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Cyber-bullying

Some time ago, I secured a debate on suicide prevention. I acknowledged then, and I do now, that the internet and social media are prominent features in youth culture nowadays. Young people see the use of technology as a vital part of their social life, and the online environment has created unique opportunities to learn, to connect and to communicate.

Almost 99% of children aged between eight and 17 throughout the United Kingdom have access to the internet, while 90% of children aged five to 16 have computer access. As we accept that social media are a reality in everyday life, we must also accept the growing concern about the use of the internet for cyber-bullying. Although it may be impossible to remove online risk completely, we have a duty to challenge the present unacceptable situation that leaves vulnerable young people and adults open to abuse and self-harm

We as legislators cannot sit on the sidelines until something happens that affects our homes and families, which is when we typically express horror and disbelief at the terrible consequences of a system that we allow to operate. I wish to express my appreciation to the House Library for a very informative debate pack, prepared for today’s debate.

I know that many within our society must carry responsibility—we have heard some of them named already—for the protection of our children. I believe that we must first start in the home, because parental responsibility is so important. Parents cannot shun their responsibility to provide a safe environment for their own children. Quite often, they provide availability to the technology, and then some walk away from any further responsibility. By so doing, many parents inadvertently expose their children to cyber-bullying and inappropriate online behaviour because they do not exercise parental control. Many parents might set up a social network account without any understanding of the need for online safety. Many have little or no knowledge of how they should or could protect their children online. Parents, however, do not stand alone in carrying the burden of responsibility. Society must bear its portion of responsibility. We have heard about the responsibility of teachers, for example, and of this Parliament having responsibilities that we must all shoulder.

The figures for online bullying are staggering. The Independent stated on 2 October 2013:

“More than a million young people are subjected to extreme online bullying every day in Britain”.

The explosion of social networking sites means that, according to the national anti-bullying charity Ditch the Label, seven out of 10 13 to 22-year-olds have been cyber-bullied. This growing problem now affects an estimated 5.43 million young people, with girls and boys equally likely to be targeted. Cyber-bullying is now an everyday problem for today’s children—one that I believe is of epidemic proportions. The suggestion that people should simply boycott websites that fail to tackle the problem is, in my opinion, far too simplistic. We as a society must not accept cyber-bullying as a norm—either for the present or future generations.

Facebook is the most common place for cyber-bullying to occur, with studies informing us that young people are twice as likely to be bullied there than on any other

social network. The Daily Telegraph revealed in an article of 18 October 2013 that Facebook has unveiled plans that will allow millions of teenagers to give strangers access to their online profiles. The article states:

“The social media site is changing its rules so that accounts set up by youngsters aged 13 to 17 will no longer have an automatic privacy setting which prevents their status updates, photos and videos being publicly available. Until now teenage Facebook users’ profiles have only been visible to their ‘friends’ or ‘friends of friends.’”

The truth often is that today’s friend may no longer be a friend; in actual fact, today’s friend, especially in social media, can become tomorrow’s enemy. In my opinion, these new regulations will leave hundreds of thousands of our very young people—children—exposed and vulnerable to predators and paedophiles.

Many children have revealed their innermost thoughts to their friends online. In fact, they have revealed thoughts that they would never utter in a face-to-face encounter. They revealed those thoughts because they believed they had a restricted world of their friends on the internet. Now, much of this can be shared in the public domain, but it will not happen without serious consequences. Do these providers have no conscience and feel that they have no responsibility when a young person is haunted by what they perceived was a very private statement now being made public and leading in several cases to young people taking their own lives? John Carr, secretary of the Children’s Charities’ Coalition, accuses Facebook of arrogance, stating:

“You get the impression that power breeds arrogance.”

I believe that this is not a subject for glib comments; it is one of the most serious subjects that could ever be brought before this House. We must therefore help our young people. Liam Hackett, who founded the anti-bullying charity, Ditch the Label, rightly pointed out that, historically, bullying went on in the classroom—a point on which the Minister touched. Today’s bullying, however, does not stop there. Bullying in the classroom was repugnant and must be utterly condemned, but it stopped when the child arrived home. For many children today, though, there is no escape, because the bullying in the classroom follows them right to their own home and, in many cases, even to their own bedroom.