Cyber-bullying

Debate between Tim Loughton and Bob Stewart

Tuesday 3rd December 2013 Commons Chamber

[Tim Loughton]

The hon. Gentleman is right. A recent debate in this place showed what can be done when we put our minds to it and listen to people who have solutions, rather than always listening to those who focus on the problems.

The Department for Education’s own research shows that 30% of secondary school-aged children have been deliberately targeted, threatened or humiliated by abuse on mobile phones or the internet. Cyber-bullying is an even more cowardly form of what we might have known as playground bullying, because it often hides behind anonymity, done by people in the comfort of their own bedroom. However, the psychological effects can be every bit as damaging as physical, face-to-face bullying, and such bullying has the capacity to be spread cancer-like among a much wider body of peers, at the press of a button. It can undermine a young person’s confidence and self-esteem, at a time when they are still finding their own identity. It can lead to depression, truancy, self-harm and even suicide; to a fear of returning to school to face one’s friends, who may be the authors of some of this cyber-bullying; and to a feeling of being permanently unsafe.

[Bob Stewart (Beckenham) (Con)]

Being bullied by electronic means could actually be worse than being bullied in the playground. At least in the playground, people perhaps have their friends around to sustain them. Being bullied privately, perhaps in a quiet place, could really prey on someone’s mind.

[Tim Loughton]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right, and of course in such situations there are no witnesses around. People suffer in silence, and there is not necessarily anybody on hand to report such behaviour to. That is why it is every bit as damaging as, and probably more damaging than, the playground bullying that he and I might have been witnesses to—certainly not part of—in our days of yore in the playground.

Nominet’s “know the net” research suggests that socially and economically disadvantaged children and young people are at greater risk of experiencing cyber-bullying and suffering its adverse effects. It is more likely to affect disabled children, young carers, children with learning disabilities and recipients of free school meals. Cyber-bullies are picking on the most vulnerable children—an even more shameful act. Facebook is the most common place for it, as we have heard. Facebook has made great strides, but there is an awful lot more it can do. Such bullying happens on Twitter, and it happens with Instagram. There are now various new modes of communicating, whereby an image is sent and it self-destructs within 10 seconds, so the evidence is gone. Those are all clever ways that can be used by malign people to bully even more effectively.

What is really worrying is that only 37% of teenagers who experience online bullying report it to a social network, so two thirds do not. Some 36% of those who do not report it said that they choose not to because it is not taken seriously and doing so would be a waste of time. Very few even report it to their parents, yet a third of all parents fear that their child is actually causing bullying on the internet, according to research by the National Children’s Bureau and McAfee. Some 45% of parents have set up Facebook accounts themselves for their own children who are under the age of 13. The recommended minimum age for having a Facebook account is 13, yet some parents are clearly ignoring that. Indeed, Facebook itself has discussed removing that age threshold. However, that is one of the few safeguards that provides guidance to parents on the age at which it is appropriate for their children to be exposed to these very powerful forms of social media. Only one in 10 parents believe that their own children are safe online, yet over a third have never had a conversation with their children about the dangers of the internet, and only one in five bothers to set up controls on their internet devices.

This is an extraordinary situation, a perfect storm. Schools are not doing enough to teach the hazards of the internet effectively. We need better sex and relationship education as armour to deal with some of the sexual abuse on the internet. Parents are afraid of appearing ignorant and do not communicate with their children about the hazards, and the social media companies are still spending too much time on maximising the number of people attracted to their sites, the revenues earned by the sites and the stock market capitalisation as the sites are launched on the American stock market. The Home Affairs Select Committee reported earlier this year that too many of our social media companies remain far too complacent and laid back about the perils of the internet for young and impressionable people.

The other big problem is that abuse of the internet lacks consequences. That was behind my earlier question to the Minister when I asked him how many people were being prosecuted and actually feeling the force of the law. How many people are being shown that what they are doing is not just a bit of harmless fun, a bit of ribbing or a bit of playfully taking the mick out of someone, but that it is dangerous abuse that can ultimately be fatal?