Why #UnfollowBullying?

Students from across the Elk Grove Unified School District are taking a stand against cyberbullying through a new student-led campaign called #UnfollowBullying.  The campaign started on Monday, November 5, 2012, with a week of activities and promotions at school sites. Students have continued the campaign throughout the school year.

The campaign is student created, student driven. The idea for a student-led campaign came from the EGUSD Digital Citizenship Task force. This group of staff, law enforcement and parent representatives felt that the most effective way to reach students is through their peers.

With that in mind, former Superintendent Steven M. Ladd, Ed.D., asked his student advisory committee to select a digital citizenship campaign topic, create a name and design a campaign during their four meetings in the 2011-2012 school year and one in the 2012-2013 school year. Students selected cyberbullying as the topic of focus. They brainstormed a number of campaign names, before selecting #UnfollowBullying.

What does the # (hastag) mean?

In the social media world, the # (hashtag) symbol is used to comment about a particular topic so people searching for it can easily find it. For example on Twitter, using #UnfollowBullying after a tweet containing an anti-cyberbullying message, makes it possible for people to locate other messages sharing the same #. When enough messages (approximately 1200) are posted with the same hashtag (#UnfollowBullying) that topic can become a trending topic.

Spread the word!

This website has been designed for students to help spread the word that cyberbullying isn’t cool. So join us in the campaign and #UnfollowBullying!