December 3, 2024 • 26 mins
What happens when online bullying transcends the screen and starts shaping young lives in tragic ways?
With eSafety Commissioner Julie Inman Grant, we uncover the harsh realities of cyberbullying, sextortion, and the online traps facing today’s youth.
Learn about innovative tools and strategies available to parents, educators, and schools to protect children, as well as the importance of staying engaged in your kids’ digital lives.
In this episode:
- The role of Australia's eSafety Commissioner
- Cyberbullying & mental health
- Emerging online threats (doxing, sextortion, violent language, isolating victims)
- Contagion effect of self harm
- Parental awareness & responsibility
- Cooperation from platforms
- Removing content
- Tools and resources for parents and educators
- Teaching kids to report bullying & collect evidence
- Setting boundaries & modelling respectful communication at home
- Strategies for managing kids' screen time
Related Links:
- #639 Online Sextortion With Detective Superintendent Jayne Crossling
- Lifeline Australia - 13 11 14
- Kids Helpline - 1800 55 1800
- 13YARN Australia | For First Nation Australians - 13 92 76
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Leave a voice memo here or email your questions/comments to podcasts@happyfamilies.com.au
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:04):
It's the Happy Families podcast.
Speaker 2 (00:07):
It's the podcast for the time poor parent who just
once answers.
Speaker 1 (00:11):
Now a quick content warning before we start today's podcast.
Some of the material in today's podcast may not be
suitable for younger listeners. While not explicit, we will be
talking about some particularly challenging things. Therefore, this is your warning.
Here's a heads up for what we were discussing. Number one,
we're going to talk about the increasing levels that we
(00:33):
seem to be seeing of bullying, particularly the kind of
bullying and catfishing and online issues that have led to
the untimely and completely avoidable depths of far too many
teenagers in Australia this year. Additionally, we'll be talking about
sextortion and what's going on online with teenage boys. My
guest today on the podcast is Julie In mngrant, Australia's
(00:55):
E Safety Commissioner. In her role as E Safety Commissioner,
Julie in mcgrand is responsible for ensuring ring that all Australians,
especially our kids, have safer and more positive experiences online.
Australia is the only nation in the world to have
a government agency that is dedicated to online safety. As
far as I'm aware, Julie has created a pioneering, innovative
and citizen focused office, making an impact both here at
(01:16):
home and globally. She's been a passionate advocate of promoting
technology for good and has been working at the intersection
of tech and social policy for more than twenty five years.
She's been dedicated to combating all forms of child sexual
exploitation online cyber abuse, and has worked tirelessly to promote
and protect the voices of women, children, and vulnerable communities
online and more recently, young men as well. Julie Inman Grant.
(01:39):
Welcome to the Happy Families Podcast.
Speaker 2 (01:41):
Let's just keep trying to make those families happier.
Speaker 1 (01:44):
Julie at school, Holidays around the corner for pretty much
everyone in the country, and kids are invariably going to
end up on screens a little bit more at this
time of the year than they would at any other
time of the year, in spite of the warm weather
and all that sort of thing, just because well they're
not at school. There are a couple of things that
have really been on my mind a lot as I've
watched the way screens continue to inhabit our kids' lives.
(02:08):
In the last couple of months, there have been several
suicides of young children twelve, fourteen, sixteen years of age,
primarily related to bullying, cyber bullying, catfishing, all sorts of
things happening online. I wonder if you can just talk
a little bit about the role of the Safety Commissioner
and the resources that are available on how parents are
supposed to respond when their kids are being bullied online
(02:30):
and they say, we've read about it in the paper.
Allegedly the families have gone to the schools, they've said,
we've got a problem here, and for whatever reason, the
schools are not able to deal with it. The problem
isn't going away, and in too many cases we've seen
the loss of life. How do we work through this
and what role can you play?
Speaker 2 (02:50):
Listen, The loss of life like this, particularly of children
so young, is absolutely devastating, But as you now as
a trained psychologist, there is always a lot to it.
It's usually not one factor, but there's no question that
when you may have underlying issues and there's face to
face bullying, if there's cyberbullying on top of that, that's
(03:14):
a hugely compounding factor. And I think that's what makes
cyberbulling so insidious. It's pervasive and invasive. You know, you're
not just leaving the bullying behind at the school gates.
It's following these children in their supercomputers in their pockets
into their homes and depending on the rules that you
have in the household, some kids are taking devices into
(03:38):
their rooms and maybe on all night and be exposed
to a constant barrage of bullying. So we've seen children
much younger since the COVID pandemic getting onto social media
sites before they're ready. In fact, we just put out
some youth research showing that eighty four percent of eight
(04:02):
to twelve year olds are online now and that equates
to about one point three million kids in primary school
years that are that are likely on social media and
messaging apps. So we need to be engaged in our
kids online lives now. E Safety is really unique in
that we offer the world's only government backed cyberbuling service
(04:27):
in the world. So if a child is cyberbully, then
they report to the platform and that doesn't come down.
They can report to us, as can a parent, a
care or a designated educator or other supervisor. And we
have a ninety percent success rate in terms of getting
that content down. So this is what we see, and
(04:49):
what we know is that online abuse or cyberbuling is
almost always peer to peer, and it's almost always tied
to conflict happening within this school gates. So that's where
that compounding effect happens. Often kids are reluctant to report first,
to report to a platform because they think that they
(05:12):
won't do anything let alone a government agency, or are
to talk to a parent because they're afraid of device denial.
