The Flaming Internet

'The Flaming Internet '
26.6.07
CWO Forum on Cyberbullying, The House Of Commons

Firstly I’d like to thank everyone at the Conservative Women’s Organisation—and Fiona Hodgson in particular—for organising this panel. Cyber bullying is a growing problem which possibly—because of meetings like this one—we can do something about.

Bullying is such an important issue—to be kept to the forefront of debate—because the effects of it are so disturbing. We now know systematic bullying can cause long term psychological damage to victims—whatever their culture—whatever background—and this is a worldwide observation.

We also know that victims of bullying have taken their lives. The numbers of young people committing suicide related to bullying is alarming. In this country alone as many as 25 a year if not more—we can’t always pinpoint the exact reason for juvenile death—continue to do so. Suicide attempts related to bullying are incalculable, but certainly too high to be acceptable.

Only the more dramatic stories of young people dying reach the papers—in Japan last November five children killed themselves within the space of four days because of bullying at school. As a matter of fact it was the poignant case of the suicides of three boys in Norway in short succession of one another in the 70s that led in 1983 to first anti-bullying prevention scheme which was found to be 50 percent effective.

Also, victims of bullying have taken other peoples lives—in the US the Columbine High School Massacre of 1999 in which 13 died was possibly bullying related as could have been the massacre of 32 at Virginia Tech this past April.

The problem we face is that bullying is an ever moving target. As a subject it was first put on the map in the novel Tom Browns School Days—the traditional view then was that it was mostly physical. But bullying has changed since 1857—along with the shifts in society. It is now a different form of aggression; it’s more insidious and more psychologically manipulative. And, as it changes, the advice given to victims—or the way we counteract it— has also to change.

The latest trend is cyberbullying. For those who don’t know the colourful terminology—‘flaming’ is sending cyber abuse, or ‘beign flamed’ is receiving it. The term cyber-bashing is probably quite clear. Hence the title of my slide presentation ‘The Flaming Internet’.

Cyber bullying is defined as willful and repeated harm inflicted through the medium of electronic text or the internet’. It ranges from physical threats—say children groomed by paedophiles—to something less likely to be labelled bullying but more and more on the increase—a new form of humiliation game or ritual played out over the net.

Reasons for its rapid increase? One—‘the disinhibition factor’—we lose our inhibitions on the Net—there’s no body language involved—we’re more relaxed—sitting in front of our computers—it’s more private, we’re in comfortable surroundings, having a glass of wine, at home. This isn't always a bad thing—shy people and young people in particular can become more outgoing and confident on the Net than they are face to face. Making new friends, learn sociability skills. The downside—the Net’s encouraging bullying and stalking activity. If you wanted to send a poison pen letter some years ago—for any reason—it took real effort. You’d have to clip out letters from newspapers, piece them together, find an address or go the direct route and fill your pen, write a letter. Then you had to find an address, buy a stamp, find a letter box. Today it’s so much easier—and quicker—to send that hate mail. But it still arrives. And cyber bullies are getting a real buzz out of watching others react to their nasty masterwork which is why so much of it goes on at school, or in the office – there is usually a peeping tom aspect to it. No fun unless the culprit can witness the pain.

Two—the power of the Internet. Again this is good and bad. Lonely pensioners have set up internet shops and made fortunes. Charities like ours—‘Act Against Bullying—‘have built a global following from a simple website. So the net holds endless positive possibilities. But the downside is that information posted on the net can be very hard to remove giving rise to abuse. Today whatever we want to know we tend to ‘look it up on the net’ and thereby lies the problem we face in counteracting cyber bullying.

But I believe our main difficulty is dealing with the Big Brother Syndrome and the issues of instant photography. This is alive and well on social networking sites such as Facebook, Myspeace, Bebo as well in the chatrooms and on the blogs that are proliferating at a prodigious rate. Therefore any child bulled at school will now be facing evenings of further torment and exclusion in what used to be the sanctuary of their own home.

Facebook caters to the modern philosophy that ‘anyone can be a celebrity’ . To some degree its correct. Anyone can be instantly well-known so long as they publish a site with plenty of intimate information and pictures of themselves. Young people are like naive Big Brother contestants. They enter the ‘house’ expecting only the rewards of exposure.. And like Big Brother contestants they quickly learn that to gain popularity they have to be attention seeking—hip, sexy, cheeky. That’s why so many children today are using very proactive language on the net—or give themselves sexy usernames in chat rooms—sending out false images. Then when it all turns and they become victims of cyber bashing or flaming, they receive little sympathy.

Most photographers know a picture tells a thousand words but so do cyber bullies. They know phone pictures and unflattering or degrading video clips are perceived as having more impact on the victim than tradition forms of bullying which is why Happy Slapping emerged in 2005. So young people today – caught up in this computer craze are behaving like undercover reporters from the News of the World manipulating potential photo opportunities that will humiliate and torment vulnerable classmates. And the young people who fall victim have to deal with the sort of problems that celebrities face, but without the support of Max Clifford.

They have to be made to understand that this sort of behaviour is not a one way street and that the consequences of their actions will determine their reputation for the future. (continued with strategies, questions etc.