Indian Government Initiatives On Cyberbullying: A Case Study On Cyberbullying in Indian Higher Education Institutions

Education and Information Technologies
https://doi.org/10.1007/s10639-022-11168-4
Indian government initiatives on cyberbullying: A case

study on cyberbullying in Indian higher education
institutions
Manpreet Kaur1 · Munish Saini1
Received: 24 February 2022 / Accepted: 14 June 2022

© The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Science+Business Media, LLC, part of Springer Nature
2022
Abstract
In the digitally empowered society, increased internet utilization leads to potential
harm to the youth through cyberbullying on various social networking platforms.
The cyberbullying stats keep on rising each year, leading to detrimental conse-
quences. In response to this online threat, the Indian Government launched different
helplines, especially for the children and women who need assistance, various com-
plaint boxes, cyber cells, and made strict legal provisions to curb online offenses.
This research evaluates the relevant initiatives. Additionally, a survey is conducted
to get insights into cyberbullying in higher education institutions, discussing multi-
ple factors responsible for youth and adolescents being cyberbullied and a few meas-
ures to combat it in universities/colleges.
Keywords Cyberbullying · Government initiatives · Higher education · Social media
1 Introduction
Cyberbullying is harassment done to the victim to cause harm via any electronic
method, including social media resulting in defamation, public disclosure of pri-
vate facts, and intentional emotional distress (Watts et al., 2017). It can be related
to sending and posting cruel texts or images with the help of social media and other
digital communication devices to harm a victim (Washington, 2015). It is a repeated
behavior done by the individual with the help of social media, over the gaming, and
messaging platforms that target mainly to lower the victims’ self-esteem.
* Manpreet Kaur
[email protected]
Munish Saini
[email protected]
1
Department of Computer Engineering and Technology, Guru Nanak Dev University, Amritsar,
Punjab, India
13
Vol.:(0123456789)
In the past decade, Cyberbullying has been an emerging phenomenon that has a
socio-psychological impact on adolescents. With the advancement of digital tech-
nology, youth is more attached to social media, resulting in cyberbullying. With the
increasing usage of techno-savvy gadgets, social media applications are highly prev-
alent among the youth, which can be advantageous and disadvantageous. It allows
sharing posts, photos, and messages personally and privately among friends, while
on the other hand, it involves an increase in cyberbullying by creating fake accounts
on the apps (Ansary, 2020).
In July 2021, 4,80 billion people worldwide were on social media, that’s
almost 61% of the world’s total population depicting an annual growth of 5.7%
as 7 lac new users join per day (Digital Around the World, 2021). As the num-
ber of users increases, there is a surge in cyberbullying; according to a UNICEF
poll, more than 33% of youngsters are reported as victims of online bullying
in 30 countries worldwide (UNICEF, 2020). Moreover, it is seen that one in
five has skipped school due to fear of cyberbullying and violence. According
to NCRB, 50,035 cases of cybercrime were reported in India in the year 2020,
among which 1614 cases of cyberstalking, 762 cases of cyber blackmailing,
84 cases of defamation, 247 cases of fake profiles, and 838 cases of fake news
were investigated. NCRB data1 reported that cybercrimes in India increased by
63.48% (27248 cases to 44548 cases) from 2018 to 2019, which upsurged by
12.32% in 2020 (44548 cases to 50035cases).
Multiple cases of cyberbullying were reported across the country. As per
news reports, in November 2016, a 23-year-old Ooshmal Ullas, MBBS stu-
dent of KMCT Medical College in Mukkam, Kerala, committed suicide by
jumping due to being cyberbullied over a Facebook post and injured her spine,
legs, and head.2 One more incident was reported on 9 January 2018 where a
20 years old Hindu woman killed herself after facing harassment on WhatsApp
over her friendship with a Muslim man in Karnataka.3 Another case was wit-
nessed, a 15-year-old boy connected with the ’Bois locker room’, an Instagram
group where they share photos of minor girls and exchange lewd comments, was
arrested by Delhi police on 4 May 2020.4 An incident occurred on 26 June 2014
a 17 years old girl committed suicide after Satish and Deepak, her friends, mor-
phed her photos and posted them on Facebook along with her cell phone num-
ber.5 Many such cases are reported every year, and this rising number of suicides
due to cyberbullying is alarming and worrisome.
The primary cause of cyberbullying is anonymity, in which a bully can
easily target anyone over the internet by hiding their original identity. The
1
https://ncrb.gov.in/en/Crime-in-India-2020
2
https://www.india.com/news/india/mbbs-student-commits-suicide-in-kerala-facebook-post-hints-at-
cyber-bullying-2639753/
3
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-india-42617237
4
https://www.firstpost.com/india/delhi-police-arrests-instagram-group-admin-in-bois-locker-room-case-
27-other-members-identified-8337451.html
5
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/articleshow/37211521.cms?utm_source=contentofinterest&utm_
medium=text&utm_campaign=cppst
13
psychological features play an eminent role in determining whether a person

is a victim or a bully. A pure bully has a high level of aggression and needs
succorance, whereas the pure victim has high levels of interception, empathy,
and nurturance (Watts et al., 2017). It has been found that various factors are
responsible for becoming a cyberbully. According to Tanrikulu (Tanrikulu &
Erdur-Baker, 2021), Personality traits are responsible for cyberbullying behav-
ior. The primary cause is online inhibition, in which a person bullies others
with the motives of harm, domination, revenge, or entertainment. Other causes
are moral disengagement as the findings imply that, regardless of the contem-
poraneous victimization status, moral disengagement has an equal impact on
bullying perpetration for those who are most engaged. Pure bullies have more
moral disengagement than those bullies/victims who aren’t as active in bully-
ing (Runions et al., 2019). The next one is Narcissism, which means individu-
als consider social status and authority dominant over their human relations.
The last is aggression, which refers to overcoming negativities and failures by
force, triggering them to do cyberbullying for satisfaction. Similarly, there are
some personality traits associated with cyberbullying participants as a study
(Ngo et al., 2021) examined three groups of online users where the first one
is the "Intervene" group which believes in uplifting the morale of victims
by responding to cyberbullying acts while others are the "Ignore" group that
doesn’t involve in reacting to the cyberbullying acts and just ignores the vic-
tims or leave the cyberspace and the third one is "Join in" that either promote
the bullying or just enjoy watching cyberbullying act without any participation.
The adolescents belonging to intervene group may play a critical role in reduc-
ing cyberbullying behavior and its consequences.
Social acceptance also plays a vital role in reducing bullying. It has been
observed that among students who lack socialization activity, an individual
contributes a high incidence rate of bullying that leads to victimization. Yubero
carried out a study that depicts individuals feeling more comfortable in online
environments that are not accepted by their peers and hence are more exposed
to cyberbullying victimization. Apart from this, the relationship between lone-
liness and cyberbullying is more prevalent because lonely youth devote quality
of time to the internet hence facing cyberbullying (Yubero et al., 2017). In this
situation, students could either defend themselves or rely on cyber bystander
intervention. A cyber bystander is one offering assistance to the victim, either
individually or socially, and they are more inclined to act if they feel more
empathy (Wang, 2021). Since interfering publicly may have detrimental con-
sequences, cyber bystanders are more worried about being retaliated against or
being the next victim.
Parental support and monitoring also help to escape cyberbullying victimi-
zation. It has been observed that parents who employed autonomy-supportive
measures, such as understanding the adolescent’s viewpoint, providing alterna-
tives, and giving justifications for prohibitions, had youngsters who reported
lower cyberbullying than parents who used dominating measures (especially
using guilt, shame, and conditional regard) (Legate et al., 2019).
13
Cyberbullying is one of the significant problems that need to be eradicated.

Due to cyberbullying, youngsters face many issues related to their health like
depression, low self-esteem, suicidal thoughts, and even it leads to low aca-
demic performance, etc. Several aspects are considered responsible for cyber
victimization like social media, online hours, parental monitoring, awareness,
social engagement, etc. The incidences of cyberbullying are elevating day by
day even after the strict crime-fighting measures by state and central authori-
ties. But the implementation of specific rules and regulations against cyber-
bullying crime may alter the future scenario. The Indian Government is quite
aware of the issue of cyberbullying faced on social media, and the Government
carries out many remedial interventions like women and child helpline num-
bers. Moreover, the Government provides legal implementations and acts that
are trying to curb the issues of cyberbullying.
2 Aim and objective
This study aims to evaluate the initiatives taken by the Indian Government at the
forefront of this noble battle to stop cyberbullying incidences and to find out various
factors that make youth more vulnerable to cyberbullying. The following objectives
were expected to be accomplished:
1. Enunciating the problem of Cyberbullying in higher education institutions.