They also don't want to be the dabber or the snitch.
But I would say that particularly when a child is
being targeted in by multiple people or in really damaging ways,
(05:33):
the best thing we can do is rapidly remove that content,
and often with the consent of the child or the parent.
We often for underage kids, encourage them to get their
parents involved. We also involve the school community, and we
find that once the core of the conflict is removed
and there is visibility around the school community and the
(05:56):
parent community that this bullying has happened, it tends to dissipate.
And there are lots of complexities there, but again, just
getting the content taken down can provide tremendous relief and
then we often pass. We've got a contractual arrangement with
Kids Helpline, so where we see kids are really hurting
(06:17):
or may need mental health support, we refer those kids
on Julie.
Speaker 1 (06:22):
What percentage of parents know about a safety commissioner capacity there?
Do you have any research on that to show the
extent to which families in the Australian community are aware
that you are there and have those powers to have
content removed from these social media sites.
Speaker 2 (06:40):
I would say not as many as we want, probably
closer to the forty percent mark. But this is precisely
why I do podcasts like this, just to let parents
and educators know that we're here to help. In fact,
I've just written letters to the principles of Shalom College
(07:01):
and Saint Sabine and Redlands College in Queensland to let
them know. And it feels terrible in a way because
this is our worst case scenario that a cyberbullying incident,
along with you know, other factors, would escalate to the
point where a child feels that they have no way out.
(07:23):
When we can provide that relief and that support. We
have very good relationships with all of the platforms from
TikTok to Instagram to Snapchat, and I can tell you
that none of them want to see young people being
bullied online. I'd also say there are a couple of
other concerning trends that we're starting to see, and that
(07:47):
is that young people are becoming much more aggressive and
being much more persistent and pervasive with their targeting of
other children. We're seeing more fight videos, which is almost
sent as a way to dogs people. We're seeing really
violent use of language by kids as young as fourteen,
(08:11):
threatening rape and death threats. So we've started to use
what we call our end user notice powers, where we
do this in conjunction with parents and the school community.
But it's essentially a cease and desist notice that we
send to these kids that say you must take this
content down, you must write an apology letter to the target,
(08:32):
you must commit that you will not engage in this
kind of behavior again. And the reason we use this
as a deterrent because we do not want children at
this age thinking that they can harass, intimidate, threaten, and
humiliate others with total impunity. And I would say there's
some schools that are really excellent and get very engaged,
(08:57):
and there are some schools that are quite disengaged. There
was a case where we were very concerned about a
contagion effect of self harm where teenage girls were inciting
other girls to engage in more violent forms of cutting.
Really and the principal at that school refused to become engaged.
(09:22):
They said, oh, this is happening after school hours. These
are not devices owned by the schools. And I guess
my entreaty two schools would be, these are students in
your school community. If there's a contagion happening within your community,
you have to you have to get involved and take
a stand. We've got a range of tools for educators
(09:44):
as well, what we call the Tools for schools. We
provide virtual classrooms for teachers, professional training for teachers, but
also virtual classrooms for kids.
Speaker 1 (09:55):
Julie, to what extent you think parents are aware that
their kids are saying this sort of stuff. When I
was a kid, i'd get cranky one of my friends.
I'd say, oh, you're dead meat, and that was that
was just what we said. I mean, if I heard
my kids say that, they'd be so cranky. We can't
speak like that and yet when when I was a kid,
it didn't seem like it was that big of a deal.
When they're making these kinds of threats, there's really two
(10:18):
questions here. Number one, do you think that they realize
just what they're saying in the same way that I
don't think I really understood what I was saying when
I said you're dead meat? And number two, do you
think parents have got any idea what their kids are
doing and saying online?
Speaker 2 (10:31):
Whenever our investigators look at the content, we always look
at the context and you know, is this just kind
of grandstanding or you know, I'm you know, I'm going
to kill you? But what we're seeing is much more deliberate,
very concerning targeted specific threats of harm or I'm just
(10:53):
thinking of one where there was a group of kids
that had beaten up another kid and he was unconscious
and they continued to kick him and they sent that
video around. Is almost an intimidating factor, and these were
young kids that seem to show no or little mercy.
(11:14):
I mean, I have to say sometimes I'm shocked with
the language that's being used. And then there's some really
deliberate tactics. There's something called phoenixing where one child will
set up to fifty or sixty accounts with the target's name,
and you know, they know that as their abuse gets
reported and comes down, there will be another one that
(11:36):
comes rises up in the ashes, and that the whole
intent is to just put constant pressure on the person.
So it's a very insidious way of continuing to target
a child. So there is something for it.
Speaker 1 (11:49):
Yeahka, and parents, you got to assume that the parents
just a completely oblievious to this, that they're simply not
wandering not where that this is going on.
Speaker 2 (11:58):
So yes, and some times, know what's really really interesting
is some parents are absolutely shocked, they have no idea,
and then you have other parents who take a very
defensive position my child would other do or say anything
like that, even when we present them with evidence. You know,
I do think this is where role modeling as a
(12:20):
parent is so important. You know, the language we use
around the house, the way we talk to each other,
the way we talk to kids. You know, kids are sponges.
