Jerome Novotny , OMI – I’m a third-year junior high student in Japan. My name is Aoi. Every morning I wake up and check my iPhone before I get out of bed. I use LINE to talk to my classmates, Instagram to see pictures, and sometimes Twitter when I want to see what people are saying about school or shows. I like being connected – it helps me stay close to friends and know what’s happening. But sometimes the messages and posts don’t feel friendly. On one occasion, an individual created a fake account and posted derogatory comments about a girl in our class. People started replying and laughing. It spread fast, and the girl looked hurt and stopped participating in club activities. On another occasion, a classmate posted a dance video, and everyone commented, cheering them on – it felt really encouraging and made them more confident. But another time someone recorded a private conversation between two students during break and posted it without permission. The two got embarrassed because people started making jokes in the comments.
Although the iPhone can be used for good, these incidents show that online behavior can also harm people’s feelings, disrupt daily life, and in extreme cases even lead to suicide — which is why it’s important to understand what cyberbullying actually is.
What Is Cyberbullying — And How Does It Happen?
Cyberbullying refers to the act of individuals intentionally harming others through the use of the internet. These incidents can be cruel messages, spreading lies, posting private pictures, or leaving someone out of group chats on purpose.
Cyberbullying in Japan is not just a worry – it is a real, everyday danger for many students. Most junior high and high school students use smartphones and apps like LINE, Twitter, Instagram, and game chats to stay connected; consequently, school life and online life now overlap constantly. That means small conflicts from class, clubs, or games can explode online in hours, reaching dozens or hundreds of classmates.
Surveys show that such behavior is common: roughly one in five to one in three students has faced online harassment or harmful messages at least once, and even more have watched friends become targets. Because the harm can spread fast and stay online, what starts as a rumor or mean message can seriously damage someone’s life – socially, emotionally, and academically.
Cyberbullying is different from face-to-face bullying. It can happen any time of day, so children have no safe break. Many people can receive a hurtful message within minutes. Even if a post is deleted, others may save it and share it again. Attackers may hide behind fake accounts, so it is difficult to know who is doing it. When classmates join in, the social damage and isolation become much larger than a few mean comments.
For those who are bullied, every day can feel heavy. Imagine waking up afraid to check your phone, seeing messages that call you names, or finding a photo of you shared without your permission. Or imagine classmates laughing or pretending not to know you because of a rumor started online. This constant pressure can make a young person withdraw from friends, stop doing things they used to enjoy, and lose hope. Even when adults try to help, victims may be too ashamed to speak up. The quiet, lasting hurt of cyberbullying can be as damaging as physical harm.
Why is cyberbullying increasing in Japanese schools?
School life and online life are tightly linked. Class groups, clubs, and friend circles use the same apps to plan, chat, and share. Problems that start at school – rumors, fights, or being left out – can spread at once through messaging groups and social feeds. This feature makes what might have been a short, private issue into a long-lasting public problem.
Social pressure and the desire to fit in also play a role. In a culture where group harmony is important, students may fear being singled out. Surveys in Japan suggest that roughly one in five to one in three students has experienced online harassment at least once. More time online, combined with higher stress and fewer face-to-face checks by adults, has helped bullying move into digital spaces.
Platform features can amplify a problem fast. It often starts small: after an argument, one student posts a short private message in a class LINE group claiming another student behaved badly. Several classmates “like” the message and add mocking comments, increasing visibility. Someone screenshots it and shares it with other LINE groups and Instagram stories, reaching new circles. Public comments and tags draw in more people, and group chats begin forwarding the post and organizing online jokes and exclusions. Anonymous accounts can join with extra lies, multiplying the reach. What began as one private message becomes a widely shared public humiliation. The targeted student feels overwhelmed, loses sleep, withdraws from school activities, and fears the post will never go away.
How is AI transforming the threat of cyberbullying?
AI cyberbullying is the use of artificial intelligence tools or techniques to harass, embarrass, threaten, or harm someone online.
Because of its scale and speed, AI is making cyberbullying among junior and high school students in Japan worse and harder to stop. It can create realistic fake photos, videos, or voice messages that shame or blackmail people. Because social standing and group harmony are important in Japan, these fakes can cause deep emotional harm.
AI also raises the realism of attacks. Deepfake images, voice clones, and AI-generated video or text can convincingly show someone saying or doing things they never did. That realism makes lies and humiliating content far more believable to peers, teachers, and even family, which multiplies reputational and emotional damage and makes it harder for victims to prove they are being lied about.
At the same time, AI enables highly personalized attacks. By collecting public information, it can produce messages that mention a person’s school, club, or family to hurt them more. This targeted, context-aware abuse can make many fake accounts and copy someone’s writing style. That can create the impression that lots of people are against the victim, increasing social pressure and isolation.
In short, cyberbullying is not a distant issue – it is an urgent everyday crisis unfolding among Japan’s junior and senior high students. The main reason is that classrooms, clubs, and online spaces are tightly connected; a single careless message can snowball into widespread humiliation, lasting emotional harm, and real disruptions to a student’s education and well-being. Schools, families, platforms, and policymakers must treat these incidents with the same seriousness we give to physical bullying: swift support for victims, clear reporting and removal processes, better digital education for students and parents, and stronger accountability for repeat offenders.
What guidance does the Catholic Church offer regarding online bullying?
The Vatican teaches that cyberbullying, including when it is carried out using artificial intelligence (AI), is morally wrong because it violates human dignity and harms individuals and society. In documents such as Dignitas infinita, the Church condemns digital abuse as an attack on the inherent worth of every person. More recently, the Vatican’s reflection on AI in Antiqua et nova warns that artificial intelligence can worsen problems like cyberbullying by spreading false information, creating deepfakes, and enabling manipulation on a large scale. Pope Francis cautioned that AI can contribute to a “crisis of truth,” making it easier for people to deceive or harm others online. And recently, Pope Leo XIV has warned against living faith in isolation, and, as reported in this YouTube video, the Vatican has released reports on the dangers of cyberbullying, noting that in the age of communication, the media must not forget the damage caused by failing to promote the truth.
The Vatican stresses that humans bear responsibility for the use of AI cyberbullying, despite its inherent neutrality. Therefore, using AI to bully or humiliate others is considered a serious moral wrong, and society has a duty to ensure technology is guided by ethics, respect, and care for others.
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