2. Assessing the initiatives of the Indian Government, legal provisions for cyberbul-
lying, and their amendments.
3. Evaluate the responses of higher education students to cyberbullying questionnaire.
4. To examine the factors responsible for cyber victimization and a few measures to
combat cyberbullying.
This study is divided into two modules, as shown in Figs. 1 and 2, to achieve
the aforementioned objectives. The first module focuses on explaining and exploring
cyberbullying on various online platforms via digital devices, as well as preventative
actions done by our Government and different cyberbullying legislation in India.
In the second module, we conducted an online survey to access and examine the
responses of University/College students.
Social Media and Online Indian Government portals

Cyberbullying in Higher and helplines for Cyberbullying
Education Institution issues Cyberbullying
Laws under
Indian Penal
Code, IT Acts
How to Combat Cyberbullying Case Study & etc.
Cyberbullying Evaluation of Results
Fig. 1 Module 1- Outline of Research
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Designing questionnaire for survey
Questions in General and social media usage by

College/ University Students
Questions to detect Cyber Victimization
Questions to find Cyber Bully
Questions to find Cyber Bystander
Institutional Support
Obtaining Responses from students of various

institutions and streams
Cleaning and pre-processing of raw data
Analysis & Statistical Evaluation of Responses
Apply topic modelling on students’ suggestions
Fig. 2 Module 2-Case Study
3 Organization of paper
This paper is organized as follows, the Section 4 covers the review of research work on
Cyberbullying in higher education institutions. The Section 5 highlights various merits
and demerits associated with the internet, social media, and cyberbullying faced. Ini-
tiatives taken by the Indian Government in response to cyberbullying are elaborated
in Section 6. The Section 7 provides insight into the survey conducted on students of
higher educational institutions. It comprises data collection, data pre-processing, meth-
ods, and algorithms employed in conducting and evaluating the responses of the par-
ticipants. A detailed analysis of the results is mentioned in the "Discussion" section. In
the later part of the study, measures to combat cyberbullying, major conclusions, and
future recommendations are specified.
13
4 Related work
In the context of cyberbullying, several studies have been conducted in various

countries at college and school levels, examining the different parameters respon-
sible for cyberbullying victimization and the laws against cyberbullying. Different
countries have their legal provisions to tackle the situation. A study by (Çevik et al.,
2021) has discussed factors contributing to cyberbullying and victimization, which
are problematic internet usage, school burnout, and parental monitoring. As the
long hours of internet usage have resulted in the establishment of fake friendships,
low academic profile, aggression, low self-esteem, and loneliness. School burnout
includes students lacking interest in studies, exhaustion over studies has resulted
in high usage of internet sources, increasing the risk of peer bullying. Parental
monitoring plays a crucial role in the lives of adolescents, but a lack of coordina-
tion is witnessed between the adolescent and parents, leading to cyberbullying and
victimization.
Yubero (Yubero et al., 2017) surveyed a sample of 243 Spanish university stu-
dents in the social science stream, and the results confirmed Only 9.8% of higher
education students experienced cyberbullying on the campus, which is much lower
than reported by other studies, it may be due to the time frame selection of case
study or its definition. Various parameters that may be considered a prime cause
of being a victim have been examined. As a result, not much correlation was found
between the loneliness of a student and cyberbullying victimization; self-esteem
and cyberbullying victimization. But a negative correlation was seen between per-
ceived acceptance by peers and cyberbullying victimization. So, it concludes that
emphasis must not only be laid upon preventive measures but also on educating
or training peers to help each other and building good relationships with people
from whom they can seek advice. Whereas, in Ghana, 878 students took part in
this study, where 83% of students have experienced cyberbullying at least once,
which is much higher than the previous study result. It seems that cyberbullying
is acceptable everyday behavior among Ghanaian youth, even don’t feel about
reporting it, and not much difference between the personality traits of victims and
non-victim seen (Sam et al., 2019).
Students can also use a few precautionary measures to reduce cyberbullying
by changing their profile settings, as blocking and deleting are considered highly
used protective decisions to prevent inappropriate actions over a social networking
site like Facebook. Chapin (Chapin, 2016), has used the precaution adoption pro-
cess model to promote precautionary behavior to lower the risk associated with the
health due to cyberbullying. According to Chapin, it is seen that many students are
aware of the act of bullying but don’t take any action.
Cyberbullying has long-term effects, and bullying behavior may continue
much longer than expected. In a study, 638 Israeli undergraduate students par-
ticipated, and various cyberbullying problems were evaluated. The study dem-
onstrated that students experiencing cyberbullying face academic problems,
anxiety, career problems, depression, family problems, interpersonal prob-
lems, self-esteem, substance abuse, and suicidal ideation. 57.4% of participants
13
reported that cyberbullying among the youth will enter the workplace, which will
continue throughout their lifetime (Peled, 2019).
In educational institutions, social networking platforms are beneficial, as
Alamri et al. (Alamri et al., 2020) surveyed 192 students of King Faisal, a Saudi
Arabian University. This survey was based on the use of SMA’s (Social Media
Applications) for education sustainability in the higher education system. In their
research, they proposed a Theory acceptance Model used in conjunction with
constructivism theory. In this model, they developed 14 hypotheses for the adop-
tion of SMA’s in students’ learning systems and analyzed positive assessment
of students for the adoption of SMA’s in their higher education. Al-Rahmi et al.
also discussed the use of Social media for Collaborative learning and information
sharing among the students of the higher education system, in which a survey
was conducted among the 538 university students. Students gave positive out-
comes towards using SM (social media) for collaboration and student learning,
highlighting the perceived enjoyment and ease. But at the same time, it has been
observed that it may be affected due to cyberstalking, cyberbullying, and social
media addiction (Al-Rahmi et al., 2020).
Ho et al. depicted the relationships between social support, cyberbullying victim-
ization, and depressive symptoms and specialized their results, particularly studying
the behavior of Vietnamese students (Ho et al., 2020). This research revealed that
those students who are cyberbullied develop a higher risk of depressive symptoms.
Still, social support, for instance, parental, peer, and special person support, can be
considered a significant factor that can protect learners from developing such symp-
toms of depression. Also, while analyzing the survey results on 606 Vietnamese
University students, it was found that social support is negatively correlated with
cyberbullying, and social support is the only factor that helped those students come
out from depression caused by cyberbullying.
Based on a cohort study performed in Hue city, 648 students were called from
different schools. Only 9% of students were reported to be cyberbullied, while 17.6%
suffered school bullying (Nguyen et al., 2020). Parental support has shown a protec-
tive relationship promoting the well-being among youth, more understanding and
accepting attitude of parents is associated with reducing the consequences of cyber-
bullying that are mental issues, self-harm, and suicidal behaviors, including suicidal
ideation, suicidal planning, and suicidal attempts in adolescents.
To assess risk factors and their impact in Myanmar, Khine et al. (Khine et al.,
2020) conducted a cross-sectional study at a Medical university in Myanmar. The
survey included 412 students in it, and the survey was based on factors leading to
cyberbullying victimization during the last 12 months. The results were analyzed
based on multiple logistic regression analyses. During the research, it was found that
non-resident students or students studying at university for less than three years had
a greater risk of being cyberbullying victims. The work also discussed the antago-
nistic relation between cyberbullying and academic performance and the positive
relationship between cyberbullying and substance abuse, such as smoking and
drinking alcohol. The research aimed that counseling services, cyber safety educa-
tional programs, and awareness of cyberbullying are urgently needed for university
students of Myanmar.
13
Discussing another social networking platform, Aizenkot and Kashy-Rosenbaum