They pick this up and if they're not picking it
up from you, they could be picking it up from
cultural product and their peers. This is why we have
to kind of guide kids along, particularly you know, before
(12:43):
they reach thirteenage years and they want to be more independent,
to ensure that we're engaging. As I was just saying
to you justin, I was shocked when I let my
then sixth grade twins use my phone number so that
they could communicate with and it's their peers. To see
some of their peers using the C word and some
(13:07):
other words was really quite confronting to me. And you know,
I ended up talking to some of the parents just saying,
I know you, I'm sure you don't talk like this
around the house, but you need to know that your
child is using this kind of language.
Speaker 1 (13:28):
I want to go back to something that you raised before,
and that is your powers to have content removed. If
you've got a child who's being bullied, if you've got
the evidence of it, if there's a way that a
report can be made to the e Safety Commissioner office
and something can be done there, to what extent can
you have content removed from? I mean, so WhatsApp for example,
and Facebook Messenger. These are now encrypted, and therefore, because
(13:53):
behind that encryption, do you still have powers to get
in there? Do you have the capacity to get into
the encrypted spaces. I don't know what other apps off
of that now, but I'm sure that they're not the
only too. How much can you get in there and
get that content removed?
Speaker 2 (14:08):
Well, that's where we have to actually work with the platforms. Informally.
We don't have specific app removal powers, but what can
be done. And we're seeing more bullying moving from you know,
social media bullying which was really the genesis for the
Online Safety Act in twenty fifteen, when you know kids
were posting to Facebook.
Speaker 1 (14:29):
What we do is.
Speaker 2 (14:29):
We ask kids and we show them how to collect
the evidence through a screenshot that there's a specific account
and what the content is. You can screenshot that that
information and report it as bullying. If it contravenes WhatsApp
services or WhatsApps terms of service, we can flag it
(14:50):
up informally for the platform there's a usually a pattern
or a signal that they can pick up and what
we found. Those that bully some usually bully others. So
there are some cases where the platforms will take action.
As I said, we have the ninety percent success rate
(15:11):
we have is because we work cooperatively with the platforms
and we just point out that this is violating their
terms of service, and a policy is only as good
as its enforcement, and we service that backstop. Now, sometimes
a platform might say we don't agree with you. If
you want this content taken down, send us a formal
(15:31):
removal notice, and we'll do that if we think the
situation warrants it.
Speaker 1 (15:36):
Julie, we bumped into each other a month and a
half ago at south By Southwest. It's a big conference
was being held in Sydney, and backstage I asked you
if there was anything that was particularly on your mind.
You highlighted that the last time we spoke, teenage boys
and sextortion was your one of your chief concerns, and
you indicated to me backstage that it hasn't moved. In fact,
(15:57):
it's only increased in terms of the degree to which
you're concerned about it. Could you, for those who are
not familiar with what's going on with teenage boys and sextortion,
talk a bit about that and specifically this sadistic sexual
sextortion that is becoming increasingly frequent.
Speaker 2 (16:14):
Yeah, it is really concerning. So just to put things
in context, in twenty eighteen, we receive something like four
hundred and thirty two reports of sexual extortion through our
image based ABUT scheme, we've seen an over thirteen one
hundred percent increase and had over sixty two hundred reports
(16:37):
in twenty two twenty three and we haven't finished telling
for this year. And so there are two types of
sexual extortion. There's financial sexual extortion that is primarily committed
by overseas criminal gangs. So the same criminal gangs like
the Yahoo boys out of Nigeria who used to send
(16:57):
me you know my the princess was kidnapped or you've
won a lottery that you didn't enter. They've figured out
that young young boys between the ages of sixteen and
twenty four, so young men really are much more responsive
to a attractive blonde Instagram account asking if they want
(17:19):
a sexy chat and taking off their clothes or master
debating for a camera within a usually within an hour
or two. They're that that effective and the minute that happens,
they use a combination of guilt and shame. Often they've
done a lot of research about the target. They will
(17:41):
know by looking at the Instagram followers, who who their
girlfriend is, who their parents are, and they will threaten
to share unless money is given, and often it's not
just cash. It might be through crypto, it might be
through gift cards, and so the whole there's a whole
manifesto for these organized criminals on how to really back
a child into a corner or a young man into
(18:03):
a corner. And the reason they're targeting young men is
they're more likely to have jobs and have means as well,
but their brains are still developing, right, so they might
not be thinking straight, and so they try and back
them into a corner and make them panic. Now, sadistic
sexual extortion tends to happen more to girls, and that
(18:26):
also preys upon fear and leads individuals to kind of
comply with demands and hopes of escaping humiliation. But they
there's a real emotional tool which creates anxiety, depression, a
shattered sense of security. And often this targets young girls,
and they're not always looking for financial reward. But these
(18:49):
might be predators that will look for more explicit kinds
of videos or will command that they do certain things
or be online at certain times. They're are perpetrators of
sadistic six stortion that engage in this prolonged harassment and
use really a sophisticated psychological manipulation techniques to exploit their
(19:13):
victims vulnerabilities. So we've just we just dealt with a
really heartbreaking one of a fourteen year old girl last week.
