Cyberbullying is a real threat to society

Over the past few months, the issue of cyberbullying has been thrust to the forefront of Irish consciousness by the suicide of two young Irish girls. 13-year-old Erin Gallagher from Donegal and 15-year-old Ciara Pugsley from Leitrim took their own lives in circumstances which were deeply shocking.

It emerged that both girls had been the target of abuse on the Latvian-hosted social media site, Ask.fm. The abuse – a form of cyberbullying – undoubtedly contributed directly to their deaths. During the same period, a 15-year-old Canadian citizen, Amanda Todd, also committed suicide after first posting a video on the internet, detailing the years of online bullying and abuse she had suffered.
These dramatic, heart-breaking and fiercely troubling events have provoked the beginnings of a political reaction. In Ireland, the Minister for Justice, Alan Shatter, has asked the Law Reform Commission to examine the difficulties which inhibit the prosecution of those who engage in bullying over the internet. Currently this type of harassment falls under the non-fatal Offences Against the Person Act 1997; as the law stands, however, successful prosecution of offenders is rare.
If Governments don’t move then others will. At the age of 12, in an internet chat room, Amanda Todd, a mere kid from Vancouver, had been talked into flashing her breasts. There are different versions of what happened subsequently, but what’s certain is that a year later the topless picture of her was posted on a Facebook page, with the attendant ignominy and shame contributing to her downward spiral, isolation, depression and eventual death. Now, the alleged culprit – a 32 year old from British Columbia – has been named by the internet hackers group Anonymous. Online threats to him have followed, warning him to go to sleep with one eye open. “He is an abomination,” an Anonymous activist stated, “and will be punished.”
As anyone who believes in the rule of law will recognise, it is a very dangerous precedent indeed that
Against that tortured background, Ireland clearly needs to pay more attention to what young people have to say about the issues that affect them – notably cyberbullying. With this in mind, Hot Press spoke to three 16-year-olds, Martha Fitzpatrick, Erin King Swords and Louise McDonagh, all pupils at Coláiste Chiaráin in Leixlip, Co. Kildare, about the phenomenon of cyberbullying – and what they think the official response to it should be.
“There’s some terrible stuff on the Facebook ‘Like’ pages,” says Louise. “Because you can anonymously make a page, and anonymously comment, people were putting up horrible things about other people – and then people were liking it. It got really bad. But Ask.fm is probably the worst. I’d be afraid to go onto it.”
In general, Martha, Louise and Erin avoid using sites where people can post anonymous comments about individuals. However they don’t believe that telling people to avoid opening pages on certain sites because there is a risk that unpleasant things might be said about them, is the answer. Besides, even people who are careful about social networking can end up as an unwitting target for cyberbullies, particularly if their photo does is posted on a Facebook ‘Like’ page – some of which are genuinely vile, as titles like ‘12 Year Old Sluts’, ‘Kicking a Slut in the Vagina and Losing your Foot Inside’ or ‘Embarrassing Nightclub Photos’ confirm. Even Amanda Todd’s Facebook memorial page was defaced by posts celebrating her suicide and defaming her.
Looking at Ask.fm makes thoroughly uncomfortable reading.
There was some crudely unpleasant – not to mention hopelessly illiterate – stuff among the first batch of messages Hot Press encountered when we visited the site this week. That there are idiots and bullies out there lurking in the shadows of the internet is beyond doubt: “please give thise slut some hate! she thinks she can fite but she cant!!” one anonymous poster ranted; “How comes you smell soooooo bad?” another asked: “ISSY DONT LIKE YOU! SHE HATES YOU!!!!” a third shouted. And finally, there was the following expression of everything that is reprehensible in this increasingly nasty arena: “ok this little slag shannon its about time she fucking killed herself, her facebook is --- we’ve removed the address --- please send her messages and give her abuse to the point where she slits her wrists so deep that she dies please x.”
No wonder that Martha is adamant that the creeping tendency to blame the victims is totally and utterly wrong.
“A couple of people,” says Martha, “were posting stuff about the girls who committed suicide, like: ‘They knew what they were getting into on Ask.fm. They should have closed the page down’. You can’t just say that. You want people to respect you when you open these pages.”
Louise agrees. “Those sites are a bad idea,” she says. “Even though I don’t think people should go on them, for people to be that harsh to you that you feel there is no other option but suicide, that’s awful. Saying you shouldn’t make those pages doesn’t excuse treating people that way.”