have done a crossectional study to detect cyberbullying victimization in WhatsApp
classmate groups in which 4477 students participated to complete the questionnaire.
Here they (Aizenkot & Kashy-Rosenbaum, 2020) concluded that 56.5% of the stu-
dents reported being victimized at least once, and 30% experienced it more than
twice, while 18% (approx.) were victimized due to verbal violence. Other forms of
victimization observed were offensive responses, insults, group violence, selectiv-
ity, particularly forced removal, and denied entry to WhatsApp groups. It leads our
attention toward social media applications that distress the students.
Even During the covid 19 pandemic, when people were very much relied on
online platforms due to social distancing and strict quarantine, they were suffering
from depression and behavioral and mental problems. At the same time, especially
the residents of Hubei, China, were facing all these problems and excessive cyber-
bullying, agitation, stigma, and racism peaked due to the first case of covid being
reported in the city. This online bullying has severe psychological effects, and peo-
ple were opting for various coping strategies. So here, the efforts must be taken unit-
edly by the worldwide online media, the health care workers, and the Government to
prevent the secondary disaster of the pandemic in which cyberbullying was one of
the major issues of concern for China (Yang, 2021).
5 Social media and cyberbullying in higher education institutions
Web 2.0 has initiated social media users, especially youngsters, to inculcate their
viewpoints and express their thought processes in a virtual environment. Social
media is a crucial platform that has encouraged students to expand interaction and
has leveled up their performance. Despite its indispensable assets, liabilities cannot
be overlooked in any condition (Sarwar et al., 2019). Cyberbullying has expanded
with the higher usage of techno-savvy gadgets. The present times have modified
common bullying into the involvement of harm, cruel thinking, and blackmailing
through networking sites to the victims, especially on college campuses resulting in
an increasing number of dropouts and suicides (Washington, 2015).
Higher command of mobile phones by adolescents has resulted in easy access
to social networking sites without any fear. It has been increasingly contributing to
cyberbullying, which has long-term adverse effects. Very few believe that it has a
positivity that students become tough and develop a tendency of resilience and self-
advocacy. Furthermore, it has been visualized that students do not know whether
their institutions have a cyberbullying policy, and most institutions are not even pre-
pared for handling such situations (Luker & Curchack, 2017).
Nowadays as the graduates are highly active over the internet for knowl-
edge sharing, collaborative learning, and research activities which is beneficial
yet resulted in the high indulgence of youth in cyberbullying, leading to nega-
tive impacts like aggressiveness, depression, low self-esteem, and also suicidal
thoughts (Rasheed et al., 2020). Although there have been a myriad number of
profits availed by everyone in the status quo, many people still undergo the unde-
sirable effects that may alter one’s privacy, security, and emotional health status.
13
From bygone days, it has been witnessed that Cyberbullying is an urgent issue
on the social platform that can turn out either short-range, long-range, tempo-
rary, or permanent effects on one’s life (Abaido, 2020). According to Yoshida
(Yoshida, 2021), different kinds of online behaviors are shown by university
students on social media platforms like Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. They
form different communities based on their knowledge or depending upon fan fol-
lowing while swinging their interest from one topic to another. They share their
viewpoints on these online platforms where different audiences are reading them.
Also, they lack sociability skills and have less knowledge about these online com-
munities. Consequently, this incapability may lead to cyber victimization.
Even the young social media users of color have faced a lot of racial dis-
crimination over the online platforms leading to mental health risks resulting in
depressive symptoms, anxiety, and illicit drug use (Tao & Fisher, 2022).
Online gaming among young adults is prevailing at a high level with time as
a good source of entertainment, but it’s being observed to be one of the leading
causes of bullying. Hence, online games have resulted in more aggression, vio-
lence, conflicts, emotional distress, mental torture, and physical arousals where
family and community can act as an inevitable source to reduce the addiction to
the internet and strengthen their mental health (Huang et al., 2021).
Moreover, students being cyberbullied do not share such incidences with their
parents because they fear losing internet access. So, parents could not be assumed
as their support system. The other approach is complaining, where a shocking
dimension has been observed: there are no policies or federal laws dealing with
cyberbullying directly; a federal system covers only a few aspects of cyberbully-
ing (Washington, 2015). Another study has also concluded that victims are una-
ble to express any kind of violent cybercrime behavior faced them, presuming
that it can result in limited access to internet sources and gadgets by their parents.
The victims also perceive that adults cannot understand the issues faced by them.
Hence, this depicts a huge gap between teachers, parents, and adolescents (Ngo,
et al., 2021).
Due to Cyberbullying on-campus, students are experiencing various adverse
effects, including feelings of sadness, embarrassment, humiliation, desire for
vengeance, and physical and mental retaliation (Cassidy et al., 2017). Despite
strict rules and awareness, students do not come forward to report cyberbullying.
They are afraid, feel self-ashamed, cry, become depressed, suffer from anxiety,
experience insomnia, or even miss school (Watts et al., 2017).
Cyberbullying is considered one of the potential risks of relying on online
technologies and has been one of the significant technology abuse examples in
the past decade due to its harmful and sometimes deadly impacts. Counseling
acts as a tonic and curative approach that may aid the cyberbullying sufferers in
overcoming their fears and issues faced by them. Initiating a hotline or a mobile
application can also turn into a valuable perspective. To foster counseling, short
seminars and discussion sessions must be taken out regularly among the scholars.
Bystanders should also take some initiative to eradicate online bullying situations
by breaking their silence at the very right time (Abaido, 2020).
13
6 Indian government initiatives and legal provisions
Various laws of the Indian Penal Code (IPC) 1860 and the Information Technology Act,
2000 (IT Act) listed under legal provisions can be used to fight cyberbullies. A National
Cybercrime reporting portal has been established for complaints, and a few more gov-
ernment initiatives are discussed.
6.1 Legal provisions
6.1.1 IT ACT, 2000
IT ACT, 20006 came into power to provide legal identification regarding the exchange
of data electronically. In computer-related offenses, up to 3 to 5 years imprisonment and
rupees one lac fine or both can be charged and, in some cases, even more. Under IT Act,
sections 66 A, 66 C, 66 D, and 66 E, punishment is given to the person involved in any
crime of insulting or fraud or privacy violation, etc., utilizing the internet, social media,
and other digital media devices. IT act, section 67, 67A, and section 67 B deal with pub-
lishing and transmitting material containing the sexually explicit act, etc., in electronic
form. All these sections of IT Acts are explained in Table 8 of the Appendix.
6.1.2 The Indian penal code 1860
The Indian Penal Code (IPC)7 is the official criminal code of India that covers all
substantive aspects of criminal law, which came into existence in the year 1862 in
all British Presidencies. IPC Sections 292A, 354 A, 354 D, 499, 507, and 509 punish
people who indulge in blackmailing, harassment, stalking, threatening, intruding,
etc. (for details of IPC laws refer to Table 8 of Appendix).
6.1.3 POCSO ACT, 2012
Protection of children from sexual offenses (POCSO) is a complete law for protecting
children below 18 years from the heinous acts of sexual assault, sexual harassment, and
pornography.
6.2 Government initiatives
6.2.1 The Nirbhaya funds scheme
It is an initiative of the Government of India under the Nirbhaya funds scheme for
ensuring the safety of women and children. The ministry of Home affairs generated
a single number (112)8 which was under the Emergency response support system
6
https://legislative.gov.in/actsofparliamentfromtheyear/information-technology-act-2000
7
https://legislative.gov.in/sites/default/files/A1860-45.pdf
8
https://112.gov.in/
13
(ERSS), to cope with any emergencies where immediate assistance from police, fire,
and rescue, or any other help is required. https://112.gov.in/
6.2.2 Cybercrime prevention against women and children scheme (CCPWC Scheme)
Under the CCPWA scheme,9 for cybercrime prevention and setting up of Cyber foren-
sic training labs grant of INR 87.12 Crore was released to states/UTs. Moreover, INR
6 crores were given to enhance police and prosecutors’ training sessions. Under the
CCPWA scheme, different units are established that are responsible for reporting online
criminal acts and their investigations, analyzing cybercrime reports, and detecting any
alarming cybercrime situation. Various components of the CCPWA scheme are given in
Table 9 of the Appendix.
6.2.3 Indian cybercrime coordination centre (I4C) scheme
To prevent unnecessary use of social space, I4C acts as an essential tool to fight
against cybercrime. Moreover, it is supported by fast pace technological advance-
ments and international agencies to work on several activities. Its objective is to deal
with different issues faced on online media, giving special attention to women and
children victims and creating awareness among youth. Various components of the
I4C scheme are mentioned in Table 10 of the Appendix.
6.3 Cybercrime reporting portals & helplines
6.3.1 National cyber crime reporting portal
NCCR portal is an initiative of the Government of India that submits online complaints
by the victims who have faced criticism, especially women and children.10 They provide
immediate action on the filed complaints with the help of local police. Since the tech-
nology has been overstepping every conventional method, it has also outrun the offline
process of filing cybercrime complaints. The cybercrime complaints can be registered on
the National Cyber Crime Reporting Portal, which facilitates the nationwide cybercrime
complaints and makes it feasible for the victims/complainants to have access to the cyber-
crime cells and all the information related to cybercrimes at their fingertips. The written
complaint can also be filed by registering the crime-faced victim at a nearby cyber crime
cell. Cyber Crime Portal State-wise, Nodal cyber cell officers and grievance officers’ con-
tact details and e-mail IDs are provided on the website https://cybercrime.gov.in/.11
6.3.2 Portal for women and children
Various helpline numbers and complaint portals for women and children are listed in Table 1.
9
https://www.mha.gov.in/division_of_mha/cyber-and-information-security-cis-division/Details-about-
CCPWC-CybercrimePrevention-against-Women-and-Children-Scheme
10
https://cybercrime.gov.in/Webform/crmcondi.aspx.
11
https://cybercrime.gov.in/
13
Table 1 Helpline portals and their description

