How we can avoid another tragedy like Dolly

“DOLLY will never know the great pain and emptiness left behind,” her father Tick Everett told A Current Affair in a heart-stopping interview alongside his wife, Kate.

“I wish she could see herself through my eyes, and not through the eyes of people who made her feel like that,” Kate continued.

Dolly Everett died by suicide earlier this year. She was 14 years old; her death shocked the nation and kicked off a national conversation about bullying and cyberhate.

And like all suicides, hers left more questions that it answered. As well as being a cyberhate expert, I’m a mother. Dolly’s death left me staring at photos published by the media. Her beautiful face and dark eyes. Why, Dolly? Why did this happen?

But maybe there’s a more important question than this. And that is: What can we do to stop this happening ever again?

IT’S NOT SIMPLE

When I was speaking to Alan Woodward, executive director, research and strategy for Lifeline recently he reminded me that “… an attempt to end one’s life or actual death occurs following the build-up of a number of factors in a person’s life”.

“One analogy that’s been used sometimes is that the journey to suicide is like a river forming and as the water flows through the catchment, there are various tributaries that contribute to the creation of that river,” he said.

So we can’t blame someone’s decision to suicide on one factor alone.

However, as someone who has spoken to numerous victims of predator trolls — those people who go out to cause real life harm to others via the internet — it’s fair to conclude that cyberhate may be a contributing factor to suicide in both adults and children.

Please pay attention to the ‘adults’ part here and remember people like TV presenter and former model Charlotte Dawson who died by suicide in 2014. Before her death, Charlotte was open about her underlying mental health issues — but also about how trolling pushed her to the brink.

SOCIETY HAS BEEN TOO SLOW TO ACT

When it comes to cyberhate, we — as a community — should hang in heads in shame. As a rule we’ve left victims alone. And not just that, we’ve blamed them — ‘Why doesn’t she get off Twitter?’ ‘Why does she keep responding?’

We’ve refused to acknowledge the extreme real life harms that spring from cyberhate.

Perhaps this is just easier than addressing the systematic societal problems that allow individuals to be hunted online. But the truth is, we are all paying the price for this wilful blindness.

Recently, I was part of three-person team from Women in Media that gave evidence to the Senate Legal and Constitutional Affairs References Committee’s hearings into cyberbullying.

I told the Senators that in investigative work that I do, I’ve learned that syndicates of trolls are wrecking lives and causing people — especially women — to harm themselves, lose their jobs and consider suicide.

The trolls may deliberately wreck the person’s reputation so the victim becomes unemployable. As cyberhate expert Dr Emma Jane has previously said to me, this is a type of economic vandalism.

Often the trolls I’ve interviewed have simultaneously perpetrated offline crimes, such as stalking, domestic violence, terrorism and incitement to suicide. This is not just people being mean online; this is very real life.

Dolly’s parents have started a foundation to help cyberhate victims. In the A Current Affair interview her mother said: “We decided there were gaps in the market because if there was help — and she needed help — why didn’t we find it? Why didn’t she find it?”

My email inbox is full of cyberhate targets who write to me in extreme distress. Sometimes they are considering suicide. And one thing is always the same: I tried everything but I couldn’t get help.

THINGS ARE CHANGING

Let me tell you how I know this. It’s personal. In 2013, my family and I became the subject of an orchestrated online hate campaign as a result of something I’d written and broadcast as part of my work as journalist.

Our family got a death threat and a picture of me heavily pregnant alongside my husband and two-and-half year old daughter appeared on a now-defunct fascist website. Terror doesn’t even cover it. Was something going to happen to my two little girls?

At the time a local policeman told me to, ‘Stay off the internet, Love’ (which is pure stupidity, because it’s my workplace). One of my-then bosses told me to stop carrying on and speaking out about cyberhate in case people viewed me as a “victim”.

I AM a victim. And so are thousands of others in this country. A 2015 survey of 3000 Australian adults by academics at RMIT University found that 60 per cent of Australians — both males and females “had experienced some form of digital harassment and abuse in their lifetime”.

