantly less likely to report that they felt safe at their school. Being targeted with abuse online is disturbing, but it’s all the more disturbing when you discover that you actually know your harasser.

“A common concern regarding cyberbullying is that strangers can attack someone, but here we see evidence that there are significant risks associated with close connections,” said Diane Felmlee, a professor of sociology at The Pennsylvania State University. The affects of cyberbullying stretch from skipping school to depression and, in some extreme cases, suicide.

Some 46% of people who have been harassed online know their harasser, a separate 2016 survey of U.S. adults by the Pew Research Center found. More than one-quarter of Americans (26%) who have been harassed online said an acquaintance was behind their most recent incident. Some 18% said their most recent incident involved a friend, while 11% said it involved a family member.

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The first lady’s mission to encourage more responsible social media use is timely. While nationwide anti-bullying campaigns have raised awareness about bullying in schools, the lifetime cyberbullying victimization rates among middle and high-school students rose to 33.8% in 2016 from 19% in 2007, according to the Cyberbullying Research Center. The average rate of cyberbullying victimization hovered at 28% over the last 10 years, the organization found.

Teachers and parents are playing catchup with technology. More than one-third of students aged 12 to 17 years of age said they experienced cyberbullying in their lifetime and 17% said that it had happened within the last 30 days, according to a 2017 survey of 5,600 children conducted by researchers at Florida Atlantic University and the University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire.

Some 64% of the students who experienced cyberbullying said that it impacted their ability to learn and feel safe at school, while 12% said they had cyberbullied others at some point in their lifetime. Girls were more likely to be bullied online, while boys were more likely to bully others online. The most common methods include spreading false rumors, followed by mean comments.

“Cyberbullying continues to be one of the biggest challenges facing young people online,” Liam Hackett, chief executive of U.K. anti-bullying group Ditch the Label, said. “Not only is the internet redefining the climate of bullying, but it is having clear impacts upon the identity, behaviors and personality of its young users.”

Ditch the Label found that cyberbullying exists on most social networks with roughly 42% of  users aged between 12 and 20 in the U.K. saying they’ve experienced some kind of cyberbullying. (Instagram has “zero tolerance” of bullying, a spokeswoman said. The site has also invested in new technology that automatically blocks offensive comments from accounts.)

Of course, adults are not safe from cyberbullying—from reality TV stars and female newscasters to revenge porn. Some 41% of adults have personally experienced online harassment, according to a separate report by the Pew Research Center. “People have, as a result of cyberbullying, experienced mental and emotional stress,” the 2017 survey of nearly 4,250 adults found.