Portal Description
National women helpline number 118 and e-mail The national women helpline number is 181. Moreover, a
dedicated e-mail address [email protected] has been
created for women and children to file complaints related to
abusive behavior, harassment, and hateful content on social
mediaa
Childline 1098 CHILDLINE INDIA FOUNDATION (CIF)b is the nodal
agency of the Union Ministry of Women and Child Develop-
ment, which has generated childline 1098 services that
provide free 24/7 assistance to emergency needs regarding
issues dealing with child rights and child protection all
over the country. The alternative e-mail for complaints is
[email protected]
National Commission for Women Helpline: 7827170170 Under National Commission for Women Act, 1990 National
Commission for Women was set up to review women’s Con-
stitutional and Legal safeguards and recommend remedial
legislative measures, and a helpline was launched to provide
Digital Complaint Registration System for women.c It also
facilitates redressal of any kind of grievances and advises the
Government on all policy matters affecting women
MahilaBol helplined number: 01244007444 In December 2017, MahilaBol started in India in partnership
with the Government of India and the United Nations to end
the menace of sexual harassment of women in the workplace
a
https://wcd.nic.in/
b
https://www.childlineindia.org/
c
https://www.ncwwomenhelpline.in/
d
http://mahilabol.org/women-helpline/
6.4 Anti‑bullying or cyberbullying laws in India for schools and colleges
With the high increase in bullying in schools, especially in boarding schools in

India, the HRD ministry has launched anti-ragging committees to reduce the rate
of bullying. These committees work on punishing students who are indulged in
the activities along with rustication in case of high involvement in bullying. The
University Grants Commission comes forward with anti-ragging rules in univer-
sities and colleges with proper UGC regulations on pulling out the rate of ragging
in higher institutions.12
6.5 Other portals & awareness campaigns
The Ministry of Home Affairs has launched a centralized online cybercrime registra-
tion portal that has helped victims to register a complaint online rather than visiting the
police station. Along with that Delhi and Indore police has a cyber cell to make people
aware regarding filing a complaint online by the following link:
http://www.cybercelldelhi.in/
http://www.indorepolice.org/cyber-crime.php
https://ifflab.org/how-to-file-a-cyber-crime-complaint-in-india/
12
https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.myadvo.in/blog/must-read-what-is-cyber-bullying-or-anti-bully
ing-laws-in-india/amp/
13
Chief Minister Sarbananda Sonowal launched the cyber safety awareness campaign in
Assam on the occasion of the foundation day of the Assam police, which joined with
cyber security and formed a Cyber Peace Foundation (CPF).
Awareness Campaign on Cyber Security By DSEJ13 Jammu has made an awareness cam-
paign for up to 2 Lakh stakeholders of the School Education Department on cyber hygiene
and security held on 15 January 2021 along with online as well as offline counseling ses-
sions on a large scale covering cyber grooming, cyberbullying, phishing, safeguarding
social media accounts, online banking frauds, lottery frauds, remote access scams, social
media privacy policy, etc. Many such awareness campaigns are organized nationwide by
the respective Governments.
7 A Case study based on a survey
In this section, to investigate the problem of Cyberbullying in higher educational

institutions, a survey has been conducted among university/college-going stu-
dents that provide clear insights into the data analysis and case study outcomes.
7.1 Data analysis methodology
It includes the manual about designing the questionnaire for the survey, the pro-
cess of collecting data, pre-processing data, techniques used to conduct the survey,
and finally, applying algorithms to the collected data for evaluating the outcomes.
7.1.1 Designing the questionnaire
An online survey was conducted to gain insights into the feedback given by students
on the cyberbullying faced by students of higher education institutions in India. The
survey contains a questionnaire designed to collect information on the cyberbully-
ing experience, various issues faced by students related to cyberbullying, the depend-
ence of cyberbullying victimization on other parameters, institutional support, and
feedback from respondents to stop cyberbullying. According to Lesley Andres,
while preparing for analysis, we should identify the research problem questions and
locate ourselves in the research design and process for designing an effective survey
questionnaire (Andres, 2012). The quality of data analysis through survey questions
depends on various factors like topics covered in the questionnaire, wording, format,
and organization (Singh et al., 2021), (Williams, 2003).
In this study, a total of 72 questions were classified into five sections: the
first is about general information and computer knowledge, the second one is
related to cyberbullying victimization, the third is for cyberbullying and cyber-
bystander, fourth discusses the actions and effects of cyberbullying victimiza-
tion, and the last one is about institutional support and suggestion. A google
13
https://indiaeducationdiary.in/mega-awareness-campaign-on-cyber-security-by-dsej-concludes/
13
form was prepared, and the specific link was shared over the e-mails, and social
media platforms like WhatsApp, Telegram, etc. The database was collected over
three weeks, and due to the length of the questionnaire, 220 responses were
received. 80% of respondents belong to the age group of 17 to 24. The general
information about the participants, moreover their devices in use, and social
networking sites being used most frequently are listed in Table 2. 60% of our
Table 2 Descriptive statistics of collected data

Respondent category Number of responses
Total number of responses 220

Number of male respondents 105 (47.72%)
Number of female respondents 115 (52.27%)
Age:
17–20 61 (27.72%)
21–24 115 (52.27%)
25–28 33 (15%)
29–32 11 (5%)
Number of Universities 12
Number of colleges 20
Number of study streams More than 16
The student is a:
Day scholars 88 (40%)
Hostellers 132 (60%)
Based on qualification:
Undergraduate 146 (66.36%)
Post Graduate 58 (26.36%)
Doctoral 16 (7.27%)
Place of residence:
Urban 111 (50.5%)
Rural 61 (27.7%)
Semi-Urban 48 (21.8%)
Devices (mobile/ smart-phone/ laptop/ desktop/ ipad)
No device or 1 device without internet 7 (3.18%)
1 device with internet 133 (60.45%)
2 devices with internet 54 (24.54%)
3 or more devices with internet 26 (11.81%)
Social networking sites (respondents may be using more than one social networking platform):
Instagram 150 (68.2%)
Facebook 111 (50.5%)
Snapchat 108 (49.1%)
Twitter 69 (37.4%)
WhatsApp 194 (88.2%)
Other 10 (4.7%)
How often do students witness cyberbullying on campus?
Frequently 20 (9.1%)
Occasionally 28 (12.7%)
Rarely 81 (36.8%)
Not witnessed 91 (41.4%)
13
participants are hostellers, where most of the students are doing their bachelor’s
degrees. WhatsApp is the most popularly used application among the students,
being used by 88% of users, and 60% (approx.) of users have observed cyberbul-
lying at their campuses.
7.1.2 Data pre‑processing
To remove the anomalies of the database collected in the survey few steps like
data cleaning, filtration, removing duplicate responses, and the language trans-
lation are done (Maier et al., 2018). For statistically evaluating the responses,
such as finding the correlation between various parameters, the Likert scale
was used to convert responses to equivalent numerical values. Furthermore, the
textual answers or the suggestions obtained from users are also pre-processed
manually and with the help of algorithmic techniques of R package libraries
for grammatical correction, removal of numbers, special characters, misleading
information, and using google translator for conversion of regional language to
English wherever required.
7.1.3 Outcomes of survey questions
i) In a survey question, it was asked to give their opinion on which gender is bullied
more:
32.3% believe that females are bullied more than males, 10.5% believe that
males are bullied more, 47.7% believe that both are bullied equally, and 9.5%
prefer not to say. But the actual results of the survey go with the belief of the
majority, where we find out that 54% of males are bullied, and approximately
51% of females are bullied. In fact not a significant difference between their bul-
lying percentages.
ii) Definition of cyberbullying: An understanding by respondents
To have an idea, according to the respondents’ about what cyberbullying
is? According to the responses received, more than 50% of the respondents
were clear about it, and the majority believe that threatening someone, taking
or sharing someone’s embarrassing photographs, and posting something hurt-
ful on social media are major cyberbullying acts. Table 3 depicts the rest of
the percentage of the views about Cyberbullying definition.
iii) Views on cyberbullying: Is it a normal part of the online world, and nothing could
be done to stop it: Here, the views of male and female respondents do not deviate
much. For both of them, it is unacceptable. 70% of the respondents disagree with
the view that it is normal we can’t stop it, and only 15% of the respondents take
it as a normal activity, as shown in Fig. 3.
13
Table 3 Cyberbullying definition
Sending mean e-mails, texts, or instant messages 52.7%

