Unesa.ac.id, SURABAYA-Starting from participating in the Independent Learning and Independent Campus program or MBKM “Digital Innovation and Entrepreneurship” at the School of Electrical and Informatics Engineering, Bandung Institute of Technology (STEI ITB), four students from the State University of Surabaya (UNESA) initiated a caring application cyberbullying called Bcare (Bully Care).
This application was born from the hands of the Freetual Team consisting of Nabila Arum Hidayati (PG-PAUD 2019), Sindi Olivia (PG-PAUD 2019), Mellinda Putri Berliana (English Education 2019) and Abdul Aziz (Information System 2019).
"The case of bullying in children is increasingly worrying. Well, at that time, we had the MBKM program to join the bootcamp for approximately six months and thought about initiating Bcare," said Nabila at UNESA Ketintang yesterday (26, September 2022).
Their ideas were then included in the competition and innovation held by the European Union Social DigiThon Competition at the end of 2021. In the competition with the theme "Against Cyberbullying against Children," they managed to break into the Top 10.
Nabila explained, Bcare is a cyberbullying prevention application that aims to prevent cyberbullying that occurs in children. In the interview session, he explained that according to the UNICEF U-Report 2021 survey, about 45% of 2,777 young people aged 14-24 years had experienced cyberbullying.
Meanwhile, in Indonesia, cases of cyberbullying or cyber bullying that often occur are the spread of hoaxes and fraud as much as 47%, hate speech 27% and discrimination 13%. Of course, this case cannot be underestimated and must immediately get a solution because the impact is not kidding. Besides being able to cause prolonged trauma, it can also end in death.
Sindi Olivia continued, Bcare was initiated in the form of two main features, namely Viducate and ITalk. Viducate is a feature where users will experience a visualization (experience) of being a victim of cyberbullying through videos that are displayed on gadgets with the help of deepfake technology.
Before using this feature, the user is asked to choose a gender and when choosing a female gender, there are hijab and non-hijab options. This is adjusted to the diversity that exists in Indonesia. After watching the show, the user is asked to fill out a questionnaire entitled “Self Reflection” in order to find out how he feels after seeing the show.
“This is to give children an inner experience of how they feel when they are bullied by their friends. After understanding it, it is hoped that awareness will arise so that they think about doing it, “said Sindi.
Melinda Putri Berliana continued, the second feature is Italk. This is a discussion forum feature related to cyberbullying. Users can pour their hearts out, tell each other, and discuss cyberbullying. This forum was created to provide a place to vent to cyberbullying victims who may not have the courage to tell others about the cyberbullying they experienced.
“User‘s identity is anonymous, as well as the profile photo of the account with a fruit icon. This is to maintain the privacy of each user," he explained.
In addition, responses from other users regarding complaints from cyberbullying victims will be filtered by the application so that they are free from bad words. "Because, don‘t let cyberbullying victims want to vent about the feature but instead get blasphemed from other users," added Melinda.
Abdul Aziz explained, the viducate feature can be developed by adding other choices of cyberbullying visualization videos. There will be several videos that can be selected in order to present the cyberbullying action that is taking place. The development of this feature is intended so that users also better understand the types of cyberbullying that are currently happening.
The BCare application is aimed at children aged 10-17 because at that age they are active users of social media who are still unstable and vulnerable to cyberbullying. This application is still in the prototype stage and is still in the development stage.
"We hope this will be completed quickly because it is still under development. After this is completed, it is hoped that the community or school can use it to reduce the number of cyberbullying both at school and in the social or family environment," Aziz hoped. [HUMAS UNESA]
Author : Nabila Arum
Editor: @zam Alasiah*