We had cooperation from the platform so we were able
to intercede and then refer on to the ACE at
the AFP as active grooming. But it's it's amazing when
(19:37):
we are we are able to engage with parents when
the kids are underage, and so my parents say that, oh,
my kids smarter than that, they wouldn't engage in that,
they wouldn't do that. It's it's really amazing how many
young people fall prey to this, and it's it's really
(19:58):
really disturbing and distressing.
Speaker 1 (20:00):
Julie. When we did Pardal Guide in season two, we
got in touch with the Austraian Federal Police and the
Australian Senator to counter child exploitation and we did this
thing where the kids got online and we approached them.
We had an actor approach them and try to get
personal details from them and a range a meet up
and it was devastating as the parents watched their children
(20:21):
fall prey to this actor, who I mean had no
ill intent. He was an actor and he was being
guided by the police to do it, but it was
it was absolutely, absolutely devastating, just crushing. The hardest part
of all, though, is that the parents whose children made
those mistakes said, We've had the talk, we spent time
with the kids. It's not just that it was a
(20:42):
one off talk. We've had these conversations, and yet kids
are kids are vulnerable, and they want to be liked,
and they want to explore, and they're curious. They're just
so vulnerable. Conversations like the one that we've just had.
In so many ways, it's it's depressing, it's it's concerning.
It sometimes makes it feel like it's all too hard.
(21:04):
But the reason we have to have these conversations is
so that parents know that this is a reality for
way too many of our kids, and they need to
know that you've got the resources there to provide them
with the support. There is actually hope and hopefully, hopefully
if anything, if it does happen, only on they can
they can go to you.
Speaker 2 (21:21):
Yeah, and we've worked really closely with law enforcement agencies
across the country to get up those prevention messages, and
those are really you know, if somebody asks you for
a sexy chat. You know, don't take off your clothes
for anyone you don't know as a real person. But
if you do, it's not your fault. Disclose to someone disclosed,
(21:42):
disclose disclosed. Don't carry this alone. And again that one
of the tactics is to isolate the person. I get
terry when I talk about this, but we we met
with a Victorian coroner and the names of seventeen different
young men who had taken their lives as a result
(22:04):
of image based abuse or extortion. And I read one
of the suicide notes where they said, Mom, Dad, I
messed up, I'm sorry, goodbye. I'm sure every single parent
you ever talked to would just would want of them
to say, I'm just down the hall. I don't care
what you did. If you're in trouble, I'm gonna I'm here,
(22:26):
I'm going to help you. And it just it makes
you feel so sad because these are young adults. And
that's the other thing I worry about is that we
might think, Okay, this young man is eighteen, he's technically adult,
but he may not have the same pastoral care, or
(22:46):
maybe in transition, is no longer in school, maybe in
UNI or at tafe or doing a trade and still
not have really found themselves. And you know, I think
we expect a lot of young adults in terms of
taking on things like this, and I just think we
have to remember that we need to be there for
our kids always.
Speaker 1 (23:07):
Two things as you share that number one. Over the
last couple of months, I've had a couple of conversations
with parents whose boys have gone to them and said,
I've made a terrible mistake and things are about to
get really bad. What a gift it is that they've
been willing to have that conversation. What an absolutely wonderful thing.
(23:27):
I mean, it still doesn't always work out. Recently on
Channel ten, there was a terrible story about a young
man who some months after everything had sort of washed over,
it was still too much for him. But the more
that we can let our children know that our love
for them is bigger than anything that they could ever do,
the more LIKELI is that we get good outcomes, just as.
Speaker 2 (23:48):
We can get that content taken down and so they
can come to us. We will always provide whatever kind
of wrap around support we can, you know, and we
also tell people not to pay, because if you pay,
they'll keep coming back and block them and collect the evidence,
and we'll work with the police and we'll do what
we can. You probably will never get your money back,
(24:11):
but we can try and get the imagery down, and
you know, people can leave with their dignity intact because
they're being socially scammed and engineered to the ends. Degree.
Speaker 1 (24:21):
Yeah, that's what I was literally about to say. The
good news is the Safety Commissioner has the powers to
act on that. And if people, if people just knew
that you were there, which is obviously the purpose of
this conversation, they'd know that there's an opportunity there for
some sort of redemption, for some sort of some sort
of hope out of it. So a couple of big
topics Julie bullying, it's not going away, and as you've said,
(24:43):
in some ways it's becoming even more vindictive and more challenging.
But you have the powers to act and to help
kids to be safer. And obviously with the sextortion for
boys and the statistic sexual sextortion for girls, again the
powers are there so that people need anything, they can
go to the e Safety website and get the support
that they need. For those who are not familiar with
(25:04):
what you do and where to find you. Can you
just give us a couple of quick point is on that.
Speaker 2 (25:08):
Yeah, I E Safety dot gov dot EU. Everything is there,
so there's parent guides in multiple languages. You can search
based on apps that your kids may be using. You
can search based on issue, whether it's extortion or cyberbulling,
and reporting abuse is right up top. We take reports
(25:29):
of child sexual abuse, material terrorist content, youth based cyberbulling,
image based abuse, which is the sharing of intemn images
and videos. This includes deep fakes, and then adult cyber abuse.
Speaker 1 (25:42):
And there's so much more we could talk about, but
our time is absolutely will and truly gone. It is
such an important conversation though, Julian mcgrand AUSTRAI as a
safety commissioner, thank you for being so helpful and so
generous with your time. Thank you what an important conversation.