Sending neutral messages to a person to the point of harassment 41.8%
Posting hurtful things about somebody on social media 59.1%
Spreading rumors or gossip about a person online 56.4%
Threatening or intimidating a person online or in a text message 63.6%
Taking an embarrassing photo or video and sharing without permission 62.3%
Making fun of a person in an online chat that includes multiple people 42.7%
Pretending to be someone else by creating a fake online profile 50.9%
Attacking or killing a character in an online game, constantly and on purpose 16.4%
Fig. 3 Cyberbullying is a normal part of the online world
iv) Actual percentage facing bullying classified under different categories and factors:
In Table 4, the percentage distribution of bullied and non-bullied partici-

pants is mentioned depending on various factors like gender, social media usage
hours, computer proficiency, area of residence, parent’s talk, and their qualifi-
cation. According to the number of hours of social media usage, on average, stu-
dents use it for 4 h, and respondents using it for more than 4 h are bullied more
than others. In addition, more than half of the participants have good computer
knowledge, but not much dependency is seen between the computer proficiency
13
Table 4 Percentage distribution Total Bullied Not bullied
Gender
Male 47.73% 26.36% 21.37%
Female 52.27% 26.82% 25.46%
Using social media (in hrs)
0–2 16.37% 6.82% 9.55%
2–4 28.64% 10.91% 17.73%
4–6 34.10% 19.10% 15%
6–8 15.00% 11.36% 3.64%
8–10 2.73% 1.82% 0.91%
10 or more 3.18% 3.18% 0%
Computer Proficiency
Excellent 27.73% 16.82% 10.91%
Good 52.28% 24.55% 27.73%
Average 16.37% 8.64% 7.73%
Below Average 3.18% 2.73% 0.45%
Poor 0.45% 0.45% 0%
Residence
Urban 49.55% 27.73% 21.82%
Semi-Urban 21.82% 12.27% 9.55%
Rural 27.73% 12.73% 15%
Do your parents talk about online issues?
Always 17.27% 6.82% 10.45%
Very frequently 11.36% 5.45% 5.91%
Occasionally 21.37% 11.82% 9.55%
Rarely 24.54% 12.27% 12.27%
Very rarely 15.46% 8.64% 6.82%
Never 9.55% 6.82% 2.73%
Parents Qualification
Up to 10 + 2 46.82% 23.64% 23.18%
Diploma/Bachelors 28.63% 16.36% 12.27%
Masters/PhD 24.09% 12.73% 11.36%
and the percentage bullied by implementing the Chi-Square test using the Lik-
ert scale in Rstudio (Mircioiu & Atkinson, 2017). A p-value of 0.135 has been
obtained, which is insignificant for showing a relation between computer pro-
ficiency and bullying percentage (Rana & Singhal, 2015). A weak relation is
found between parents’ talk and bullying; those whose parents frequently talk
about cyberbullying are bullied a little bit less as compared to those whose par-
ents never or very rarely talk about it. No correlation is found between the area
of residence, and parental qualification of the students bullied.
13
don’t know 52.30%
physical appearance 30%
religion 28.46%
sexual orientation 13.84%
race 13.84%
any disability 5.38%
Fig. 4 Reasons for cyberbullying
v) When you were bullied, it was related to:

Of the respondents who have been cyberbullied due to multiple reasons, the
majority of victims do not know the reason, and the most prevalent reason is their
physical appearance and religion. Due to their sexual orientation and race, they
have also faced bullying, and disability is also one of the reasons. The percentage
of various reasons is given in Fig. 4.
vi) Questions related to CYBER VICTIMIZATION, CYBERBULLYING, and
CYBER BYSTANDER:
Out of total female respondants, 51.30% of females faced bullying,
11.30% were unsure, and 37.39% were not bullied. In the case of males,
55.24% of males faced bullying, 14.24% were unsure, and 30.48% were not
bullied at all. Among the persons with disabilities, 83% of males and 75% of
females having any type of disability faced cyberbullying.
Out of the total bullies, 64.40% of bullies are male, and 35.60% of bullies
are female. 18.26% of all the female participants accepted that they had bul-
lied someone, and approximately twice the women’s percentage, i.e., 36.19% of
male participants have bullied someone. But in the case of the cyber bystand-
ers, there is not much difference in their percentages. 44.34% of the female par-
ticipants and 56.19% of male participants were cyber bystanders, respectively.
Various questions and their response percentages related to cyber victimization,
cyberbullying, and cyber bystanders are listed in Table 5.
vii) Actions are taken after being Cyberbullied & Effects on victims:
In the survey conducted, more than half of the students (51.8%) are not aware
of cyberbullying laws, and 58.2% have no clue where to report or what action
13
Table 5 Questions on cyber victimization, cyberbullying, and cyber bystanders
Cyber victimization Yes

Have you ever received an insulting or threatening or humiliating/embarrassing text message 22.3%
via email or mobile phone?
Has anybody sent a message (via cell phone or internet) to others to insult you, speak badly 44.1%
about you, or say something that is not true about you?
Has anyone uploaded your photos/videos on a social network profile or sent someone your 14.5%
photos/videos, without your permission to make fun of you/ harass you/ embarrass you?
Have anyone used your device without your permission, to text or make calls to your friends 14.1%
pretending to you (with the wrong intention)?
Have someone revealed your secret conversation or personal things on social networking sites 12.7%
(Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, WhatsApp, etc.) to embarrass you/ hurt you?
Have someone criticized you or made fun of comments, photos, or videos you have uploaded 21.8%
to social networks (Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, etc.) or groups like WhatsApp?
Has anyone tried to deliberately exclude you from an online group (chats, lists of friends, 21.8%
thematic forums, etc.) that make you feel bad?
Has anyone hacked your account to send messages by e-mail or social networks (like Face- 17.7%
book, Instagram, etc.) that could be troublesome for you?
Cyberbullying
Have you sent someone threatening or insulting messages on a cell phone (WhatsApp, Insta- 7.3%
gram, Twitter, etc.)?
Have you posted jokes, rumors, and gossiping on the internet to embarrass a classmate? 6.8%
To make fun of someone/ to embarrass or humiliate someone, have you made or manipulated 3.6%
videos or photos of him/her and uploaded or distributed them on social networks or by
smartphone?
Have you taken someone’s smartphone and used it to send photos, videos, or mean messages 4.1%
to others to get him/her into trouble with them?
Have you eliminated or blocked someone from groups (to hurt him/her or to leave him/her 18.2%
without any friends)?
Have you logged into someone’s account (e.g., e-mail, social network site) without her/his 7.3%
permission to get him/her in trouble?
Cyber bystander
Have you seen someone sending threatening or insulting messages on a cell phone (What- 20.5%
sApp, Instagram, Twitter, etc.)?
Have you seen someone posting jokes, rumors, and gossiping on the internet to embarrass a 32.7%
classmate?
To make fun of someone/ to embarrass or to humiliate someone, have you seen anyone 12.3%
making or manipulating videos or photos of him/her and uploading or distributing them on
social networks or by smartphone?
Have you seen someone taking another’s smartphone and using it to send photos, videos, or 16.4%
mean messages to others to get him/her into trouble with them?
Have you seen someone eliminating or blocking someone deliberately from groups (to hurt 26.8%
him/her or to leave him/her without any friends)?
Have you seen someone logging into another’s personal account (e.g., e-mail, social network 22.3%
site) without her/his permission to get him/her in trouble?
13
should be taken against the bully. It has been seen that among the cyber victims,
65.15% of students know the bully.
Various persons can experience cyberbullying, and according to the responses,
among the students bullied, 40.20% of cyberbullying was done by their friends,
9.28% by their relatives or cousins, 31.95% was done by their peer group, 25.77%
by any senior, 14.43% by a junior and 53.60% by unknown. As mentioned in
Table 6, most cyberbullying victims feel comfortable discussing the matter with
their friends or with nobody, only one-quarter of the percentage discuss it with
their parents.
In Table 6, various questions related to cyberbullying victims, their reaction
toward a bully, their parent’s reaction, how the cyberbullying affected studies and
work, and the victim’s feelings are mentioned with percentages. Most of the victims
felt angry and depressed, and around half of the victims asked the bully to stop this
behavior.
As shown in Fig. 5, the R studio corrplot function is used to find correlations
among various parameters, and it is observed that both the work and health of the
cyberbullying victim are greatly affected.
In further detailed questioning, it is observed that 62% of cyberbullying
victims ignore the messages of bullies so that he/they would lose interest,
Table 6 Actions taken in response to cyberbullying and its effects
After being bullied with whom they discussed the matter:

Parents 27.35%
Friends 44.44%
Police 16.23%
Teacher 9.4%
Professional advisors 9.4%
Nobody 41.02%
Parents’ Reaction When Students Were Cyberbullied:
Report to police 42%
Not to involve the police 12%
Handle it on your own 33%
Blame you for all this 19%
Discuss with teacher 17%
Discuss with you how to manage your social networking accounts 18%
Ignore the matter 17%
Offer comfort and support 24%
Start monitoring your social networking accounts 16%
Victim reaction toward the bully:
Ask to stop it 46.1%
Tell them this behavior is not acceptable at all 47.82%
Tell them you don’t find it funny at all 17.39%
Ask why they did this? 33%
No action taken 17.39%
13
Table 6 (continued)
Have you gotten back to the bully?
Virtually/online 14.02%
with friends in the real world 13.08%
Personally in the real world 8.41%
Not at all 64.48%
Affect on relationship with your friends/relatives
Not at all 26.23%
Not very much 17.21%
Somewhat 22.95%
A lot 20.50%
Don’t know 13.11%
Affect your work/studies
Not at all 14.17%
Not very much 20.47%
Somewhat 30.70%
A lot 21.25%
Don’t know 13.38%
Cyberbullying victims felt
Angry 69.23%
Anxious 25.89%
Blamed yourself 25%
Depressed 42.85%
Helpless 25.89%
Lonely 25.89%
Don’t know 26.78%
Desperate 13.39%
whereas 25% have sent threatening messages to bullies about doing such acts.
Approximately 27% seek online advice on being bullied. Due to lack of aware-
ness, only 40% of the victims save the cyberbullying messages or images as
evidence. 32.4% of victims changed their contact details like phone number,
e-mail address, chat name, or profile information visibility on social network-
ing sites. 79% of the victims have blocked the bully so that he/she could not
contact more.
viii) Institutional support
It has been observed that higher education institutions do not provide much
support to the students and make them aware of this online behavior, as 68.2%
of the colleges and universities are not taking any initiative to make students
aware by conducting any awareness tutorial or campaign. Only 42.8% of
13
Fig. 5 Correlation graph
students who were bullied have taken guidance from university. Furthermore,
68.6% of the students have no idea where to report or to find the anti-bullying
policy in their institution. Approximately 69.5% think their institutions are not
doing enough to tackle the problem.
7.1.4 Topic modeling to extract relevant topics
For analysis of the feedback given by students to stop cyberbullying in insti-

tutions, using the R framework, LDA has been used. To extract the optimum
number of topics in the feedback database, we used Griffith’s 2004 (Griffiths &
Steyvers, 2004) and Cau Juan’s 2009 (Cao et al., 2009) metrics for our study in
the R framework. Griffith represents an approach where the number of topics is
optimal when the log-likelihood for data becomes maximum, whereas Cau Juan
is used for measuring the stability of the topic and the minimum value on the
graph represents the optimal number of topics. As from Fig. 6 number of top-
ics lies between 4 to 9; in the upper graph minimum value is to be selected and
from the lower one maximum value is to find the range of an optimal number
of topics.
The latent Dirichlet allocation (LDA) is a statistical model that enables uni-
dentified groups to explain why some sections of the data are related (Blei
et al., 2003). If observations are words gathered into documents, it is assumed
that each document is a mix of a small number of subjects and that each word’s
occurrence is due to one of the document’s themes called topics. The time com-
plexity of LDA is O(mnt + t3) and memory requirements of O(mn + mt + nt),
13
Fig. 6 Determining the optimal number of topics
where m is the number of samples, n is the number of features, and t = min

(m,n). It is impossible to use LDA when both m and n are big (Cai et al., 2008).
The working of LDA is shown in the Algorithm. As there does not exist any
prior information on the number of topics in our corpus, we used LDAvis,
which generates interactive charts where each bubble represents the topic, and
topic per word distribution is represented in the bar graph plot, selection of
a bubble highlights the words and bars accordingly. The prevalence of topics
depends upon the bubble size. For these graphs, the "optimum" value of λ was
about 0.6, which resulted in a 70% likelihood of right identification (values of λ
around 0 and 1 resulted in estimated proportions of correct replies closer to 53
and 63 percent, respectively). This is evidence that ordering words according to
relevance (rather than strictly in decreasing order of probability) can increase
subject interpretability (Sievert & Shirley, 2014).
LDA has extracted the discussion topics from the set of views database submit-
ted by students to tackle this problem, explore all the main keywords, and highlight
areas that need improvement. The findings indicate the formation of five clusters, the
most frequent and interdependent keywords with other clusters or topics as depicted
in Fig. 7. The number of clusters lies in the predicted range of optimal number of
topics. From the topic modeling analysis, "Awareness" is the most frequent term and
critical factor in curbing cyberbullying. The classification of most frequently used
words and the keywords grouped according to LDA are given in Table 7.
13
Fig. 7 LDAvis topic extraction graph
Table 7 List of topics covered in students’ suggestions to stop cyberbullying in institutions

Topic 1 Topic 2 Topic 3 Topic 4 Topic 5
Students Cyber awareness rules don’t

Aware Students seminars strict stop
Cyber People rules authority share
Laws Cyberbullying report stop groups
Bullying Anti strict actions stop
Students Bullying proper complaints teacher
make/made Teacher online laws report
Problems Technology cyberbullying strong cyberbullying
Stop Counseling spread awareness issue
Strict Sessions creating stop social
Situation Issues making creating strong
Tackle Awareness tackle taking person
People Online social bully bullying
Awareness Action groups
Rules making
Technology
13
8 Discussion: Analysis of conducted survey
With the advancement of technology, social media has become a vital part of stu-
dents’ lives, either for their studies or entertainment. The major challenge is pro-
tecting the students from cyberbullying that can significantly affect their work and
studies. Our focus is on examining cyberbullying among college/university students.
For this, we divided our research into two modules. In the first one, we analyzed
the Indian Government initiatives. While exploring legal provisions, it is found that
so many laws, online portals and helplines are available. Strict laws implemented
against cyberbullying are covered under IT Act 2000, IT Act Section 66A, IT Act
Section 66 B, IT Act Section 66C, IT Act Section 66D, IT Act Section 66E, IT Act
Sect. 67, IT Act Section 67A, IT Act Section 67B; under Indian Penal Code 1860,
IPC Section 292 A, IPC Section 354A, IPC Section 354D, IPC Section 499, IPC
Section 507, and POCSO Act 2012. Under various schemes like the Nirbhaya fund
scheme, the Government launches a women and helpline number 112 for emergency
response. Under CCPW Scheme, multiple labs and units have been established for
cybercrime online reporting, the investigation by professional teams, and research
and development. I4C scheme has also established many units for creating aware-
ness, reporting, and inspection. MHA has established National Cybercrime report-
ing portals both online and offline. Moreover, the Ministry of Women and Child
Development has generated a women’s helpline number 118 and also a dedicated
13
e-mail address to redress their grievances. Separate Childline 1098, NCW hel-
pline, Mahila bol helpline, and many state government portals are available. Vari-
ous awareness campaigns are launched at the state as well as international levels. In
second module, a case study was performed on cyberbullying in higher education
institutions.
Section‑wise analyses of the conducted survey
1. General information: 97% of the higher education institutional students (respond-

