Last week I had a Mum bring her 11-year-old daughter to the Muay Thai gym where I teach for some training, to help restore some confidence and release some hurt feelings. Her daughter was getting harassed and bullied online, to the extent she had been forced to leave the upper decile school she was at. Other girls at her school had been spreading nasty rumors and telling others to stop being friends with her, had sent her nasty messages, even going as far as telling her she should kill herself.

Bullies deliberately isolate a victim, whilst tormenting them, leaving mentally distressed people alone without the support networks that can help them manage such an upsetting time. It should be no surprise then that victims of bullying who are socially cut off are then at risk of self-harm. When 11-year-old classmates are telling their peers to kill themselves on social media, it speaks to the massive problem we have in our culture.

Image search results for the phrase “Online bullying”. Online bullying is a global issue.

Hearing this young person’s heart-breaking story made me reflect on my own online experiences of abuse and harassment. It was only a few weeks ago I saw a Tweet saying I needed a bullet, just one of the countless horrible things I’ve had said about me or to me online. My experiences of course are far from unique.

People have commented that the horrific online abuse and vitriol Jacinda Ardern experienced was a contributing factor to her resignation. We tend to think of online trolls as some loser in a dungeon, or nasty school kids, but a quick scroll through Twitter, and you can find academics, professionals and pundits calling others names, spreading lies and gossip, and, sometimes, suggesting people deserve to die. The process of isolation is at play her too, as people who are piled on, soon become considered persona non grata, and connections silently fade away with the click of unfollow or block.

Is it any wonder that our young people are participating in online bullying and cancellation campaigns of their schoolmates when people in positions of influence role model this and get social reward for it? If people can fit their personal dislike of someone into a political narrative a little and misrepresent someone online accordingly, it can be socially advantageous. If you’re a comedian or cartoonist, you get online engagement, clout, and influence by being horrible about the right people. Whole personal brands have been built on calling out others and starting campaigns against them. Some call this activism, but I think we should call it what It is, bullying and harassment. It’s very twisted that we can now reward such anti-social behaviour. Our young people live online in a way Gen X and Millenials never did, and they absorb all of this.

I’m old enough to remember the times when you could have a shitty day at school or work and go home and be away from the people who hurt you. The advent of social media though has meant that people now are potentially exposed to brutal online attacks for 24 hours a day. It’s naïve to suggest just not going online, when we need our smartphones now for everything to from paying to parking to checking in at the airport. Social media is a huge space for both growing business and organizing events, keeping informed and keeping socially connected.

This means victims of online bullying may get no respite from the humiliation and torment. The content made about them can also be permanent, as things put online are very hard to remove, no matter how untrue or defamatory they are. Online bullying is of course also hard for parents to notice, as it happens in very surreptitious ways. In Instagram stories, and in direct messages, and on blogs, people spend hours dissecting or abusing other people they may have never met but feel the need to tear to pieces.

From personal experience I can tell you online abuse makes you feel suicidal, alone, paranoid, and anxious. I’m a resilient adult with a lot of tools at my disposal to deal with the things I have experienced, and I’ve still really struggled with online harassment campaigns. For a young person, particularly a vulnerable one, bullying and online hate campaigns are super dangerous. The research tells us that online bullying increases self-harm, such as cutting, suicidal ideation and even suicide attempts. Indeed there are cases such as the ten-year-old attempting suicide after prolonged harassment and bullying.

In 2019 surveys showed that NZ ranked highest in the world for teenage suicide between ages 15 - 18 years, second highest for school bullying, and third for cyberbullying. This is something we should all want to be part of changing. And if we are serious about it, we need to start changing our culture.

The commentariat of pundits, bloggers, Twitter addicts and academics, need to start being held to account and challenged by their peers. Adults need to think before chiming in with their nasty take about a living, breathing human being. People shouldn’t be praised for nasty cartoons or vicious personal attacks. It shouldn’t be cool to be horrible about people. Bullies should be asked, why do you think hurting someone else is acceptable or funny? Silent onlookers need to start standing up for people being bullied. Being an active bystander is proven to have a positive impact when it comes to reducing bullying and helping those being bullied.

If we don’t want our young people being bullied, adults need to role model a culture change. It astounds me to look at the profiles of parents who repeat lies and say the worst things about people they perceive of thinking the wrong things. People are quick to be seen to say the right thing about the target of the week, and the online disinhibition effect means they don’t consider the impact on the other human being they are attacking. If you care about stopping bullying and our terrible mental health statistics, maybe think about what you share, and who you follow, and what you subscribe to. If it’s all nasty shit and about tearing people down rather than building others up, perhaps reflect on what that is contributing to in our culture and if you want to be part of it. Unfollow people who are routinely nasty. Disincentivize being awful.

We need more people to be aware of and use the Harmful Digital Communications Act, and even look to make it have more teeth. People deserve real penalties for the harm they cause to others online, and the police should be more aware of the harm online communications and bullying can cause and use the law accordingly. We can look at the late Charlotte Dawson’s suicide as an example of what the words of strangers can do.

Netsafe, while well-meaning, need more resources and greater powers to police online bullying, abuse, and harassment. More staff to connect with American service providers of platforms like Snapchat, Instagram and Tik-Tok where online abuse and humiliation and shaming take place would help speed up the pace of dealing with online harm. It would potentially help get abusive material removed faster. At present, if you’re a victim of online abuse and bullying you have to collect your own evidence. That means hours collating screenshots of people saying horrible things about you. A simple block from whoever is bullying you can make that very difficult and the harassment can continue. More staff and better resourcing at Netsafe could change this.

Social media and being online shouldn’t be unsafe for people. No one should be bullied, whether it’s school kids or politicians. If we are really serious about ending bullying, it needs to start at the top. We need people in positions of visibility to look at their own behaviour and act accordingly if they don’t like what they see. We need to make displays of kindness and decency go viral, not nasty hot takes and personal insults. If we don’t do something, more people will have their mental health shot to bits, more people will end up cut off and alone, and ultimately, more people will kill themselves. It doesn’t have to be this way though, if we all speak up, take a stand and act, to change our vicious culture of bullying.