If you need support, obviously the e safety dot gov
dot AU website will be a useful place. But if
this has stirred up anything else for you, there are
(26:03):
a range of different helplines around, including a Lifeline, Kids Helpline, Parentline,
Men's Healthline, one three YAN and so many others. Please
please please make sure that you take care of yourself
and those that you love. The Happy Families podcast is
produced by Justin Ruland from Bridge Media. If you'd like
more information about the things we've talked about today, you'll
(26:24):
find that at the Safety dot gov dot A. You
will link to that in the show notes, and for
more about making your family happier, try happy families dot
com dot a
It's the Happy Families podcast.
Speaker 2 (00:07):
It's the podcast for the time poor parent who just
once answers.
Speaker 1 (00:11):
Now a quick content warning before we start today's podcast.
Some of the material in today's podcast may not be
suitable for younger listeners. While not explicit, we will be
talking about some particularly challenging things. Therefore, this is your warning.
Here's a heads up for what we were discussing. Number one,
we're going to talk about the increasing levels that we
(00:33):
seem to be seeing of bullying, particularly the kind of
bullying and catfishing and online issues that have led to
the untimely and completely avoidable depths of far too many
teenagers in Australia this year. Additionally, we'll be talking about
sextortion and what's going on online with teenage boys. My
guest today on the podcast is Julie In mngrant, Australia's
(00:55):
E Safety Commissioner. In her role as E Safety Commissioner,
Julie in mcgrand is responsible for ensuring ring that all Australians,
especially our kids, have safer and more positive experiences online.
Australia is the only nation in the world to have
a government agency that is dedicated to online safety. As
far as I'm aware, Julie has created a pioneering, innovative
and citizen focused office, making an impact both here at
(01:16):
home and globally. She's been a passionate advocate of promoting
technology for good and has been working at the intersection
of tech and social policy for more than twenty five years.
She's been dedicated to combating all forms of child sexual
exploitation online cyber abuse, and has worked tirelessly to promote
and protect the voices of women, children, and vulnerable communities
online and more recently, young men as well. Julie Inman Grant.
(01:39):
Welcome to the Happy Families Podcast.
Speaker 2 (01:41):
Let's just keep trying to make those families happier.
Speaker 1 (01:44):
Julie at school, Holidays around the corner for pretty much
everyone in the country, and kids are invariably going to
end up on screens a little bit more at this
time of the year than they would at any other
time of the year, in spite of the warm weather
and all that sort of thing, just because well they're
not at school. There are a couple of things that
have really been on my mind a lot as I've
watched the way screens continue to inhabit our kids' lives.
(02:08):
In the last couple of months, there have been several
suicides of young children twelve, fourteen, sixteen years of age,
primarily related to bullying, cyber bullying, catfishing, all sorts of
things happening online. I wonder if you can just talk
a little bit about the role of the Safety Commissioner
and the resources that are available on how parents are
supposed to respond when their kids are being bullied online
(02:30):
and they say, we've read about it in the paper.
Allegedly the families have gone to the schools, they've said,
we've got a problem here, and for whatever reason, the
schools are not able to deal with it. The problem
isn't going away, and in too many cases we've seen
the loss of life. How do we work through this
and what role can you play?
Speaker 2 (02:50):
Listen, The loss of life like this, particularly of children
so young, is absolutely devastating, But as you now as
a trained psychologist, there is always a lot to it.
It's usually not one factor, but there's no question that
when you may have underlying issues and there's face to
face bullying, if there's cyberbullying on top of that, that's
(03:14):
a hugely compounding factor. And I think that's what makes
cyberbulling so insidious. It's pervasive and invasive. You know, you're
not just leaving the bullying behind at the school gates.
It's following these children in their supercomputers in their pockets
into their homes and depending on the rules that you
have in the household, some kids are taking devices into
(03:38):
their rooms and maybe on all night and be exposed
to a constant barrage of bullying. So we've seen children
much younger since the COVID pandemic getting onto social media
sites before they're ready. In fact, we just put out
some youth research showing that eighty four percent of eight
(04:02):
to twelve year olds are online now and that equates
to about one point three million kids in primary school
years that are that are likely on social media and
messaging apps. So we need to be engaged in our
kids online lives now. E Safety is really unique in
that we offer the world's only government backed cyberbuling service
(04:27):
in the world. So if a child is cyberbully, then
they report to the platform and that doesn't come down.
They can report to us, as can a parent, a
care or a designated educator or other supervisor. And we
have a ninety percent success rate in terms of getting
that content down. So this is what we see, and
(04:49):
what we know is that online abuse or cyberbuling is
almost always peer to peer, and it's almost always tied
to conflict happening within this school gates. So that's where
that compounding effect happens. Often kids are reluctant to report first,
to report to a platform because they think that they
(05:12):
won't do anything let alone a government agency, or are
to talk to a parent because they're afraid of device denial.
They also don't want to be the dabber or the snitch.
But I would say that particularly when a child is
being targeted in by multiple people or in really damaging ways,
(05:33):
the best thing we can do is rapidly remove that content,
and often with the consent of the child or the parent.
We often for underage kids, encourage them to get their
parents involved. We also involve the school community, and we
find that once the core of the conflict is removed
and there is visibility around the school community and the
(05:56):
parent community that this bullying has happened, it tends to dissipate.
