YOUNG AND ANGRY. POLISH SCHOOL OF AGGRESSION ON THE INTERNET

Abstract

The phenomenon of cyber violence has been identified by academia recently, despite the fact that Internet communication has been developing since the second half of the 20th century. There is a rising need to understand its determinants and implications for the security of children and teenagers. The main objective of this paper is to characterize cyber violence, its most important causes and selected consequences for youths in Poland. It also focuses on analysing the most important, domestic legal regulations regarding acts of violence on the Internet.This paper argues that this common phenomenon is caused both by traditional determinants of violence among young people, as well as by the specificity of Internet communication, including easily accessible, harmful content (i.e. “patostreams”, pornography), anonymity and massiveness. Cyber violence, usually taking the form of e.g. acts of verbal aggression, impersonation, deception, humiliation or ridiculing in the online environment, has not been met with social understanding and serious deliberation. There has been a visible lack of greater awareness of its causes among parents and teachers. Moreover, so far the Polish government has not adopted an integrated strategy of combatting cyber violence.