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harryjones97-blog · 7 years

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Social media harassment and cyberbullying in Australia: What is being done about it?

Digital Citizenship refers to the ability to participate in society online (Mossberger et al. 2008). As social media and society has become a primary medium for communication, governance of the internet and norms within social network sites and digital communities has become necessary to monitor as bullying and online harassment continues to damage our communities and even take the lives of young people.

in 2014, Australian teenager Cassie Whitehill lost her sister, Chloe, due to online bullying which eventually led to physical abuse, leading to Chloe taking her own life. In 2013, it was reported that nine teenage suicides in the previous year were linked to cyber bullying on social network site ‘Ask.fm’ (Business Insider, 2013).

The stats are even more alarming. 70% of 18-24 year olds report to seeing harassment and cyber bullying on social network sites. Out of all internet users 40% report being harassed online, including being called offensive names, being physically threatened, stalked or sexually harassed.

So what is being done about it? Australia currently has a unique approach to dealing with the very real problem of online bullying. The government has brought in an ‘e-commissioner’, where children can seek help if they have been harassed or bullied online or have seen it being done to someone else. The e-commissioner can then pull down posts that are deemed as offensive and offers further assistance to the victim/s. The system has been criticised due to it only being available to children under 18 years old, that it insults social media sites for being unaccountable in dealing with the problems on their own sites, and that it goes against the ‘Australian ideal’ of free speech. I personally disagree with these criticisms, as I believe that the issue at hand is a very complex and difficult one due to the volume of content, the often closed and private networks, and offshore social media companies involved. Yes, it may not be the final solution in the quest for positive and safe online communities, but it is a step nonetheless. I also believe that the ‘free speech’ argument is nothing less than a joke, as this same argument is acceptably not applied in the schoolyard space, so what’s the difference? Matthew Keeley, director of the National Children’s and Youth Law Centre at the University of New South Wales shares the same view, where he said that disregarding these abusive and offensive comments online would mean that teachers “cannot interfere” when a student in the playground chooses to “speak freely and to vilify, to harass and to bully another through words” (Keeley, 2014). The issue surrounding the control and maintenance of the social networking sites themselves is a significant aspect of this discussion. In my personal experience, it is not at all that easy to report online harassment, and is an even worse process when it comes to the sites following up with you.

Kara Swisher from ‘The Verge’, and significant figure in the foundation of ‘Hack Harassment’, also believes the current options and tools provided by social media sites are “really difficult” and that simply signing off should not be the only choice users have to prevent being cyberbullied (Swisher 2016).

Hack Harassment is a campaign that is working to educate young people of how social media is exposing people to harassment and bullying, and is working to resolve the reoccurring problems that social media possesses in reference to cyberbullying. The campaign was founded the start of last year by Intel, Vox Media and the Born This Way Foundation. CEO of Intel Brian Krzanich said the two main goals of the ‘hackathon’ included finding “genuine technical solutions” such as key words or phrases being signposted by a social media website that may be deemed as offensive or inappropriate before content is posted (Krzanich 2016). I believe this is a very significant point, as currently social media sites do little or nothing to warn or encourage users not to post harmful content. His second aim is getting the word out. Krzanich believes harassment will “really change” when offensive content and cyberbullying becomes “unacceptable societally” (Krzanich 2016). From my research and reading, this is the most significant point in the issue of online harassment. At the current time, users encourage others to make fun of or ‘troll’ others online for the sake of a cheap laugh or to create a power differential. What needs to be done is to encourage people to join and stand up against harmful content online, and that it needs to get to a point where users feel like they will be negatively looked upon for any offensive posts or ‘trolling’. Krzanich’s goal was to also have many partners already on board, which is evident of the latest ‘Hack Harassment’ campaign. The latest ‘Hack’ conventions as a part of the campaign was held at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, made aware online by the hashtag #HackUNL, where the ‘hackathon’ ran from April 14 to 16 (Hack Harassment 2017). The hackathon was run by the College of Education and Human Sciences and Hack Harassment, as it aims to build a more “inclusive and supportive online community”. The hackathon encourages people to come along to “explore and develop creative solutions” to resolving the issue of cyberbullying. Amazon’ was a major sponsor, as anyone who registered received a $100 credit from Amazon Web Services, and the winner of the competition receiving Bluetooth speakers from another sponsor Coach Cheetah. This significant outpour of support from companies is a massive step towards solving the issue of cyberbullying, as funding and public support is necessary to push the campaign forward. By students learning and developing solutions themselves they are becoming activists for change in the online space, and the more hackathon’s there are the bigger the community that is supporting a safer online world.

This really is a brilliant and clever way to helping solve the significant and very real problems of cyber harassment and bullying online, and I believe the ‘hackathons’ should be brought on in more countries with high social media users, including Australia. Yes, the e-commissioner is an important step to helping minors, but simply taking posts down does do much in solving the problem directly. By having these students and adult-involved learning and development campaigns in Australia, people will begin to not only learn heavily of how content can be extremely harmful to others, but also how we can stop these issues at the source and make cyberbullying and online harassment “unacceptable societally”.

#mda20009 #online harassment #cyberbullying #hack harassment #education #stop the hate

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