And there are lots of complexities there, but again, just
getting the content taken down can provide tremendous relief and
then we often pass. We've got a contractual arrangement with
Kids Helpline, so where we see kids are really hurting
(06:17):
or may need mental health support, we refer those kids
on Julie.
Speaker 1 (06:22):
What percentage of parents know about a safety commissioner capacity there?
Do you have any research on that to show the
extent to which families in the Australian community are aware
that you are there and have those powers to have
content removed from these social media sites.
Speaker 2 (06:40):
I would say not as many as we want, probably
closer to the forty percent mark. But this is precisely
why I do podcasts like this, just to let parents
and educators know that we're here to help. In fact,
I've just written letters to the principles of Shalom College
(07:01):
and Saint Sabine and Redlands College in Queensland to let
them know. And it feels terrible in a way because
this is our worst case scenario that a cyberbullying incident,
along with you know, other factors, would escalate to the
point where a child feels that they have no way out.
(07:23):
When we can provide that relief and that support. We
have very good relationships with all of the platforms from
TikTok to Instagram to Snapchat, and I can tell you
that none of them want to see young people being
bullied online. I'd also say there are a couple of
other concerning trends that we're starting to see, and that
(07:47):
is that young people are becoming much more aggressive and
being much more persistent and pervasive with their targeting of
other children. We're seeing more fight videos, which is almost
sent as a way to dogs people. We're seeing really
violent use of language by kids as young as fourteen,
(08:11):
threatening rape and death threats. So we've started to use
what we call our end user notice powers, where we
do this in conjunction with parents and the school community.
But it's essentially a cease and desist notice that we
send to these kids that say you must take this
content down, you must write an apology letter to the target,
(08:32):
you must commit that you will not engage in this
kind of behavior again. And the reason we use this
as a deterrent because we do not want children at
this age thinking that they can harass, intimidate, threaten, and
humiliate others with total impunity. And I would say there's
some schools that are really excellent and get very engaged,
(08:57):
and there are some schools that are quite disengaged. There
was a case where we were very concerned about a
contagion effect of self harm where teenage girls were inciting
other girls to engage in more violent forms of cutting.
Really and the principal at that school refused to become engaged.
(09:22):
They said, oh, this is happening after school hours. These
are not devices owned by the schools. And I guess
my entreaty two schools would be, these are students in
your school community. If there's a contagion happening within your community,
you have to you have to get involved and take
a stand. We've got a range of tools for educators
(09:44):
as well, what we call the Tools for schools. We
provide virtual classrooms for teachers, professional training for teachers, but
also virtual classrooms for kids.
Speaker 1 (09:55):
Julie, to what extent you think parents are aware that
their kids are saying this sort of stuff. When I
was a kid, i'd get cranky one of my friends.
I'd say, oh, you're dead meat, and that was that
was just what we said. I mean, if I heard
my kids say that, they'd be so cranky. We can't
speak like that and yet when when I was a kid,
it didn't seem like it was that big of a deal.
When they're making these kinds of threats, there's really two
(10:18):
questions here. Number one, do you think that they realize
just what they're saying in the same way that I
don't think I really understood what I was saying when
I said you're dead meat? And number two, do you
think parents have got any idea what their kids are
doing and saying online?
Speaker 2 (10:31):
Whenever our investigators look at the content, we always look
at the context and you know, is this just kind
of grandstanding or you know, I'm you know, I'm going
to kill you? But what we're seeing is much more deliberate,
very concerning targeted specific threats of harm or I'm just
(10:53):
thinking of one where there was a group of kids
that had beaten up another kid and he was unconscious
and they continued to kick him and they sent that
video around. Is almost an intimidating factor, and these were
young kids that seem to show no or little mercy.
(11:14):
I mean, I have to say sometimes I'm shocked with
the language that's being used. And then there's some really
deliberate tactics. There's something called phoenixing where one child will
set up to fifty or sixty accounts with the target's name,
and you know, they know that as their abuse gets
reported and comes down, there will be another one that
(11:36):
comes rises up in the ashes, and that the whole
intent is to just put constant pressure on the person.
So it's a very insidious way of continuing to target
a child. So there is something for it.
Speaker 1 (11:49):
Yeahka, and parents, you got to assume that the parents
just a completely oblievious to this, that they're simply not
wandering not where that this is going on.
Speaker 2 (11:58):
So yes, and some times, know what's really really interesting
is some parents are absolutely shocked, they have no idea,
and then you have other parents who take a very
defensive position my child would other do or say anything
like that, even when we present them with evidence. You know,
I do think this is where role modeling as a
(12:20):
parent is so important. You know, the language we use
around the house, the way we talk to each other,
the way we talk to kids. You know, kids are sponges.
They pick this up and if they're not picking it
up from you, they could be picking it up from
cultural product and their peers. This is why we have
to kind of guide kids along, particularly you know, before
(12:43):
they reach thirteenage years and they want to be more independent,
to ensure that we're engaging. As I was just saying
to you justin, I was shocked when I let my
then sixth grade twins use my phone number so that
they could communicate with and it's their peers. To see
some of their peers using the C word and some
(13:07):
other words was really quite confronting to me. And you know,
I ended up talking to some of the parents just saying,
I know you, I'm sure you don't talk like this
around the house, but you need to know that your
child is using this kind of language.