Contrast my experience with what’s just happened to comedian and writer Catherine Deveny. She made controversial comments about Anzac Day. Just ignore what you think about that for a second.

Deveny was doxed numerous times. This means her home address was posted all over the internet. She received an avalanche of credible rape and death threats. Several Facebook hate groups were made about her. Last Friday night, five men in a ute turned up to her house. One of them knocked on her door and videoed himself doing it.

Within 48 hours of Deveny making her comments — and the resultant blow up in public vitriol — Victorian Counter Terrorism police reached out to her. They interviewed her and started investigating. Police patrolled outside her house and work events.

An investigator from the Office of the Federal eSafety Commissioner also got in touch with Catherine. Help was at hand.

IT’S NOT ENOUGH — WE NEED LEGAL CHANGE

Josh Bornstein is Maurice Blackburn’s head of employment law. He’s also been a cyberhate target and has acted for other trolling victims. Josh is deeply concerned about the damage being inflicted on victims.

“The existing laws need to be tailored specifically to cyberhate and rather than having a general law … it will be sufficiently broad to cover the gamut of trolling,” he says.

Mr Bornstein also believes social media companies should be liable for cyberhate and then we’d see a radical change in their behaviour in terms of policing it.

“For too long, companies like Facebook and Twitter have not been held to account for serious incidents of cyber bullying in Australia … Imposing a duty of care that has real consequences we believe can make a difference to these big tech companies playing an urgent and long overdue role in minimising bullying and inappropriate behaviour on their social media platforms,” he said.

PARENTS AND SCHOOLS HAVE A BIG JOB TO DO

One of the most important points in the interview with Kate and Tick Everett reflects a common problem: There is not a uniform approach to cyberhate in schools across the country. The couple is working to change this.

In the meantime, if you’re a parent or work at a school and this topic makes you scared, the first thing you need to do is educate yourself. Know what can happen online and talk to kids about it. Be open and don’t judge. There are fantastic resources on the e-safety website to help you.

Talking of the eSafety Commissioner — her name is Julie Inman-Grant and she has take-down powers for children. This means her office can legally to help you get cyberhate against your child removed from the internet. Find the information about what to do and how to do it here.

Ms Inman-Grant said: “It isn’t an insurmountable problem, but we’ve got to look at it in the context of cultural behavioural and social change. We all have a responsibly — parents, schools, governments and young people themselves in getting ahead of these issues and brings about more civility in our interactions online.”

The internet is not a babysitter. Don’t give your children unfettered access to it. Think really hard about implementing parental controls and knowing your kids’ logins.

Dolly’s dad underscored this when he said: “Talk to the kids and see what’s on their phone … Had we of known what we know now, Dolly would still be alive.”

LET’S START A MOVEMENT

One of the foremost world experts on cyberhate is United States law professor Danielle Citron from the University of Maryland.

In her 2014 book Hate Crimes in Cyberspace, Professor Citron writes that cyberhate today is viewed in much the same way as domestic violence once was in decades gone by.

“Workplace sexual harassment and domestic violence were once viewed as intractable, normal features of everyday life, much as cyber harassment is viewed today,” she wrote.

Professor Citron described the fight against cyberhate — which disproportionately affects women more than men — as the civil rights movement’s “new frontier”.

Are you with us? Let’s start a movement to make all of us safe online.

• To donate to Dolly’s Dream, a GoFundMe page aimed at helping other children affected by bullying, visit au.gofundme/DollysDream

• Readers seeking support and information about suicide prevention can contact Lifeline on 13 11 14.

Kids Helpline 1800 55 1800 (for young people aged 5 to 25).

Ginger Gorman is journalist and cyberhate expert. She’s currently writing a book about the subject, due to be published by Hardie Grant in 2019. Ginger is one half of Media Bootcamp. You can follow her on Twitter @GingerGorman.

Let's block ads! (Why?)

Bagikan Berita Ini