Last week, Monica Lewinsky delivered her first public speech regarding her affair with President Bill Clinton and the effect the Internet had on the scandal’s aftermath.

Lewinsky’s speech at the Forbes Under 30 Summit worked in conjunction with a somewhat recent Vanity Fair interview, as well as her decision to join Twitter to place her, once again, in the public eye. But this time, on her own terms.

She took her audience through the particulars of the affair she had 16 years ago, and she admitted that she fell in love with Clinton. She described how, overnight, the intimacies of her relationship were exposed in a public, humiliating way.

Since the affair, Lewinsky steered away from public attention because of the constant attacks on her character.

Though she did not want or ask for her position in the public eye, Lewinsky, impressively, has learned to use her public capital to advocate for change in cyber-bullying. 

I agree with Lewinsky’s claim that she was “patient zero” for cyber-bullying, which lends her credibility as an advocate for this issue.

Lewinsky was the first person to have her reputation destroyed through the Internet, and her experience as a victim of worldwide, online abuse led to her passionate appeal to end cyber-bullying.

Lewinski stipulates that when a person’s personal life is magnified in a very public sense another version of that person emerges. There is a publicly created person as well as the separate, true individual. For Lewinsky, the distancing of the public version of herself from her true self was devastating.

The main medium through which the details of Lewinsky’s personal life were dispersed was the Internet. And it was through the Internet that Lewinsky’s reputation was torn apart over and over again. She became a household name, a pop-culture icon.

And tragically, public defamation through the Internet still occurs today.

Cyber-bullying is one of the most effective and efficient ways to hurt someone. The means to do so is amplified because the aggressor can bully without directly interacting with a victim, and therefore without as much guilt.

But activists like Lewinsky and stories like hers should force some online aggressors to examine their behavior.

Further, the result of cyber-bullying is often catastrophic because it is so public. Not only does the victim deal with the actions of the aggressor, but they also deals with the humiliation from the fact that everyone can see it.

In Lewinsky’s time, social media, as we know it, didn’t exist. And if it had, how much worse would it have been for her?

The problem today is pervasive. About half of teens and adolescents have experienced cyber-bullying.

And the problem is also significant as bullying victims are between 2 and 9 times more likely to consider suicide, as evidenced by various studies by Yale University.

Cyber bullying is one of the consequences of a rapidly advancing technological world. Because we can now communicate easily without talking in person to one another, bullying has become easier and more effective.

There are many tips out there for adolescents to protect themselves from cyber-bullying, such as having password protection, always logging out of accounts and keeping photos appropriate.

While that advice is good for potential victims to know, it puts all the responsibility on the victims. It also assumes that the victim must have made a mistake if they have been cyber-bullied. No one should have to take preventative measures to safeguard against cyber-bullying.

We need to focus on awareness, as that is one avenue through which we can prevent cyber-bullying. If bullies and bystanders are forced to face the consequences of online-bullying, it will be more emotionally difficult for them to continue as bullies and bystanders. 

Painfully honest stories like Lewinsky’s should serve to remind both aggressors and bystanders of the incredible outcomes of cyber-bullying.

Hopefully, those stories will remove some of the apathy from the relationship between the bully, the bystander and the victim.

Finally, as teens and adolescents are most commonly affected by cyber-bullying, there should be more restrictions on their Internet use. Schools need to clearly outline expectations and Internet etiquette. And parents or guardians need to monitor their children’s online presence.

We need stories like Lewinsky’s to discourage cyber-bullying. I applaud her for using her usually negatively perceived public position to advocate for an important cause. 

Alex is a junior in LAS. She can be reached at [email protected].