Y Sort-It Clydebank 29-09

 Discussion Group: Six participants (one female, five male) from 16 to 22 years old from the wider West Dunbartonshire area

First topic: Cyber bullying

What does cyber bullying mean to you?

The participants were asked to say what came into their heads when they thought of cyber bullying, and their responses are listed below:

• MSN
• Threatening
• Bebo
• Facebook
• Horrible phone calls
• Nasty texts
• Keyboard Gangster

 None of the group said that they, or anyone they knew, had experienced cyber bullying so weren’t able to bring any personal experiences to the discussion.  However, they were asked to put themselves in the place of someone who had experienced it and to think about how that might feel, how it might affect them.

They all felt that the worst thing about cyber bullying would be that it is often anonymous, so not knowing who was making the threats to you would be the hardest thing to deal with.  That would mean that going to school or college would be really difficult because you’d be constantly wondering if the people next to you were the ones doing it.  Could it be your classmates?  Could it be the people sitting next to you in the canteen?  Could it be the people on your bus?

They thought that if they were victim to cyber bullying they would feel upset, scared, petrified and horrible.

Do you think cyber bullying is a big problem?  Why? How can it be tackled?

Even though no one in group had personal experience of cyber bullying, the majority still thought that it was quite a big problem that affected young people generally.  The two participants that felt it wasn’t a problem came to that conclusion because they hadn’t experienced it themselves.

The discussion progressed to how cyber bullying can be tackled, and by whom. 

Networks themselves – some of the participants felt that the phone networks themselves had a duty to tackle the issue, along with companies like Facebook, Bebo, and Twitter.  There was a feeling that all of these organisations had a duty to record incidents, and then act appropriately.  People should immediately have their accounts deleted if they are caught sending threatening or abusive messages through any of these methods.

 Teachers, school staff – there was no real consensus from the group on this one.  One participant felt very strongly that the school had the power to suspend or expel pupils who were caught cyber bullying other pupils, and should do so.  However, the rest of the group disagreed and felt that there wasn’t much that they could do, especially if the cyber bullying occurred out with school hours.  One participant said that all the school staff could do is phone the police.

 Police – again, not everyone agreed with this.  One participant felt that if there was a police presence at the school gates, especially at home time, then pupils would be less likely to carry out any threats of violence they may have made previously.  Therefore, if they knew they wouldn’t actually be able to it then they might stop the threats.

 Parents – most of the group felt that parents wouldn’t be able to do much.  They thought that the school might let them know if something was going on, but based on their own lives, their parents would probably use violence themselves to sort it out, so it would not actually resolve anything.  In fact, it would probably make the situation worse.

 Young people – all of the participants felt that young people themselves were quite powerless to stop it.  All they could do is either tell their parents (which as previously mentioned might not help the situation), or phone the police.  When asked what they would do if one of their friends was being cyber bullied the majority of them said they’d try to find out who was doing it and then ‘batter them’.

Case study 1:  Some people from your school/college decided to target you for ‘happy slapping’ and video it on their phones.  They posted it on their Facebook page, and sent the video to lots of people. You are really embarrassed and do not want to go to school/college because you know that anyone could have seen the video.

• How can you get Face Book to get it down? (It's not your page)
• Is this cyberbullying?

Question 1 (how can you get Facebook to take it down?) – they all felt confident that they could report the abuse to Facebook, and that the company would then have an obligation to take it down immediately. 

Question 2 (is this cyber bullying?) – not everyone thought this would be classed as cyber bullying, rather physical bullying.  Even though the video was being distributed via mobile phones, and posted online they felt the ‘cyber’ element to it was secondary to the actual ‘happy slapping’ attack.  However, most admitted that they would feel embarrassed if that happened to them.

Second topic: Child abuse and  safety online

The first thing that all of the participants answered was using privacy settings on their Bebo and Facebook accounts.  When asked why they should control who viewed their pages they said it was to stop any ‘weirdos’ finding out about them.

 The issue of downloading images of child pornography, and approaching children online for sex was introduced to the group and brought out strong statements against paedophiles.  They then discussed how hard it was to regulate images of young children.  They thought that many people would innocently post pictures of their own babies and young children for friends and families to see on Facebook etc, and wondered whether or not they would get into trouble for that.  One participant felt that ‘political correctness had gone mad’ if people were questioned over innocent pictures of their own children.

Case study 2: It turns out that an adult you know is suspected of accessing child pornography. Their email and phone records have been examined by the police. Your details are on those records because they are a friend of the family. Without your knowledge, your phone is tapped and your emails read. This continues for over a year, despite nothing out of order being discovered.

• What could you do?
• Is phone tapping ok if it helps to bust child porn rings?

Question 1 (what could you do?) – one participant felt that in that instance there was absolutely nothing you could do because it was the law.  If the police were allowed to do it, then you couldn’t argue.  The rest of the group agreed with this point of view.

Question 2 (is phone tapping ok?) – this was a mixed response with exactly half saying yes and half saying no.  Those who said yes felt that child pornography was such a serious and horrible crime that the police should be allowed to do anything necessary to stop it and catch ‘the paedophiles’.  Those who answered no felt that the invasion of privacy was too great and that it wasn’t fair on innocent people to be dragged into criminal investigations. 

Case study 3: A family friend/relative is being investigated for downloading child pornography.  You believe this person when they say they weren’t looking at child pornography.  Someone - they say - stole their credit card and used it with one of those sites. Unfortunately, someone found out about the police inquiry. Your mates at school have been told not to have anything to do with your family and are ignoring you. 

• What can you do?
• Should the police keep these inquiries secret?
• Or should everyone know?

Question 1 (what can you do?) – the group felt that in this situation there would be nothing that they could do about it.

Question 2 (should police keep these inquiries secret?) – the participants thought that it was really important to keep this information private at that stage.  They felt that if someone has been found guilty of such an offence then other people have the right to know who and what was involved, but if nothing has been proven it’s really important to keep it private.  They could do a big investigation and find nothing has been done wrong, but if people find out about it they might think you’re guilty just for being part of the investigation.  They specifically mentioned that names should never be made public until someone has been convicted, and that in the particular scenario it was really bad that someone had leaked the police investigation.

Question 3 (should everyone know?) – one participant felt very strongly that anything and everything should be done so stop child pornography by any means necessary.  The rest of the group didn’t think that everyone should know, and were very concerned about their own personal privacy.

Reflection on session

The young people who took part all knew each very well as they had all been attending the youth group for a long time, so this helped the group dynamics.  They were obviously very comfortable with each other and happy to give their opinions.

With the discussion on online safety and child pornography there were some very strong opinions about how awful it was and what should happen to people caught doing it, however their answers suggested that an individual’s own personal privacy was perhaps more important, or at least their own.