ents) have electronic gadgets, except the few either do not have internet connec-
tivity or a personal device. Even in the UNICEF case study, it was found that 99
percent of both urban and rural internet users aged 12 + years used mobile phones
to access the internet.14 WhatsApp and Instagram are the most widely used social
networking sites that make them more vulnerable to experience cyberbullying.
The responses of the participants depict that they are not much aware of the
cyberbullying term, the legal provisions, and other governmental policies against
cyberbullying. At the same time, it is observed that the majority of students
reacted strongly to stop this behavior.
2. Cyberbullying victimization and dependency of Cyberbullying on various
demographic parameters: According to the survey results, more than half of
the respondents have experienced cyberbullying, which is similar to the per-
centage obtained in a study by Aizenkot and Kashy-Rosenbaum (Aizenkot &
Kashy-Rosenbaum, 2020). It is concluded that males are cyberbullied more than
females. Moreover, the person with a disability is the most affected as 80% of
them face cyberbullying. Higher hours spent on social networking sites also lead
to cyberbullying victimization. This case study found that Parental awareness and
discussing online issues with youngsters have played a vital role in preventing
them from being bullied, which resembles the conclusion of a study conducted
in Vietnam by Ho et al. (Ho et al., 2020). The majority of the participants are
not aware of the reason for being bullied but based on physical appearance and
religion, cyberbullying is most prevalent among students. Approximately half of
the participants have experienced cyber defaming.
3. Cyberbullying and Cyber Bystander: 18.26% of the female participants accepted
that they had bullied someone, and 36% of males accepted it. The survey results
depict that half of the participants are cyber bystanders. The most prevalent type
of cyberbullying in this survey is leaving someone without friends by either
blocking or eliminating them from social groups, and similar victimization was
observed in a study by Aizenkot and Kashy-Rosenbaum (Aizenkot & Kashy-
Rosenbaum, 2020). Cyber-by-standing is more common in male students, as
one-third of the students have witnessed someone posting something wrong on
social media to embarrass a classmate or use abusive language. Peer bullying is
commonly seen among university students.
14
https://www.unicef.org/rosa/media/16511/file/India%20Case%20Study.pdf
13
4. Actions taken and the affect of cyberbullying on the victim: Only 42% of the
victims report to the police, and 36% of the students get back to the bully either
personally or virtually. Cyberbullying has affected both the physical and mental
health of the victim, and they experience aggressiveness and depression at most
times. It also affects their relationship with friends and family and their work and
studies. Also, the participants said that they have stopped using various social
networking sites, restricted their privacy settings, and adopted other necessary
measures to avoid bullying.
5. Institutional support and suggestions: Cyberbullying Awareness is the need of
the hour, various institutions have cyberbullying policies, but the students are not
aware of that. Students need guidance, and awareness sessions and campaigns
should be organized at the college/ university level. As per students’ suggestive
measures, there should be proper counseling sessions, teacher support, guidance
to tackle online issues, a complaint portal, strict laws, and concrete action against
the bully. Institutions should also teach the ethics of social media usage.
9 How to combat cyberbullying
Cyberbullying can be significantly reduced with effective interpersonal com-

munication among the peer group, and also bystanders can play a vital role
in preventing cyberbullying if they intervene immediately on behalf of vic-
tims (Rafferty & Vander Ven, 2014). From the case study, it has been seen
that the majority of students were cyber bystanders; they should come forward
and encourage reporting such issues. The students are not much aware of the
cyberbulling policies, so as suggested by Watts (Watts et al., 2017) anonymous
reporting should be introduced, and internet etiquette should be studied.
It has been analyzed that colleges/universities are not doing enough to deal
with this problem. In educational institutions, policy development is a press-
ing need that may be addressed using focus groups to identify effective rem-
edies for cyberbullying. In addition, institutional leaders should consider a
cyberbullying policy in terms of circumstances, and aside from that, leaders
may improve their workers’ knowledge abilities by conducting surveys and
investigative sessions on cyberbullying (Luker & Curchack, 2017). The study
depicted that approximately 70% of the respondents feel that institutions are not
doing enough to curb cyberbullying so there is a need for university profession-
als to effectively analyze and mitigate unfavorable internet interactions on their
campuses. All students and faculty members require assistance and counseling
(Cassidy et al., 2017).
Creating awareness is the primary need as per students’ feedback. The gov-
ernment has launched various portals, helplines for helping women and chil-
dren, cyber cells, and reporting portals for online issues but students are not
much aware of these initiatives and legal provisions. There is a need to raise
13
awareness. Insulting someone or defaming or making fun over social media