Speaker 1 (13:28):
I want to go back to something that you raised before,
and that is your powers to have content removed. If
you've got a child who's being bullied, if you've got
the evidence of it, if there's a way that a
report can be made to the e Safety Commissioner office
and something can be done there, to what extent can
you have content removed from? I mean, so WhatsApp for example,
and Facebook Messenger. These are now encrypted, and therefore, because
(13:53):
behind that encryption, do you still have powers to get
in there? Do you have the capacity to get into
the encrypted spaces. I don't know what other apps off
of that now, but I'm sure that they're not the
only too. How much can you get in there and
get that content removed?
Speaker 2 (14:08):
Well, that's where we have to actually work with the platforms. Informally.
We don't have specific app removal powers, but what can
be done. And we're seeing more bullying moving from you know,
social media bullying which was really the genesis for the
Online Safety Act in twenty fifteen, when you know kids
were posting to Facebook.
Speaker 1 (14:29):
What we do is.
Speaker 2 (14:29):
We ask kids and we show them how to collect
the evidence through a screenshot that there's a specific account
and what the content is. You can screenshot that that
information and report it as bullying. If it contravenes WhatsApp
services or WhatsApps terms of service, we can flag it
(14:50):
up informally for the platform there's a usually a pattern
or a signal that they can pick up and what
we found. Those that bully some usually bully others. So
there are some cases where the platforms will take action.
As I said, we have the ninety percent success rate
(15:11):
we have is because we work cooperatively with the platforms
and we just point out that this is violating their
terms of service, and a policy is only as good
as its enforcement, and we service that backstop. Now, sometimes
a platform might say we don't agree with you. If
you want this content taken down, send us a formal
(15:31):
removal notice, and we'll do that if we think the
situation warrants it.
Speaker 1 (15:36):
Julie, we bumped into each other a month and a
half ago at south By Southwest. It's a big conference
was being held in Sydney, and backstage I asked you
if there was anything that was particularly on your mind.
You highlighted that the last time we spoke, teenage boys
and sextortion was your one of your chief concerns, and
you indicated to me backstage that it hasn't moved. In fact,
(15:57):
it's only increased in terms of the degree to which
you're concerned about it. Could you, for those who are
not familiar with what's going on with teenage boys and sextortion,
talk a bit about that and specifically this sadistic sexual
sextortion that is becoming increasingly frequent.
Speaker 2 (16:14):
Yeah, it is really concerning. So just to put things
in context, in twenty eighteen, we receive something like four
hundred and thirty two reports of sexual extortion through our
image based ABUT scheme, we've seen an over thirteen one
hundred percent increase and had over sixty two hundred reports
(16:37):
in twenty two twenty three and we haven't finished telling
for this year. And so there are two types of
sexual extortion. There's financial sexual extortion that is primarily committed
by overseas criminal gangs. So the same criminal gangs like
the Yahoo boys out of Nigeria who used to send
(16:57):
me you know my the princess was kidnapped or you've
won a lottery that you didn't enter. They've figured out
that young young boys between the ages of sixteen and
twenty four, so young men really are much more responsive
to a attractive blonde Instagram account asking if they want
(17:19):
a sexy chat and taking off their clothes or master
debating for a camera within a usually within an hour
or two. They're that that effective and the minute that happens,
they use a combination of guilt and shame. Often they've
done a lot of research about the target. They will
(17:41):
know by looking at the Instagram followers, who who their
girlfriend is, who their parents are, and they will threaten
to share unless money is given, and often it's not
just cash. It might be through crypto, it might be
through gift cards, and so the whole there's a whole
manifesto for these organized criminals on how to really back
a child into a corner or a young man into
(18:03):
a corner. And the reason they're targeting young men is
they're more likely to have jobs and have means as well,
but their brains are still developing, right, so they might
not be thinking straight, and so they try and back
them into a corner and make them panic. Now, sadistic
sexual extortion tends to happen more to girls, and that
(18:26):
also preys upon fear and leads individuals to kind of
comply with demands and hopes of escaping humiliation. But they
there's a real emotional tool which creates anxiety, depression, a
shattered sense of security. And often this targets young girls,
and they're not always looking for financial reward. But these
(18:49):
might be predators that will look for more explicit kinds
of videos or will command that they do certain things
or be online at certain times. They're are perpetrators of
sadistic six stortion that engage in this prolonged harassment and
use really a sophisticated psychological manipulation techniques to exploit their
(19:13):
victims vulnerabilities. So we've just we just dealt with a
really heartbreaking one of a fourteen year old girl last week.
We had cooperation from the platform so we were able
to intercede and then refer on to the ACE at
the AFP as active grooming. But it's it's amazing when
(19:37):
we are we are able to engage with parents when
the kids are underage, and so my parents say that, oh,
my kids smarter than that, they wouldn't engage in that,
they wouldn't do that. It's it's really amazing how many
young people fall prey to this, and it's it's really
(19:58):
really disturbing and distressing.
Speaker 1 (20:00):
Julie. When we did Pardal Guide in season two, we
got in touch with the Austraian Federal Police and the
Australian Senator to counter child exploitation and we did this
thing where the kids got online and we approached them.
