Tim Loughton, MP for East Worthing and Shoreham, urged the Government, schools and internet service providers to do more to fight cyber bullying in a House of Commons debate last week.
On Tuesday 3rd December the House of Commons discussed cyber bullying in which the former Children’s Minister spoke about his continued concern with the issue.
Internet ‘trolling’ is becoming an increasingly common problem for the whole of society. In addition to several high-profile cases involving celebrities, campaigners and MPs, there have been an increasing number of incidents where children and young people have been trolled to such an extent that they have taken their own lives.
Internet trolling involves purposely and anonymously spreading hatred and abuse in many forms which might include; racism, misogyny, bigotry, conflict and any other kind of unpleasantness. In milder cases it’s about causing interpersonal conflict just for the sake of it. In a survey commissioned by Knowthenet of more than 2,000 13-19 year olds in January and February 2013, the results found that 65% have experienced online bullying or trolling. Despite these apparent increases in the prevalence of trolling and awareness of the problem, the survey suggests that teenagers are suffering in silence, because only 37% of the teenagers surveyed have ever reported an online bullying incident to a social network, and 36% of those deciding not to report abuse said this was because they felt no action would be taken.
In the debate, Tim, who previously co-chaired the UK Council for Child Internet Safety (UKCCIS), said:
‘I welcome the progress made recently in various parts of Government, in co-operation with businesses and other institutions, on the proliferation of filters, which we are now going to see guard against accessing pornography and harmful material by minors. However, we have a lot more to do, and they are just one part of what needs to be a whole jigsaw of solutions addressing the effects the internet can have on impressionable people who can be influenced by it.
We need to empower parents and pupils. We need to ensure that schools not only educate the kids but invite the parents in so that they can learn what their children have learnt, so that they know what to look out for when they go back home. We also need more in-your-face guidance from the Government, through the Department for Education and the Home Office, about the real dangers of what is going on.’
Tim made a number of suggestions of practical steps that could be brought in:
‘Schools should have a designated teacher who is responsible for anti-bullying work, and we should have much more effective procedures and mechanisms for reporting incidents of bullying, including cyber-bullying, in schools. Cyber-bullying should be included and referred to in all policies on behaviour, anti-bullying and acceptable use. All teachers should be given training, support and guidance on dealing with bullying, including cyber-bullying. Those are just some of the recommendations in the BeatBullying “Virtual Violence” report. We need clear guidance along those lines from the Department for Education to schools, whether or not they are bound by the curriculum, and not the current postcode lottery and the laissez-faire approach that I fear we have. We need clear guidance from the Home Office to justice institutions.
We also need greater social responsibility from our social media companies. They need to monitor, and we need to monitor, how good they are at reporting this stuff and taking it down, and how quickly they do it. They need to invest in moderators and to signpost better where young people can go to get help. Above all, there needs to be consequences for cyber-bullying and the Government need to take a greater lead. I have sympathy with making cyber-bullying an offence, because cyber-bullying is cyber-violence. We would criminalise it in any other context and we need now to look seriously at how the law can treat it equally seriously.’