are the most prevalent among educational institutions. The study findings by
(Ngo et al., 2021) and (Hutson et al., 2018) have suggested several measures
to curb cyberbullying. To begin, educational campaigns should be conducted
to boost awareness and attitudes against cyberbullying across youth, parents,
and teachers, inspiring them to become proactive in mediating and combating
cyberbullying practices. Knowledge and practices on cyberbullying, commu-
nication and internet usage skills, education on digital citizenship, prosocial
behaviors, empathy, and coping techniques with cyberbullying should all be
included in these programs. From the case study it is observed that 70% victims
feel angry, 43% depressed and one-third feel lonely and helpless. So, regular
training sessions should be held to assist teenagers in developing the skills and
talents necessary to actively cope with cyberbullying, assist other victims, and
prevent them from being involved in cyberbullying themselves. Furthermore,
institutions, healthcare providers, and leaders should promote parents’ partici-
pation in suspecting and addressing cyberbullying and its implications among
youngsters. This positive parent–child interaction may inspire them to seek help
when confronted with adversity. In addition, Parents must exercise restraint and
active mediation to raise awareness, as teenagers lack understanding of online
threats and the ability to self-regulate their internet activities owing to a lack of
experience (Steinfeld, 2021).
Also, the student Services at universities should design interventions where
they concentrate not just on prophylactic work with techniques to eliminate
cyberbullying but also on fostering relationships with individuals from whom
victims may seek assistance with their online concerns (Yubero et al., 2017).
Cyberbullying can be significantly reduced with effective interpersonal com-
munication among the peer group, and also bystanders can play a vital role in
preventing cyberbullying if they intervene immediately on behalf of victims
(Rafferty & Vander Ven, 2014). As observed in cyber victimization question-
naire, cyberbullying faced by the majority is insulting someone, saying some-
thing untrue about a person or making fun of others over social media, or exclud-
ing others from online groups. Peer assistance initiatives appear to be successful
in this regard where with proper training, students assist in educating their peers
about using technology responsibly and cyberbullying by relating their experi-
ences and strategies to avoid and address it.
A convenient, user-friendly, and cost-effective conversation bots (chatbots)
can be used in anti-bullying programs to raise awareness regarding bullying
and help change students’ attitudes toward bullying problems (Oh et al., 2020).
Moreover, to avoid consolidation and limit the impact on victims, all colleges
should broaden their harassment policies, including cyberbullying; these proto-
cols must include precise steps to be taken if such episodes are discovered. In
the future, therapeutic assistance and victim protection should be included in
protocols.
13
10 Conclusion and recommendation
With the technical advancement, and adoption of blended learning as a new para-
digm in higher education, social media users are also increasing day by day, and the
most significant impact is seen on the youngsters. Lack of knowledge about the eth-
ics of using social media and the easy availability of the internet lead to cyberbully-
ing. While the social networking sites act as a boon to the students, providing them
an environment of collaborative learning even in the pandemics like covid19, at the
same time, it may lead to cyberbullying victimization by exposing them to the hate
and aggressive behavior on online platforms. Students have misused social media
to humiliate or harass other students. So, regardless of the convenience offered by
social media, the constant exposure to and communication with online technolo-
gies make the users susceptible to certain online interactions that may be beneficial
at some point but put their safety and emotional and psychological well-being at
risk. Over time, the Indian Government has launched various schemes (Nirbhaya
Scheme, CCPW Scheme, I4C Scheme), online reporting portals (National cyber-
crime reporting portal), helpline numbers for women and children, and amended
the required legal provisions of the IT Act and Indian Penal Code 1860 against the
cyberbullying. State governments have also launched various awareness campaigns.
As per UGC regulation, educational institutions have also stricken their anti-bully-
ing policies. But the success of these initiatives depends upon the responses of the
participants of the survey. It has been seen that the students are not much aware
of all these laws against cyberbullying. More than half of the participants have
faced cyberbullying, and many of them admitted that they had bullied others also.
Cyberbullying victimization is dependent upon various factors like parents’ guid-
ance, the number of hours of social media usage, etc. Parental advice and lesser
usage of social media may prevent the students from being bullied. Peer bullying is
the most prevalent among college/university male students, and Cyberbullying has
affected the students psychologically as well as physically; moreover, it degraded
their performance at work/studies. Anger and depression are the major problems
experienced by the victims. Two-thirds of the students are unaware of the cyberbul-
lying policies and laws. After analyzing the results, it is suggested that the institu-
tions and authorities organize seminars and counseling sessions to create aware-
ness. They should follow strict measures to tackle cyberbullying, take appropriate
actions, and establish complaint portals at the college/university level. The study
covers a lot about the initiatives, provides insights into the current cyberbullying
situation at higher education institutions in India, and concludes that more cam-
paigns and seminars should be conducted to make students aware of all these legal
provisions. At the same time, the study has a few limitations also: Firstly, based on
popularity, only a few government initiatives and legal provisions have been listed,
only national-level portals and helplines are mentioned, and State-wise programs
and campaigns are not discussed. Secondly, the sample chosen may have many
constraints due to the length of the survey; only limited responses are received, and
the respondents may belong to the same environment and face similar problems. In
the future, we will try to overcome these limitations.
13
Appendix
Table 8 Various sections under IT act and IPC
13
S.No Laws Description
1 IT act, section 66 A This section is for punishing a person involved in derogatory, abusive, or harmful messages to cause
annoyance, insult, injury, enmity, hatred, intimidation, inconvenience, or deception utilizing the inter-
net or any other platform
2 IT act, section 66 C This section includes the punishment for identity theft or impersonation and fraudulently using an elec-
tronic signature, password, or any unique identification feature of another person
3 IT act, section 66 D This section deals with punishment related to the act of cheating by personation with the help of social
media
4 IT act, section 66 E This section penalizes for infringement of privacy or violation of someone’s privacy digitally
5 IT act, section 67 and 67A This is for punishment related to publishing or transmitting material containing the sexually explicit act,
etc., in electronic form
6 IT act, section 67 B This section deals with children’s engagement in a sexually explicit act or conduct in electronic form
7 IPC Section 292A This section includes punishing people indulged in the printing of grossly indecent or scurrilous matter
or matter intended for blackmail
8 IPC Section 354 A- This section covers punishment related to sexual harassment as unwanted physical contact or showing
pornography
9 IPC Section 354 D- This section covers stalking other person’s contact by using any electronic gadget despite one’s clear
indication of disinterest
10 IPC Section 499 This section includes defamation performed to harm others by using online media
11 IPC Section 507 This section talks about punishing the offender involved in criminal threatening by anonymous com-
munication
12 IPC Section 509 This section includes punishing people who insult women by using bad words, making any sound or
threatening gestures, and intruding on their privacy
Table 9 Components of CCPWA scheme:
S.No Components Description
1 Online Cybercrime reporting Unit The Online Cybercrime Reporting Portal upholds responsibility for easy reporting of any online criminal
act and carrying out its further investigations
2 Forensic Unit The forensic unit is made up of a professional team for the analysis of cybercrime reports and works
24/7. This setup is easily accessible to every center, state, and UTs
3 Capacity Building Unit This is a unit that needs a specialty in investigations, detection, and forensics to curb criminals at the
right time. To increase capacity-building training, various states have been provided with funding
facilities
4 Research And Development Unit The unit is taken steps to improve the technological innovations that can help in easy and early detection
of alarming cybercrime situations where research can also be refined with developments by various
institutions
13
13
Table 10 Components of the I4C Scheme:
S.No Components Description
1 Cybercrime Threat Analytics Unit (TAU) TAU brings up a platform that investigates different issues one faces on online media with the help
of law enforcement, experts, and regular discussion sessions
2 National Cybercrime Reporting The primary attention in reporting is given to women and children who are victims of crime, which
is fulfilled by timely reporting and lodging complaints
3 Platform For Joint Cybercrime Investigation It targets threats faced during cybercrime with the help of preparing and starting multi-jurisdic-
tional activities
4 National Cybercrime Forensic Laboratory (NCFL) Eco-system This branch is related to the analysis of tests in forensic laboratories by fully equipped instruments
and professional staff
5 National Cybercrime Training Centre (NCTC) It focuses on establishing a positive environment for decreasing cyber-crimes and imparts a vast
platform for open online courses to increase awareness among youth
6 Cybercrime Ecosystem Management Unit The government initiative to expand awareness and to make norms to fight against crime
7 National Cyber Crime Research and Innovation Centre This center has planned strategies to carry out investigations in private as well as intergovernmen-
tal organizations
Declarations
Research involving human participants and/or animals This article does not contain any studies with
human participants or animals performed by any of the authors.
Conflict of interest The author declares that they have no conflict of interest.
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Education and Information Technologies

Indian government initiatives on cyberbullying: A case

Manpreet Kaur1 · Munish Saini1

Received: 24 February 2022 / Accepted: 14 June 2022

Keywords Cyberbullying · Government initiatives · Higher education · Social media

psychological features play an eminent role in determining whether a person

Cyberbullying is one of the significant problems that need to be eradicated.

2 Aim and objective

1. Enunciating the problem of Cyberbullying in higher education institutions.

Social Media and Online Indian Government portals

Fig. 1 Module 1- Outline of Research

Designing questionnaire for survey

Questions in General and social media usage by

Questions to detect Cyber Victimization

Questions to find Cyber Bully

Questions to find Cyber Bystander

Obtaining Responses from students of various

Cleaning and pre-processing of raw data

Analysis & Statistical Evaluation of Responses

Apply topic modelling on students’ suggestions

Fig. 2 Module 2-Case Study

In the context of cyberbullying, several studies have been conducted in various

Discussing another social networking platform, Aizenkot and Kashy-Rosenbaum

5 Social media and cyberbullying in higher education institutions

6 Indian government initiatives and legal provisions

6.1.1 IT ACT, 2000

6.1.2 The Indian penal code 1860

6.1.3 POCSO ACT, 2012

6.2.1 The Nirbhaya funds scheme

6.2.2 Cybercrime prevention against women and children scheme (CCPWC Scheme)

6.2.3 Indian cybercrime coordination centre (I4C) scheme

6.3 Cybercrime reporting portals & helplines

6.3.1 National cyber crime reporting portal

6.3.2 Portal for women and children

Table 1 Helpline portals and their description

6.4 Anti‑bullying or cyberbullying laws in India for schools and colleges

With the high increase in bullying in schools, especially in boarding schools in

6.5 Other portals & awareness campaigns

7 A Case study based on a survey

In this section, to investigate the problem of Cyberbullying in higher educational

7.1 Data analysis methodology

7.1.1 Designing the questionnaire

Table 2 Descriptive statistics of collected data

Total number of responses 220

7.1.3 Outcomes of survey questions

Table 3 Cyberbullying definition

Sending mean e-mails, texts, or instant messages 52.7%

Fig. 3 Cyberbullying is a normal part of the online world

In Table 4, the percentage distribution of bullied and non-bullied partici-

Table 4 Percentage distribution Total Bullied Not bullied

don’t know 52.30%

physical appearance 30%

sexual orientation 13.84%

any disability 5.38%

Fig. 4 Reasons for cyberbullying

v) When you were bullied, it was related to:

Table 5 Questions on cyber victimization, cyberbullying, and cyber bystanders

Cyber victimization Yes

2 Aim and objective

5 Social media and cyberbullying in higher education institutions

6 Indian government initiatives and legal provisions

6.1.1 IT ACT, 2000

6.1.2 The Indian penal code 1860

6.1.3 POCSO ACT, 2012

6.2.1 The Nirbhaya funds scheme

6.2.2 Cybercrime prevention against women and children scheme (CCPWC Scheme)

6.2.3 Indian cybercrime coordination centre (I4C) scheme

6.3 Cybercrime reporting portals & helplines

6.3.1 National cyber crime reporting portal

6.3.2 Portal for women and children

6.4 Anti‑bullying or cyberbullying laws in India for schools and colleges

6.5 Other portals & awareness campaigns

7 A Case study based on a survey

7.1 Data analysis methodology

7.1.1 Designing the questionnaire

7.1.3 Outcomes of survey questions

7.1.4 Topic modeling to extract relevant topics

8 Discussion: Analysis of conducted survey

9 How to combat cyberbullying

10 Conclusion and recommendation

UNICEF. (2020). Retrieved from https://www.unicef.org/: https://www.unicef.org/end-violence/how-to-