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| It’s time to stand up to the nasty few on social media | It’s time to stand up to the nasty few on social media |
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| Fri 5 Jan 2018 19.34 GMT | |
| Last modified on Fri 5 Jan 2018 22.01 GMT | |
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| One warm Sunday evening, when I was nearly 11 years old, there was a knock at our front door. My mum answered the door and called to me. As I peered out from behind her, I saw my worst nightmare. Kids. Loads of kids. What seemed like most of my class at school. Kids circling lazily on bikes in the road. Kids holding footballs. Kids with their dogs. I can’t remember which two actually knocked at the door and asked if I was coming out to play, just that there were two. | One warm Sunday evening, when I was nearly 11 years old, there was a knock at our front door. My mum answered the door and called to me. As I peered out from behind her, I saw my worst nightmare. Kids. Loads of kids. What seemed like most of my class at school. Kids circling lazily on bikes in the road. Kids holding footballs. Kids with their dogs. I can’t remember which two actually knocked at the door and asked if I was coming out to play, just that there were two. |
| I shrank away immediately, back into the living room. My mum told me not to be silly, that I should go out and play. So I did. I didn’t tell her that I’d been being bullied at school for months, that even the kids who didn’t take part in the bullying just avoided me, such was the power of that group of girls I’d got on the wrong side of. My former friends. | I shrank away immediately, back into the living room. My mum told me not to be silly, that I should go out and play. So I did. I didn’t tell her that I’d been being bullied at school for months, that even the kids who didn’t take part in the bullying just avoided me, such was the power of that group of girls I’d got on the wrong side of. My former friends. |
| Put a mark of shame on bullies' profiles. Limit their platform privileges. Kick them off | Put a mark of shame on bullies' profiles. Limit their platform privileges. Kick them off |
| I just stepped right out there, in absolute terror, to face this latest ordeal. | I just stepped right out there, in absolute terror, to face this latest ordeal. |
| I remember no more details. It’s all a blur, a mass of feelings. Yet the memory of what happened in the next hour still brings me to tears. We played, maybe 20 of us. And then we all went home. Soon after that, I told my parents about what had been happening to me. | I remember no more details. It’s all a blur, a mass of feelings. Yet the memory of what happened in the next hour still brings me to tears. We played, maybe 20 of us. And then we all went home. Soon after that, I told my parents about what had been happening to me. |
| I didn’t fully understand how extraordinary that hour had been for years, maybe not even until now, as I try to put it into words. A load of children, led only, I think, by their good instincts, bestowed on me a collective act of kindness, sympathy and solidarity. Sixty minutes of casual acceptance. Three thousand, six hundred seconds of disorientating, astonishing, healing balm. It’s too easy to forget that people can be wonderful. | I didn’t fully understand how extraordinary that hour had been for years, maybe not even until now, as I try to put it into words. A load of children, led only, I think, by their good instincts, bestowed on me a collective act of kindness, sympathy and solidarity. Sixty minutes of casual acceptance. Three thousand, six hundred seconds of disorientating, astonishing, healing balm. It’s too easy to forget that people can be wonderful. |
| And in a way I was lucky. At least I had home and an escape from the relentless and sometimes brutal social grading and bullying that goes on at school. But now it follows children into their homes. According to Life in Likes, a report published this week by the children’s commissioner, children aged eight to 12, at the transitional stage between primary and secondary school, are particularly vulnerable to the pressures of social media. This report isn’t even about overt cyber-bullying, which we all know is a problem. It’s just about sheer scrutiny, the public display of how many followers you have, how many likes you’re getting, how many followers and likes others have. And about being seen to take part, while not putting a foot wrong, for fear of some viral humiliation. It’s making children more anxious, at a time that’s full of anxiety anyway. Why wouldn’t it? | And in a way I was lucky. At least I had home and an escape from the relentless and sometimes brutal social grading and bullying that goes on at school. But now it follows children into their homes. According to Life in Likes, a report published this week by the children’s commissioner, children aged eight to 12, at the transitional stage between primary and secondary school, are particularly vulnerable to the pressures of social media. This report isn’t even about overt cyber-bullying, which we all know is a problem. It’s just about sheer scrutiny, the public display of how many followers you have, how many likes you’re getting, how many followers and likes others have. And about being seen to take part, while not putting a foot wrong, for fear of some viral humiliation. It’s making children more anxious, at a time that’s full of anxiety anyway. Why wouldn’t it? |