We had an actor approach them and try to get
personal details from them and a range a meet up
and it was devastating as the parents watched their children
(20:21):
fall prey to this actor, who I mean had no
ill intent. He was an actor and he was being
guided by the police to do it, but it was
it was absolutely, absolutely devastating, just crushing. The hardest part
of all, though, is that the parents whose children made
those mistakes said, We've had the talk, we spent time
with the kids. It's not just that it was a
(20:42):
one off talk. We've had these conversations, and yet kids
are kids are vulnerable, and they want to be liked,
and they want to explore, and they're curious. They're just
so vulnerable. Conversations like the one that we've just had.
In so many ways, it's it's depressing, it's it's concerning.
It sometimes makes it feel like it's all too hard.
(21:04):
But the reason we have to have these conversations is
so that parents know that this is a reality for
way too many of our kids, and they need to
know that you've got the resources there to provide them
with the support. There is actually hope and hopefully, hopefully
if anything, if it does happen, only on they can
they can go to you.
Speaker 2 (21:21):
Yeah, and we've worked really closely with law enforcement agencies
across the country to get up those prevention messages, and
those are really you know, if somebody asks you for
a sexy chat. You know, don't take off your clothes
for anyone you don't know as a real person. But
if you do, it's not your fault. Disclose to someone disclosed,
(21:42):
disclose disclosed. Don't carry this alone. And again that one
of the tactics is to isolate the person. I get
terry when I talk about this, but we we met
with a Victorian coroner and the names of seventeen different
young men who had taken their lives as a result
(22:04):
of image based abuse or extortion. And I read one
of the suicide notes where they said, Mom, Dad, I
messed up, I'm sorry, goodbye. I'm sure every single parent
you ever talked to would just would want of them
to say, I'm just down the hall. I don't care
what you did. If you're in trouble, I'm gonna I'm here,
(22:26):
I'm going to help you. And it just it makes
you feel so sad because these are young adults. And
that's the other thing I worry about is that we
might think, Okay, this young man is eighteen, he's technically adult,
but he may not have the same pastoral care, or
(22:46):
maybe in transition, is no longer in school, maybe in
UNI or at tafe or doing a trade and still
not have really found themselves. And you know, I think
we expect a lot of young adults in terms of
taking on things like this, and I just think we
have to remember that we need to be there for
our kids always.
Speaker 1 (23:07):
Two things as you share that number one. Over the
last couple of months, I've had a couple of conversations
with parents whose boys have gone to them and said,
I've made a terrible mistake and things are about to
get really bad. What a gift it is that they've
been willing to have that conversation. What an absolutely wonderful thing.
(23:27):
I mean, it still doesn't always work out. Recently on
Channel ten, there was a terrible story about a young
man who some months after everything had sort of washed over,
it was still too much for him. But the more
that we can let our children know that our love
for them is bigger than anything that they could ever do,
the more LIKELI is that we get good outcomes, just as.
Speaker 2 (23:48):
We can get that content taken down and so they
can come to us. We will always provide whatever kind
of wrap around support we can, you know, and we
also tell people not to pay, because if you pay,
they'll keep coming back and block them and collect the evidence,
and we'll work with the police and we'll do what
we can. You probably will never get your money back,
(24:11):
but we can try and get the imagery down, and
you know, people can leave with their dignity intact because
they're being socially scammed and engineered to the ends. Degree.
Speaker 1 (24:21):
Yeah, that's what I was literally about to say. The
good news is the Safety Commissioner has the powers to
act on that. And if people, if people just knew
that you were there, which is obviously the purpose of
this conversation, they'd know that there's an opportunity there for
some sort of redemption, for some sort of some sort
of hope out of it. So a couple of big
topics Julie bullying, it's not going away, and as you've said,
(24:43):
in some ways it's becoming even more vindictive and more challenging.
But you have the powers to act and to help
kids to be safer. And obviously with the sextortion for
boys and the statistic sexual sextortion for girls, again the
powers are there so that people need anything, they can
go to the e Safety website and get the support
that they need. For those who are not familiar with
(25:04):
what you do and where to find you. Can you
just give us a couple of quick point is on that.
Speaker 2 (25:08):
Yeah, I E Safety dot gov dot EU. Everything is there,
so there's parent guides in multiple languages. You can search
based on apps that your kids may be using. You
can search based on issue, whether it's extortion or cyberbulling,
and reporting abuse is right up top. We take reports
(25:29):
of child sexual abuse, material terrorist content, youth based cyberbulling,
image based abuse, which is the sharing of intemn images
and videos. This includes deep fakes, and then adult cyber abuse.
Speaker 1 (25:42):
And there's so much more we could talk about, but
our time is absolutely will and truly gone. It is
such an important conversation though, Julian mcgrand AUSTRAI as a
safety commissioner, thank you for being so helpful and so
generous with your time. Thank you what an important conversation.
If you need support, obviously the e safety dot gov
dot AU website will be a useful place. But if
this has stirred up anything else for you, there are
(26:03):
a range of different helplines around, including a Lifeline, Kids Helpline, Parentline,
Men's Healthline, one three YAN and so many others. Please
please please make sure that you take care of yourself
and those that you love. The Happy Families podcast is
produced by Justin Ruland from Bridge Media. If you'd like
more information about the things we've talked about today, you'll
(26:24):
find that at the Safety dot gov dot A. You
will link to that in the show notes, and for
more about making your family happier, try happy families dot
com dot a
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