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Speaker 1: The spotlight again on cyber bullying. Latest figures out today

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Speaker 1: show a thirty seven percent increase in reports over the

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Speaker 1: last financial year. Despite all the knowledge and talk about

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Speaker 1: cyber bullying and how dangerous it can be, reports up

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Speaker 1: unbelievable twenty seven hundred. Well just short of that by

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Speaker 1: a few actionable reports received by E Safety in the

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Speaker 1: year to the end of June, many involving social media,

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Speaker 1: some that involved music streaming services. Let's find out some

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Speaker 1: more of the Safety Commissioner Julie Inmgrant on the line.

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Speaker 2: Julie, good morning, good morning, thanks for having me.

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Speaker 1: Online bullying comes in many different forms. Children and parents

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Speaker 1: need to know about this, don't they clearly.

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Speaker 2: Well, of course, bullying has existed from time in memorial,

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Speaker 2: but what makes cyberbullying so insidious is that it no

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Speaker 2: longer stops at the school GET and in the vast

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Speaker 2: majority of cases at cyberbullying is an extension of conflict

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Speaker 2: that's happening within the school GETS. But it is invasive

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Speaker 2: and pervasive and now follows kids on their phones into

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Speaker 2: their homes. And it's very visible to a child and

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Speaker 2: their peers, but often hidden to parents and teachers and

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Speaker 2: So this is why the spotlight on cyber building is

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Speaker 2: so important, because we offer the only service in the

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Speaker 2: world that can help children get harmful cyber bulling content

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Speaker 2: down when the platforms fail to act.

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Speaker 1: A lot of this depends on kids coming forward does not,

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Speaker 1: and that might be the figures out today might be

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Speaker 1: the tip of the iceberg in that a lot of

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Speaker 1: kids will not come forward to say they're being cyberbullied.

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Speaker 2: I'm sure that this is just the tip of the iceberg,

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Speaker 2: but we've seen actually a lot of positive change. When

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Speaker 2: I started this role in twenty seventeen, I did a

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Speaker 2: roundtable with young people and I said, well, you know,

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Speaker 2: the companies aren't going to do anything, and can we

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Speaker 2: trust a government agency? But really they were more concerned

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Speaker 2: about being a dobber and a snitch. So we spend

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Speaker 2: a lot of time I'm focusing on letting children know

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Speaker 2: that they should be talking to their parents, a trusted it,

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Speaker 2: a sibling, just to disclose and talk to someone so

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Speaker 2: that doesn't escalate. And now we've seen a real change

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Speaker 2: in behaviors by young people. Ninety eight percent of them

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Speaker 2: will take some form of action when they're receiving fulling

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Speaker 2: online and it may be something like blocking or ignoring

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Speaker 2: or meeting, but they're also doing more reporting and about

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Speaker 2: seventy percent are talking to their parents when something goes

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Speaker 2: wrong online. We just want to extend that further. When

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Speaker 2: it's really targeted and really damaging that and the platform

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Speaker 2: that it's happening on doesn't respond, we serve as that

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Speaker 2: safety net and we can help advocate on that child's

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Speaker 2: behalf and we have a ninety percent success rate in

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Speaker 2: doing so.

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Speaker 1: Okay, that's excellent something you said right at the stop.

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Speaker 1: The companies aren't doing anything social media companies, online companies.

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Speaker 1: Should the government be more proactive here in in targeting them,

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Speaker 1: in enforcing them to take some action in this regard

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Speaker 1: to block accounts, to close down content, et cetera.

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Speaker 2: Well, that's exactly what this youth based Suberbulin scheme does.

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Speaker 2: And as I said, it's the only one in the

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Speaker 2: world you know. Of course, they're getting millions and millions

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Speaker 2: of reports of online abuse, and they often have content

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Speaker 2: moderators offshore that have thirty seconds to a minute to

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Speaker 2: determine whether or not this contravenes their terms of service,

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Speaker 2: and a number of the companies will kind of lean

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Speaker 2: on the side of freedom of expression, and freedom of

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Speaker 2: expression is fine, but when it veers into the lane

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Speaker 2: of serious harm targeting a child, they should be taking

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Speaker 2: a different approach. This is why we try and work

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Speaker 2: with them cooperatively through the informal takedowns. But if they

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Speaker 2: refuse to take something down that we think violates our

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Speaker 2: laws and is you know, threatening, harassing, intimidating or humiliating

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Speaker 2: to the child, then we can issue formal removal notices.

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Speaker 2: We can also issue what are called end user notices

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Speaker 2: to children who are really egregiously and violently targeting other

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Speaker 2: kids as a way of it's almost like a cease

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Speaker 2: and desist order that we tend to do in conjunction

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Speaker 2: with the parent community and schools, so that we can

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Speaker 2: tell them to well apologize or write letters to the

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Speaker 2: target to remove the content and let them know that

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Speaker 2: if they continue in the bullying behavior, then we can

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Speaker 2: take other forms of action including fine.