Bullying on social networking sites can be part of a larger bullying problem at school or in a neighbourhood. But it sometimes works the other way.
“Sometimes people are too scared to bully face-to-face or in school because of the consequences,” explains Erin. “So they do it on the internet instead.”
“About two years ago I got a really hard time on MSN from girls in the year above us,” Louise adds. “I was genuinely afraid when I saw them in school. It was horrible. Now that I look back, I know they wouldn’t have done anything to me in person; it was just that they had the confidence of keyboard warriors. But I had only come into the school, so these older girls saying stuff to me scared the life out of me.”
While young men are often praised for images of themselves in intimate contact with girls, or for being photographed drunk, girls are more likely to be censured and insults such as “fat”, “ugly”, “stupid” and “slut” are common. Both Erin Gallagher and Ciara Pugsley were called “sluts” on Ask.fm.
Like many young people who experience bullying, Louise didn’t tell her parents or teachers.
“No-one wants to do that,” she reflects. “I told some of my friends and they said to ignore them, that they wouldn’t actually do anything. I think if it had gone on longer I would have gone to one of the teachers. I’m comfortable talking to the teachers. But it was towards the end of the year and I thought, ‘I won’t see them for the whole summer and it’ll die down’, and it did.”
There is often a fear among teenagers that making an official complaint may exacerbate the problem.
“Our school does take bullying seriously,” Louise says. “But if they were going to get into trouble for it, I think they would have held that against me for a lot longer. I know you’re supposed to tell someone, but in this case I think I made the right decision. It died down and went away.”
Coláiste Chiaráin has strict regulations in place to tackle bullying. However, not all schools enforce codes of behaviour, particularly if the internet postings are done off the school premises.
“There are three girls that are new in our year that have moved from an all-girl school,” says Martha, “and they moved because the bullying was so bad.”

It may seem surprising that teenagers are in favour of more rules, but Martha, Louise and Erin all believe that schools need to tackle the problem and enforce anti-bullying guidelines instead of pushing the responsibility onto parents.
“I know some schools say that if it doesn’t happen on their premises, so there’s nothing they can do. They just leave it up to the parents, which is wrong,” says Martha.
Ciara Pugsley’s father suggested that the ability to post anonymously was part of the problem. He suggested that those who persistently bully online should be tracked down and prosecuted. Martha, Erin and Louise agree.
“That’s what gives them the power to do it, the belief that they can remain anonymous,” says Erin. “Girls are much more prone to receiving bitchy comments – and they take it to heart.”
Which is when depression sets in.
“It’s ridiculous. You put stuff on the internet and it’s going to be there forever, and people can’t trace it?” asks Martha. “That doesn’t add up.”
A recent study indicated that the Irish love of slagging and banter contributes to cyberbullying here. What may begin as relatively harmless fun can turn into something much more sinister if slagging is constantly reiterated over social networking sites, to which any number of people can have access.
“Sometimes it goes way overboard,” Loiuse says. “Everyone was making loads of pictures with captions about one of the lads in our year. I’d say that does upset him – being the object of the joke constantly and not just between him and his friends.
“He gets so much abuse all the time. He takes it as a joke, or I think he does. But he’s always singled out. That has to affect you in some way. It doesn’t seem like it does to him, but that doesn’t mean he isn’t hurt.”
Martha puts it succinctly. “If you’re always the joke, it’s not slagging anymore, it’s harassment,” she says.
Media reports suggest that, like Amanda Todd, young girls are often pressurised by men, or boys, into taking naked or erotic pictures of themselves and posting them online. Erin, Martha and Louise know of teenage girls who have done so. However, they argue that blaming boys is not the answer.
“There is no way I would do that!” laughs Louise. “No way! But I know that with some groups, if you refuse, the girls might say ‘you should do it’. I know of one girl who did and she seems like the kind of girl who really needs attention or acceptance from the lads.”
The girl in question was around 14, and the photo was circulated amongst older teenagers. Are they aware that such images qualify as child pornography?
“Yes! It’s really awful!” Louise states.
There are other forms of invasive bullying. The self styled social news website Reddit got into hot water recently because of its ‘creepshots’ sub-forum, which allowed users to publish stalker ‘upskirt’ photos of schoolgirls. Media reports suggest that a number of these photographs were taken by fellow pupils, and in one case, by a teacher.
Underlying all of this is the fact that social acceptance is so important to teenage happiness. When asked what they think is the most common form of bullying, the girls emphasise that, in general, social exclusion – often reinforced online – is a major problem.
“There was a disco,” Martha recalls, “and I wanted to get ready with a group of girls and they were all, ‘Oh we don’t know where we’re getting ready. I’m getting ready at home with my mam’ – and so on. Then pictures went up on Facebook the next day of them all getting ready. I felt really hurt and left out. That’s another form of bullying – where people are putting up pictures excluding you and they know they’ve lied to you.”
While the girls agree that strict anti-bullying policies in schools, and laws to prosecute cyberbullies, are important, they believe that strong friendships are crucial to counteracting bullying and peer pressure.
“Having good friends is important. They support you,” Louise observes.
“I feel really lucky,” says Martha. “I can tell these girls anything.”