| Yet this is only happening because we are, collectively, being idiots. No decent person wants this. And, just as in my class at school, the decent people far outnumber the sods. The decent people need to get a grip. The government, the commissioner suggests, should encourage digital literacy. Schools should do the same, perhaps with a peer-to-peer element. Social media companies should “recognise the needs of children under 13 who are using their platforms and incorporate them in service design or do more to address under-age use”. But I’ve had enough of the usual, timid, free-market pandering, in which the state bears all of the burden of responsibility for educating consumers or patching them up when things go wrong, so that private corporations can get on with the important work of reaping advantage. | Yet this is only happening because we are, collectively, being idiots. No decent person wants this. And, just as in my class at school, the decent people far outnumber the sods. The decent people need to get a grip. The government, the commissioner suggests, should encourage digital literacy. Schools should do the same, perhaps with a peer-to-peer element. Social media companies should “recognise the needs of children under 13 who are using their platforms and incorporate them in service design or do more to address under-age use”. But I’ve had enough of the usual, timid, free-market pandering, in which the state bears all of the burden of responsibility for educating consumers or patching them up when things go wrong, so that private corporations can get on with the important work of reaping advantage. |
| One thing that is absolutely great about social media is that it is visible. A huge part of the secret world of childhood, which concealed all sorts of abuses, of children by adults and of children by other children, can now be seen. If we had the will, all this peer pressure and victimisation could be more manageable now than ever before, not less. | One thing that is absolutely great about social media is that it is visible. A huge part of the secret world of childhood, which concealed all sorts of abuses, of children by adults and of children by other children, can now be seen. If we had the will, all this peer pressure and victimisation could be more manageable now than ever before, not less. |
| Generally, social media platforms have a no-under-13s policy – but it’s a fig leaf. Why are they allowed to get away with this? It would be the easiest thing in the world to make that mandatory. And why 13? Everyone gets a national insurance number at 16, which can simply become part of the registration protocol for social media. Under-16s can have age-appropriate sections, which social media companies can be obliged to moderate more closely, as well as offering – oh, let’s see – “education in digital literacy, perhaps with a peer-to-peer element”. Certainly with a peer-to-peer element. Let children be part of the effort to moderate. Bullies on these platforms? Put a mark of shame on their profiles. Limit their platform privileges. Kick them off. As for counselling and therapy for those hurt, upset or damaged by social media use – isn’t it about time that social media companies started to provide that themselves? God knows the NHS is currently in no position to cope. | Generally, social media platforms have a no-under-13s policy – but it’s a fig leaf. Why are they allowed to get away with this? It would be the easiest thing in the world to make that mandatory. And why 13? Everyone gets a national insurance number at 16, which can simply become part of the registration protocol for social media. Under-16s can have age-appropriate sections, which social media companies can be obliged to moderate more closely, as well as offering – oh, let’s see – “education in digital literacy, perhaps with a peer-to-peer element”. Certainly with a peer-to-peer element. Let children be part of the effort to moderate. Bullies on these platforms? Put a mark of shame on their profiles. Limit their platform privileges. Kick them off. As for counselling and therapy for those hurt, upset or damaged by social media use – isn’t it about time that social media companies started to provide that themselves? God knows the NHS is currently in no position to cope. |
| We can all be the kids in the class who stand up and say: “We’re with you.” We all have the ability to see exactly what’s going on. Social media is as good or as bad as the people within it whom we allow to have power over us. Don’t you think we have given the nasty few too much power for too long? | We can all be the kids in the class who stand up and say: “We’re with you.” We all have the ability to see exactly what’s going on. Social media is as good or as bad as the people within it whom we allow to have power over us. Don’t you think we have given the nasty few too much power for too long? |
| • Deborah Orr is a Guardian columnist | • Deborah Orr is a Guardian columnist |
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