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Speaker 1: Okay, National Wake of Action gets on to way August

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Speaker 1: the twelfth, then we're in that now. Obviously it's a

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Speaker 1: few days to guy, But what's the important message of

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Speaker 1: this this this week? What would you like to be

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Speaker 1: the long term outcome of the messaging you're putting out today.

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Speaker 2: Well, I just note that over the past four years

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Speaker 2: with the COVID lockdowns, we've actually seen a three hundred

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Speaker 2: and eleven percent increase in cyberbullying and in reports to us.

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Speaker 2: You can read that positively in that piece. People are

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Speaker 2: learning more about it, about us and our reporting. But

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Speaker 2: on the negative side, we did see parents being a

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Speaker 2: lot more permissive with technology use over lockdowns, understandably, so

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Speaker 2: we now have kids who are much younger reporting cyberbulling

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Speaker 2: to us. You know, they're on TikTok and snap and

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Speaker 2: Instagram too young. So we need to make sure that

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Speaker 2: parents are really engaged in their kids online lives, and

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Speaker 2: we've got tons of parent guides, But the spotlight on

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Speaker 2: cyberbulling is specifically for children, parents and teachers as well,

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Speaker 2: and you can find all this information at e SAT

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Speaker 2: dot gov dot au and you can also report youth

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Speaker 2: based cyber bullying.

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Speaker 1: Okay is the commission on TikTok as well. Trying to

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Speaker 1: get this message out two kids, Snapchat, et cetera.

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Speaker 2: Yep, we have a channel called scroll Ye Safety, We

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Speaker 2: have a Youth Advisory Council, and we have them putting

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Speaker 2: out youth based messages for youth.

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Speaker 1: Absolutely, is it exciting for kids to go to because

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Speaker 1: I've got to say that that title will just make

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Speaker 1: my eyes glaze over if I was about twelve or

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Speaker 1: thirty scroll Yeah, yeah, if you're scrolling through, would you

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Speaker 1: stop a little bit?

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Speaker 2: Should it be that doom scroll or that scroll? Do

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Speaker 2: you think that would be more appealing?

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Speaker 1: Well, I don't know, but you know, as long as

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Speaker 1: kids stop and look at it would be the thing?

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Speaker 1: Are they Are they stopping as they're scrolling through?

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Speaker 2: Well, again, these are messages by kids for kids who've

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Speaker 2: experienced the same and I think that kind of messaging

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Speaker 2: is much more of dontech. And of course we consulted

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Speaker 2: with our Youth Advisory Council on the on the name

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Speaker 2: of the channel dot we can take a relook at.

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Speaker 1: Okay, is enough being done in schools just finally, And

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Speaker 1: I'm sure the Commission would work with educators and does

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Speaker 1: And I know at the school that my boys go to,

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Speaker 1: there's has been in the past and I'm sure we'll

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Speaker 1: be again. Sessions with a safety type people, you know,

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Speaker 1: cyber people who want to get the message across about

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Speaker 1: safety and you know, they're usually six seven pm. You

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Speaker 1: turn along, turn up and there's an hour long talk

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Speaker 1: about things parents should be aware about. And that's all

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Speaker 1: very useful and really good. But more in that space,

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Speaker 1: I suppose you can never do enough.

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Speaker 2: Well listen, those are often trusted, these safety providers that

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Speaker 2: go into the schools. We deliver free webinars all of

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Speaker 2: the time. I think the real challenge is that parents

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Speaker 2: are so busy and while they find this online safety

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Speaker 2: is one of their the perennial parenting challenges. Ninety five

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Speaker 2: percent of parents tell us that, but only ten percent

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Speaker 2: speak out information from new safety will go to these

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Speaker 2: types of things, So ten percent, even though ninety five

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Speaker 2: percent see it is a problem or really seeking up

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Speaker 2: this information until something goes wrong. So you know, the

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Speaker 2: schools are really important vectors. And we're working with the

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Speaker 2: Department of Education in South Australia and we have something

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Speaker 2: called a National Online Safety Education Council. The more we

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Speaker 2: can get more boots on the ground and we can

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Speaker 2: empower teachers and we're providing them with professional training to

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Speaker 2: know how to deal with these kind of issues when

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Speaker 2: they happen in the classroom, the more we can get

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Speaker 2: to parents the more we can get to young people themselves,

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Speaker 2: I think, the better off we will all be.

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Speaker 1: I think I agree with that. Thank you for your

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Speaker 1: time this morning, Commissioner. Thank you so much, Julian Julian

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Speaker 1: mon Grant there who is the Australian A Safety Commissioner